SAN MARCOS, Texas — During the deadly apartment fire in San Marcos, a young woman jumped from her apartment window on the second floor and made it out alive with her guitar.
Beth Conboy lived in the Iconic Village Apartments when the building went up in flames. She said that on the night of the fire, she woke up in the middle of the night to screams and flames.
“I opened the door and [heard] the sounds of broken glass and popping spray paint cans and screaming from my neighbors,” said Conboy. “I just saw flames lapping at the walls to my apartment doorway.”
With little time and her life on the line, she took a leap of faith.
“I handed my guitar to the guy that was down on the ground,” said Conboy. “I never looked back and I jumped.”
Filled with a rush of adrenaline, Conboy jumped from the second floor of her apartment to the ground below. It saved her life, but put her in the hospital for four days.
“It really ranges from excruciating pain to being depressed to being really happy that I’m alive,” said Conboy.
Conboy returned to her family’s home as she recovers from a broken ankle and vertebrae. Despite all she lost in the fire, she’s grateful the blaze didn’t take her life or her guitar.
“We are the survivors,” said Conboy. “Music is the only constant I have in my life…You can’t take it away from me. No one can you know.”
Conboy is going to keep playing her guitar and will start school at the Berkeley College of Music in the Fall of 2018.