The Aftermath
5:50am
We rushed out of the building, coughing and disoriented. Others were still trickling out of the building. Has anyone called the fire department? A girl handed me her phone and had dialed 911. Did she not speak English? Or maybe she was too scared? I don’t know. The operator answered. There’s a fire. A big one. In my building. What’s my address? No, that’s my work address. Crap. Oh right. Good, they’re on the their way.
What seemed like forever passed as more people exited the building, some with surprised faces as they thought it was a false alarm. Then they saw the smoke. Where is the fire department? Finally we heard the sirens and a truck pulled up the back alley as we all parted to let them by.
I know they know what they’re doing. I know this isn’t going to be like the movies. But seriously, there’s a fire! Can you please have some sense of urgency!? I ran up to a guy standing by the truck and started telling him where the fire started and that I thought there was a guy still inside. In the middle of my sentence, the bag that I was (probably crazily) swinging became instantly lighter. No no no no!
I looked down to discover the zipper on the cat carrier open and no cat inside. My love was standing near by and tried to catch her, but she squeezed through some bars and ran into the neighbor’s parking garage. At least she wasn’t in the burning building. We wandered around the edges of the garage trying to find her and call out to her to no avail. I vaguely recall a naked man being walked past the fire truck to safety. That sucks. Thomas and I had a good long hug.
My love stayed behind and I went to see if I could find someone to give us access to the garage through the building. The first two people that exited the building didn’t have cars and therefore didn’t have that key either. The third person, a young woman, didn’t have a key either, but ran inside to get me a jacket and shoes.
While she was gone, two other girls from another building came up and offered me shoes and a jacket. One also handed me her cell phone to call anyone I needed and walked away to help others. So trusting! Of course my parents didn’t answer their home of cell phones. Well, I tried. The other girl came back out with another jacket and shoes which I gave to Tom to wear. She didn’t know how to get into the locked garage but went back inside to wake up her manager. The manager ended up giving her the key and we went down to find the kitty.
After some calling and searching, we found her under the furthest car. Oddly enough, she wasn’t crouched in a corner and she let me pull her out with little resistance. We put her back in her carrier, throughly zipped the bag, and gently walked back out to the sidewalk.
During this time, a few people from the 5th floor (we were on the 4th) had tried to exit the stairwell and didn’t feel safe going down it or down the long other hallway due to heavy smoke and potential fire. So the firemen had raised a ladder and safely evacuated them from the stairwell window. Well done.
It was at this point that I saw my neighbor, the one who’s unit it was that was burning, sitting on the side of the street with a blanket around his shoulders. It occurred to me that he was probably the naked man that had walked by earlier. It appeared that a young fireman was trying to administer some first aid in front of him. I crouched down next to my neighbor, rubbed my hand on his back, and asked him if he was okay. Stupid, stupid question.
He turned his face to me with a look that I will never forget. Terror, heartbreak, pain, and much much more. No, he wasn’t okay. His face from bottom lip to chin was missing skin. I looked down at his hands and saw that chunks of his skin were also missing there. I immediately removed my hand from his back. He didn’t notice. He said something along the lines of, “No, I’m not okay. My face is gone! And my cat. My poor cat!”
The fireman apparently was having an issue cutting something and asked me to go see if he had dropped his scissors nearby. I figured he was just trying to get me to not agitate the patient. But I walked away with my hand over my mouth trying not to cry and looked for the scissors. There were none and I returned to tell him so. He was actually still looking for something to cut with. Hmm. I found out later that my neighbor had passed out before the ambulance arrived. Even as of today, no one will tell me any information so I have no idea if he’s even alive. There have been no news updates either.
Decidedly Debbie 