Firefighters’ actions saved lives
Published: September 16, 2003
Dorothy Carrigan said firefighters arrived just in time Sunday morning to rescue her and her mentally retarded adult son and daughter from a second-floor porch as fire destroyed their Fairchance apartment building and killed 76-year-old Earnest Mason.
With no fire escape from her third-floor attic apartment, Carrigan said she struggled through thick smoke to find her kids and take them to a second-floor porch, where firefighters had extended a ladder.
Though flames were “shooting across the porch,” her 33-year-old son, John Linderman, and 25-year-old daughter, Susan Hall, were afraid to descend the ladder and suffered burns before they were coaxed into climbing down.
Carrigan said her daughter is in critical condition in Uniontown Hospital with burns on her head and back. She said her son also had burns on his head and back. He was released from the hospital sometime following the fire on Sunday, but he was readmitted Monday because he would not eat or drink.
“About 5 a.m., when smoke woke me up, it was too late to get down from the third floor. There’s no fire escape. One way in, one way out,” Carrigan said.
“John and Suzie were scared. It was hard to get them down the ladder. Flames shooting across the porch. If the fire department didn’t turn on the hoses when they did, we’d have been burned to death. It was so smoky; it was hard to find the kids. Pitch black. The smoke was so thick. Windows going out. Flames all around. It was scary as the dickens.”
She said her daughter, Jane Saluga, son-in-law Richard Saluga and their four children also lived in a second-floor apartment in the building, but they managed to get out safely. Their oldest child, Kaisha Lin, turns 7 today. Autumn Marie will be 6 on Thursday. Catherine Charlotte is 4 and Richard Allen will be 1 next month.
Mason of Point Marion, who was visiting a tenant, was less fortunate.
Carrigan said she knew Mason. They grew up together in the Point Marion area and went to school together, but she hadn’t seen him in several years.
Preliminary autopsy findings show he died of smoke inhalation, according to Elsie Dvorchak of the Fayette County coroner’s office. Results of tests to determine the carbon monoxide level in his blood are pending, she said.
State Police Fire Marshal James Custer said the fire started in a vacant first-floor apartment.
The cause of the fire is suspicious, but an electrical malfunction has not been ruled out, he said.
While some materials have been sent to the State Police Crime Lab for analysis, the investigation is being hampered by the unsafe condition of the burned out building, Custer said.
He said he is waiting for the building owner’s insurance company to give the go-ahead for a contractor to remove some of the unstable remains so he can go inside the structure and continue his investigation.
“We determined that the fire started in a vacant first-floor apartment. It’s definite origin. We haven’t eliminated electrical (as the cause). It’s suspicious as far as what caused it. We’re waiting for the insurance company to remove some of the debris,” Custer said.
Building owner Richard Rey-nolds of Fairchance could not be reached for comment.
The large brick structure was the former Radio Electric Building on West Church Street. It housed a United Mine Workers office, knick-knack shop, one apartment and a garage on the first floor, four apartments on the second floor and the attic apartment.
“The building is ready to collapse,” Fairchance Fire Chief Ray Eicher said. “My concern now is not to get anyone else hurt.”
He said Reynolds hired a security guard to prevent anybody from entering the building. The guard was posted toward the rear of the building along DeForest Avenue on Monday.
DeForest Avenue resident Marlon Whoolery said he spotted the fire at about 4:15 a.m., when he went to get his boat out of a garage on the street to go fishing.
“I saw the sky glowing orange” as he approached his garage and soon saw the burning building, he said. “The flames were shooting from the roof of the garage and the apartments. It was bad. I’m surprised nobody else saw it. It was burning bad at 4:15.”
Whoolery said he “beat” on the front door, but nobody responded. He said he called 911 after he went around to the back door, but couldn’t get close to it due to the heat from the fire.
Along with the Fairchance Fire Department, firefighters from Smithfield, Collier, Haydentown, Hopwood and Uniontown responded to the blaze.
While the tenants are staying with family or friends, the American Red Cross is providing food and clothing assistance.
Carrigan said she lost everything, including Social Security cards and birth certificates as she and her kids fled the fire with only the clothes on their backs. She said she received vouchers to purchase clothes from the Red Cross and will receive food assistance from Community Action of Fayette County today.
She is staying with her long-time friend Shirley Chronister of Fairchance until she finds a new home.
“I ain’t never going back on the third floor of any building,” Carrigan said.
“She is the greatest mother that ever walked on two feet,” Chronister said.
Carrigan, a widow since 1986, said Sunday’s fire was the second she and her kids survived.
In 1988, their apartment above Club York was destroyed when bar caught fire.
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