Edward, Isabella and Natalia Cantrell

The Cantrell’s Story

CWO2 Edward Cantrell, a decorated Special Forces veteran, died trying to save his daughters Isabella and Natalia from a house fire.

A decorated Green Beret who returned from his fifth deployment to Afghanistan last summer died Tuesday trying to rescue his two young daughters from their burning home near Fort Bragg. The girls were also killed in the blaze.

Edward Cantrell and his wife escaped from the 1 a.m. blaze by jumping from the home’s second floor, the Cumberland County sheriff’s office said. Cantrell then wrapped himself in a blanket and re-entered the burning home in Hope Mills, about 10 miles from the Army base that is home to the Green Berets and other Special Forces units, sheriff’s spokeswoman Debbie Tanna said.

Cantrell, 36, was trying to reach 6-year-old Isabella and 4-year-old Natalia, who were trapped in second-floor bedrooms, Tanna said. ”He never made it back out,” Tanna said. Firefighters found their bodies inside the home, Tanna said.

Cantrell was a member of the 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. He held the rank of chief warrant officer 2, which authorized Cantrell to lead half of his 12-member Green Beret team if it was split up, said Lt. Col. April Olsen, a spokeswoman for Army Special Forces Command.

Cantrell joined the Army in 1994 and had one combat deployment to Iraq and five to Afghanistan, returning from the last mission in August, Olsen said. His record included four Bronze Stars and one Purple Heart, awarded for wounds suffered in a war zone, Olsen said. Details of the acts that earned the medals were not immediately available, she said.

“There are no words to express the sorrow felt in our close-knit community when a family suffers such a tragedy,” the command said on its Facebook page.

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Louise Cantrell suffered unthinkable loss: Her husband and two daughters—Isabella, 6, and Natalia, 4—died in a house fire. “When the tragedy happened, I lost my husband, our children, our home—and I lost my identity. I was a wife and a mother, and within moments, I was neither.”

Though Cantrell herself wasn’t a dancer, her daughters were, so helping others dance became her new mission. In 2014, she established the Dancing Angels Foundation, a nonprofit to honor and perpetuate the memory of her girls by providing training scholarships. “Without this foundation, I don’t believe I’d be where I am today,” says Cantrell.

The first scholarship came out of her pocket, and was awarded to a student at Isabella and Natalia’s studio, Cumberland Dance Academy, near Fayetteville, North Carolina. She presented it at the end-of-year recital, in front of several hundred parents. “It was actually that first time I’d spoken my daughters’ names out loud,” says Cantrell. “From that moment forward, it gave me the strength, because my daughters deserve to be known.” 

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