I have also heard of people, when leaving a house on fire, thinking that they should grab some of their valuables(Jewelry, important papers, etc)...but they are in such a panic, that they grab weird things...
I read about one woman who got out of her burning house at the last minute, because she told the other people in her house, she was grabbing the valuables...when she got outside, all she was holding was a raw egg in each hand...in her panic, she wanted to take something, and for whatever reason, grabbed two eggs from the fridge...
So, I can understand panic, and people acting in a strange fashion, or being absolutely frozen with terror...
Once an accident happened right in front of me to friends (we were caravanning during a real estate thing) and everything went into slow motion. I'd heard of that before but it was really strange - I couldn't control it while it was happening although I handled my car perfectly normally. Must be built-in safety mechanisms, huh? Altho yours could have been very, very bad if you'd been home alone.