Aug 2, 2019 2 min read

An elderly man died Thursday despite the efforts of neighbors and firefighters to rescue him.

The Greene County coroner on Friday identified the victim of a fire in Morgan Township as Thomas H. Shaneyfelt Sr., 80.

The cause and manner of his death early Thursday afternoon in his Chartiers Bottom home are pending, according to Coroner Carl E. “Gene” Rush.

Shaneyfelt, of 105 Creek Road, was pronounced dead at 4:06 p.m.

Trooper Lucas Borkowski, the state police investigator, said there was no explosion.

The origin appeared to have been in the kitchen and the fire seems to have been accidental. The trooper said there were no oxygen tanks in Shaneyfelt’s home, but there were fuel containers in the basement.

Jennifer Vuono and Scott Adams rushed to their neighbor’s house when they saw thick smoke pouring from it.

Finding a locked door, Adams grabbed a sledgehammer to break it down. They tried to find another way inside when flames blocked their path.

“The black smoke was just too bad,” Vuono said. “It was too overwhelming to get in there.”

The two neighbors felt their lungs burning after they tried to save Shaneyfelt, and they waited for news about him, hoping he had not been inside.

His car was outside his home, but they clung to the possibility that his grandchildren had picked him up for an outing, a common occurrence.

Firefighters entered the home and searched in vain for the resident.

“I give them a lot of credit,” Borkowski said.

Vuono, who has lived in the tightly-knit community near the Monongahela River for six years, said neighbors always kept an eye out for Shaneyfelt, and often chatted with him.

They remembered him as a friendly person.

Adams, who had been an acquaintance for quite some time, recalled of Shaneyfelt, “He had a butcher shop many, many years ago.”

Shaneyfelt had a shed on his property where he processed cattle for Adams’ grandfather’s farm.

The neighbors waited outside for hours hoping for good news, but they comforted Shaneyfelt’s family members when they learned the outcome.

A state police fire marshal was called to investigate.

Staff writer Katie Anderson and Alyssa Choiniere contributed to this report.