Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [4]
The front door has still not been opened, and Frimes knows that only luck or the help of God will keep the whole place from lighting up. He crawls on the floor toward the front door, swinging his arms before him as if swimming the breast stroke. His hand is stopped by the bulk of a body, lying on the floor. It’s a big frame, and Captain Frimes struggles to drag it toward the hole in the wall. The fire is raging in three rooms at the end of the hall, and spreading fast toward the front of the building.
McCartty is just crawling through the hole as the Captain passes by with the body. “Here, Cap, here,” McCartty yells. The smoke is so thick that Captain Frimes missed the hole. McCartty grabs the body under the arms, and pulls.
Captain Frimes can hear Billy-o and Artie working on the door, and he makes a desperate effort back down the hall. He reaches the front door and feels the long steel bar of a Fox lock. Like a flying buttress, the bar reaches up from the floor and braces the door closed. Captain Frimes knows locks as well as he knows his own kids' names, and he kneels and turns the bolt of the lock. He jumps back, and the door swings open. Billy-o and Artie grab the Captain, who is overcome by smoke and can barely move now, and pull him out of the apartment.
Charlie McCartty walks past us with the body in his arms. It is a boy, about sixteen or seventeen years old. He is a strapping black youth, but McCartty is a powerful man, and carries him easily to the street. The boy is still breathing, but barely. McCartty knows that he has to get some oxygen into him if he is to live, and begins mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
The hose comes to life with water as Billy-o and Artie pull the Captain down the stairs. Lieutenant Welch gives the “okay” to Knipps, and we start crawling down the hall. We reach the first burning room, and Knipps opens the nozzle. The room is filled with the crackling of fire, and as the water stream hits the ceiling the sound is made louder by falling plaster, steaming and hissing on the wet floor.
The fire darkens quickly, and the smoke banks to the floor. There is no escape from it, and Knipps knows that he has to push into the last room for a rest. “Give me some more line!” he yells, and his order is relayed back through the hall by Lieutenant Welch’s voice: “Lighten up on the inch-and-a-half.” The hose moves forward, and Knipps with it.
Boyle moves up, breathing easily in his mask. He is going to relieve Knipps on the line, but he trips in the middle of the room. He feels around the floor to see what tripped him, and his hands sink into another body. “I got a victim here!” he yells through the mouthpiece of the mask. Carroll joins him quickly, and they carry the body out.
Royce moves up to the nozzle, and Knipps says that he thinks he can make it. But Lieutenant Welch orders him to take a blow, and Royce takes the nozzle. Knipps stands to make a quick exit to clean air, but the smoke has gotten to him. He vomits, and the stream of food and acid falls over the back of my coat and boots. He doesn’t stop to apologize.
Vinny Royce moves slowly and deliberately through the second and third rooms. Lieutenant Welch is next to him all the while, saying, “You got it, Vinny. You got it,” and coughing continuously. I am right behind humping the hose and leaning into it to relieve the fifty-pound-per-square-inch back pressure that is straining Vinny’s arms. As the third room darkens down completely, I run to the fire-escape window and climb out of it. I lie on my back on the narrow steel strips of the fire escape, taking the air, sucking the oxygen from it, not taking the time to look at anything.
Boyle and Carroll lay the second body on the sidewalk, next to the boy McCartty carried out and is now using the mechanical resuscitator on. Carroll looks at the body before him. He is a teenager also, and his clothes are like charred bits of paper sticking to his skin. He is badly burned, and the flesh on parts of his face has opened so that it looks like there are pink