Firefighter rescues boy after truck beats alarm to blaze
Published: June 12, 2008
Chicago firefighter Kevin Stawiarski frequently takes ribbing from pals about the daily demands — or seemingly lack thereof — of his job.
“My friends say, ‘You sit around the firehouse all day’,” Stawiarski said. “I never fight them on this. I tell them, ‘Yeah, I do. But when you call, I’ll be there in three minutes.’ ”
But on Friday night, he and his Truck Company No. 12 team were already in the midst of lifesaving efforts at 2916 W. Foster before they even got the department’s call about a fire there.
The team was leaving another call — a car had hit a bicyclist whom they were comforting while awaiting an ambulance — when a woman approached seeking help with a fire at her house.
“We couldn’t get an address out of her,” he said. But they moved in the direction in which she had pointed and called for a response to the California and Francisco area they were in.
Once at the house, Stawiarski, 47, immediately carried a 4-year-old boy down a ladder from a second-floor window, as the boy’s father followed. Similarly, two other firefighters from the truck assisted a couple of women escaping from the house — one from the second floor and another from the first floor.
“I didn’t even know there was a child up there. When I got up to the window, he was handing me the child,” Stawiarski said of his rescue.
The father, he said, wanted to thank him, but Stawiarski praised him instead — for keeping a cool head.
“I didn’t really do anything special. I told him, ‘I was outside. You were the one under pressure,’” Stawiarski said. “He stayed calm. I told him he did a good job. He didn’t panic.”
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