Boston firefighter Steve Perry was already in a heightened state of anxiety as Engine 20 pulled out of the station and headed for 11 Capen Place — his mother’s home, where he grew up.
Then, the dispatcher reported that someone had jumped from a second-story window.
“My heart was racing, racing, racing — we couldn’t get there fast enough,” Perry said yesterday in the wake of the 11:30 a.m. two-alarm blaze.
Perry, 43, a 17-year BFD veteran, told his captain: “That’s my mom’s house. We’ve got to get there. I heard that someone jumped from the second floor, it had to be her. She’s retired — it’s the worst-case call you ever want to come to.”
Perry was ecstatic when he arrived and found his 61-year-old mother sitting on a chair on the sidewalk surrounded by neighbors, crying but very much alive. He told his mom, Regina Robinson, “I’m here. It’s going to be OK, it’s going to be OK.”
BFD spokesman Steve MacDonald said an electrical short-circuit in a first-floor bedroom triggered the fire, which was knocked down in 15 minutes.
Robinson was caught by contractor Edwin Julia, who had raced to the scene from across the street. She was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, MacDonald said.
“I’m not looking for no praise — I’m just glad I was at the right place at the right time,” said Julia, 36 of Lowell, who coaxed Robinson into first jumping a few feet from a smoky window onto an awning and then about 10 feet further into his arms, where he helped break her fall onto a wooden deck.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2016/05/firefighter_mom_thankful_heroic_neighbor_there
“I told her to jump and I’ll catch you. I told her, ‘Come on, you gotta be brave.’ She hesitated a little bit. ... She jumped and I broke her fall. She landed on her side,” Julia said.
Julia said after breaking Robinson’s fall, he walked her to safety on the sidewalk and sat her down. Robinson was shaken up.
“I told her, ‘God is good. You’re alive, that’s all that matters. The house is replaceable.’ She was very grateful. God bless her,” Julia said.
Perry said late yesterday afternoon his mom was out of the hospital with “no broken bones, only some bumps and bruises and a big headache.”
He said he wants to meet with Julia and give him a big hug.
“I want to tell him thank you very much for being there for my mom,” Perry said. “In my eyes, he’s a hero.”
Firefighter Gary Walsh could hear the woman screaming for help but he couldn’t see her.
Then he felt her arm reaching out through the thick, dark smoke that filled the burning apartment building early Tuesday morning. He pulled her close and realized she was holding a baby.
He took off the mask connected to his air tank, held it close to their faces and led the way back outside.
“I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. My goal was just to get them out of the building as fast as possible,” Walsh said Wednesday. “Thank God it worked out the way it did. Call it luck, or I don’t care what you call it. It worked out that she’s alive and the baby’s alive.”
The two-alarm blaze broke out just after 5 a.m. Tuesday at the building in the Queen Anne’s Gate complex off of Pleasant Street. Firefighters from Quincy, Braintree and Hingham also responded. All 26 units were left uninhabitable and three were badly burned.
The woman and baby and one other resident were taken to South Shore Hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. A firefighter also suffered a back injury and is recovering.
Fire Chief Keith Stark said Walsh’s actions saved the woman and baby.
“It was outstanding,” Stark said. “It was courageous. He was doing his job.”
Walsh said the building was on fire when his crew arrived on Ladder 2. Tenants who were already outside said others may have been trapped inside.
Walsh said he and firefighters Walter Langley and Gabe Araujo first made sure no one was in the ground-floor apartments when they heard the woman scream for help. They couldn’t tell whether she was on the second or third floor.
“I just had a feeling she was up on the third floor,” he said. “The fact that she was even conscious at the time I found her is pretty surprising, to tell you the truth.”
He found her at the doorway leading from the stairwell to the third-floor hallway.
After the woman and baby were outside, Walsh rejoined the other two firefighters and made sure no one else was still inside.
Walsh, 36, has been with the fire department for almost 10 years.
The fire is still under investigation, but Lt. Justin Myers said it started outside, crept up the building and into the attic before spreading to a vacant third-floor apartment while most residents were asleep. He said a tossed cigarette butt may have sparked the fire.
Myers said the department is looking into a report from one tenant that the building’s fire alarm system never went off, but he said it appears that the alarm system was working. He said other residents said they did hear an alarm and that the department received an alert from the alarm company moments after a resident called 911.
http://www.patriotledger.com/article/20160504/NEWS/160507982#st_refDomain=shar.es&st_refQuery=/
>>42734
>“I told her, ‘God is good. You’re alive, that’s all that matters. The house is replaceable.’
Why did God burn her fucking house down and force her to jump out a window then?
>>42739
I bet that fucker let most of her fat ass hit the pavement...thats why shes in hospital ..kek
