'Fire! Is there anybody home?' Rescuing women, girl brings up childhood pain for former Ohio reporter.

Tom O’Neill
·6 min read

Microseconds fly by in high-pressure situations. It’s weird. The internal debate about what to do – and not do? Time’s up: Either go or don’t.

I was looking for street parking near my Cincinnati home on a recent night, farther away than usual. To my left, it smelled of smoke.

In one of those microseconds, I saw flames shooting out a first-floor window of a home, in about a 4-foot-wide column, two stories. And climbing. Nearly to the roof.

I used to wonder how I would react

In my 28 years as a news reporter, including at the USA TODAY Network's Cincinnati Enquirer and Louisville Courier Journal, I covered far, far too many fatal home fires. My last was in southwest Kentucky, where 10 members of a family of 12 were killed.

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Causes seem to repeat themselves: Drapes too close to a portable space heater. Falling asleep with a lit cigarette. Malfunctioning vents. Kids and lighters. Older homes with faulty wiring. Arson. Most common, according to national statistics: cooking.

Illustration of person in a house with fire safety products surrounded by a background of fire
Illustration of person in a house with fire safety products surrounded by a background of fire

Whatever news I was covering, I’d think about how I would react if I were on the other side of the story. Plane crashes. Hazardous material spills from a train derailment. Shootings.

But I covered enough tragedies to know you can’t begin to think about a plan. People die that way.

'Fire! Is there anybody home?'

Fire officials advise people to call 911 and wait for firefighters, and I understand why. Too many Americans have died from ever-quick smoke inhalation trying to save people. Sometimes in empty homes.

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I raced up the yard, and a couple of college kids told me they had just called the fire department. Ladder 19 is only six blocks away, but I didn’t yet hear sirens and felt there was simply no time to wait. The flames were growing.

This young guy followed me to the back door, what turned out to be the kitchen, filling with smoke. The door knob wasn’t hot. If it was locked, I thought of trying to kick the door in, or break a window. But I know this isn’t the movies.

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We made our way in. I felt oddly calm. If my heart was pounding, I didn’t notice. It probably was. I knew to close the door behind us. Oxygen feeds fire.

I can’t speak for the other guy. Guessing he was a University of Cincinnati student. He deserves a ton of credit here. I still don’t know his name.

Cincinnati firefighters and police outside the home where a woman, child and dog were rescued.
Cincinnati firefighters and police outside the home where a woman, child and dog were rescued.

We went in, yelling, ”Fire!” and “Is there anybody home?” I thought of looking for pots to bang. I heard no smoke detector.

The kitchen wasn’t completely engulfed in smoke, but it was pouring in. I could barely make out a round table. The fire was down the hall, beyond our sight.

I thought: Get low, put your shirt over your mouth and nose (or ideally a wet dish towel), try not to breathe hard, move by feel. Stay as calm as you can. Yell as loud as you can. Listen for people and animals.

And … Do. Not. Risk. Your. Life.

I never felt that I did. Then, near the opposite side of the kitchen, an elderly woman and her 5-year-old granddaughter emerged from the smoke, dazed. They might have been sleeping. I guessed they came out of an adjacent room, but I couldn’t tell. I got them out the door, my arm around the woman.

She was trembling. She struggled to communicate.

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The fire damage to the Cincinnati house where a woman, child and dog were rescued.
The fire damage to the Cincinnati house where a woman, child and dog were rescued.

The girl clung to her leg. She didn’t move her head, but her eyes silent-screamed fear and confusion. I was struck by that. I asked her name and she didn’t answer. I called her “hon” and told her everything would be OK, but I’m not sure any of that landed. I wanted to cradle her.

The other guy was right behind us, carrying a dog. I never heard or saw anything about a dog.

And that was it.

Firefighters arrived. I stayed with the lady and the girl on the sidewalk, which was now teeming with neighbors and then relatives. I got more than my fair ration of hugs from strangers. I looked around for the other guy and never saw him.

My long-ago brush with fire

Adrenaline is an interesting phenomenon. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t stop moving. I told a firefighter what I knew, talking in staccato sentences like I was updating a city editor.

But there was a calmness to it. It may have been passed on by my dad, a New Jersey cop for 30 years, and his reaction to my childhood brush with fire.

When I was in first grade in 1970, I fell out of a tree into a pile of burning leaves. A neighbor was burning brush, and one of the trees he cut fell and got caught up in adjacent trees, where I was. So we kids started climbing it. About 8 feet up, I fell into the wrong spot. No flames, but hot ash and smoldering leaves.

Tom O'Neill in first grade. His shirt is a size too big to accommodate the cast on his arm.
Tom O'Neill in first grade. His shirt is a size too big to accommodate the cast on his arm.

I did not stick the landing. I bounced up in sheer shock. Both bones in my left forearm broke clean. One was sticking out my wrist. The upshot: burns on my arm and on my stomach where I was holding my arm as I ran. They looked like melted cheese. Still have those scars.

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Mr. Carpiano scooped me up and frantically raced his Jeep to my house, my arm flopping. I was pretty caked in ash. Mom came out the door and did a fully understandable thing: She kind of lost it. (Best Mom Ever, but hey.)

My dad was around the corner driving home and was calm beyond measure. At least on the outside. The cop thing, I figure.

I spent seven days in the hospital and had the cast for eight weeks, fingers to shoulder. They used a small but terrifying circular saw to cut a window in my cast, to treat the burns. The one upside: I was in isolation the whole time, so I got my own room.

The look and smell of fear

I’m 57 and have never shaken the smell of fire, soot and ash. It made reporting on fires an extra challenge, which I kept to myself.

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Tom O'Neill holds up his school picture from first grade, the year he fell out of a tree and into a pile of burning leaves.
Tom O'Neill holds up his school picture from first grade, the year he fell out of a tree and into a pile of burning leaves.

No matter. Several people were there for me the day I fell, and it was my turn that day in Cincinnati. Maybe this girl will live a long, happy life and rescue somebody else in some way.

I was 6. She is 5.

Still, am I going to think about that girl’s petrified eyes for the rest of my days? I’m a busy guy. Life’s full of uncertainties, but that isn’t one.

Yup. I will.

Because in that kitchen, her eyes looked like mine probably did.

Postscript

Fire origin: In the wall space between 1st and 2nd floors

Heat source: Electrical arcing

Fire cause: Unintentional

Human factor: None

Damage: $40,000

Home: Built in 1905

Source: Cincinnati Fire Department

Cincinnati resident Tom O’Neill was a newspaper reporter for 28 years on both coasts (Boston and Oakland) and the middle (Cincinnati, Louisville and Pittsburgh). He is a 1987 graduate of the Northeastern University School of Journalism in Boston.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Burn victim in fire rescue: My turn to rescue a child from fire