Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [102]
Herbert has entered the apartment from the front. He can hear McCartty and Billy-o banging at the door. All but the end room of the apartment is burning, and the smoke and the fire are being drawn there by the open window. Jerry crawls along the floor, realizing that the room could go up in a second. He hears a slight moan, coming from the far side of the bed that stands in the middle of the room. The room is blind dark with smoke, and Jerry crawls to the sound, patting his hand before him as he goes. He reaches the other side of the bed, and the fire begins to lap at the ceiling above him. The smoke has taken everything from him, but he knows he can’t back out now.
His hand gropes searching before him, until at last he feels the soft give of a woman’s body. There is a child by her side. Jerry picks the child up and hurries on his knees to the window. As he nears it, he sees Rittman enter, and he yells to him. Rittman takes the child in his arms, and climbs out of the apartment. Jerry knows that he is in trouble, for the fire is coming at him fast. He grabs the woman under the arms, and pulls her to the window, keeping his head as low as he can. She is a slight woman, and he pulls her easily. As he lifts her out to the fire escape he can hear the front door give way, and at that moment the room lights up completely in fire.
I am swinging the nozzle back and forth across the ceiling. The floor is cluttered with debris, furniture, fallen plaster, and it is difficult moving forward.
“Keep pushing, Dennis. Keep pushing,” Lieutenant Welch says.
“Give me some more line,” I yell to him through the mask, and he yells back to Royce and Knipps. We reach the front room, and as I lift my leg to get a better support, the floor gives way and my leg goes down, caught between the smoldering boards of the floor. Lieutenant Welch sees what has happened, and calls Royce up to the nozzle.
“Easy now,” I say to Knipps as he helps me. “Just pull me out, easy.” The smoke is lifting as Royce gets the last room, and I rip my face piece off to breathe freely. Lieutenant Welch yells back to me, “Go down and take the mask off, and check for injuries.”
I start to move out, but the way is blocked by the men of Ladder 31. They are kneeling in the middle of the hall. “It’s a baby,” one of them says. I go to a window to get some air. The mask is heavy on my shoulders, and I want to sleep. Breathe. It’s a baby. Breathe deep. I can feel my stomach moving. I had to crawl over it. In the middle of the hall. Breathe. The air tastes good. We all had to crawl over it. My mouth is full of coffee and veal. The taste is horrible as my stomach empties, and I can feel the terror of a thousand children as I lean across the sill.
A few minutes pass until the hall is clear. I go down a few steps and take my mask off. I lay it on the stairs, and pull my pants down. I examine the top of my leg, but it’s only bruised. I lift the heavy canister of air, the self-contained breathing apparatus, and carry it in my arms down the stairs.
Billy-o is sitting on the vestibule steps, waiting for the ambulance. The baby is wrapped in a borrowed bedspread, and lies like a little bundle in Billy-o’s arms. A little package of dead life, never having had a chance to live.
I lay the mask on the floor, and sit below him on the bottom step. I look up, and he shakes his head. Mucus is hanging and drying beneath his nose, and his face is covered with grime and the dark spots of burnt paint chips. He feels, no he knows, that the baby could have been saved.
“How the hell can a fire get going like that before someone turns in an alarm?” He continues to shake his head in dejection. “And that police lock. What a mark of the poor when they have to barricade themselves in like that.”
“What is it?” I ask him, looking toward his arms.
“It’s a little girl about two years old. She never had a chance, but at least they got her mother and sister out.”