Thursday, February 28, 2008
The woman was lying near the door, her couch on fire, the neighbor says.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN — Thaddeus Walker says he’s no hero.
“I wouldn’t call myself one, but everybody else says I am,” Walker said Wednesday while at the Trumbull County Chapter of the American Red Cross to get some temporary housing.
Fire Chief Kenneth Nussle said Walker is a hero, praising his quick action at the Tuesday morning blaze at the Avon Oaks apartments that saved multiple lives when he rescued one woman from her burning apartment and notified the fire department.
Walker, a factory worker and part-time student at the Trumbull Campus of Kent State University, said he was asleep in his Apt. 106 when he smelled smoke.
“I thought I was dreaming, actually,” Walker recalled. The smoke detector in his apartment sounded.
Walker could see smoke sifting into his apartment from around the door. He put on some clothes and shoes and ran into the smoke-filled hallway.
Faithfus Smith, a smoker, lived in Apt. 108 across the hall.
“I could hear her crying for help. They were real soft,” Walker said of Smith.
Walker described how Smith’s door was already open. He said she apparently tried to get out but couldn’t make it.
Smith was lying on the living-room floor near the door. The couch was ablaze.
“She was kind of out of it. I just grabbed her up, dragged her up the stairs and out the back door,” Walker said.
Once outside in the fresh air, he said, Smith became alert to what was going on.
Smith told Walker that she was smoking while on the couch and fell asleep. When she woke up, the couch was on fired.
“People are calling me a hero. I just wanted to make sure everybody got out of there safely,” he said.
Smith said he won’t be able to return to his apartment for four to six weeks while repairs are made to his apartment and 11 others in the section of the building.
The Red Cross is putting him up in a motel for a couple of days, and then he’ll move in with relatives.
Five people, included Smith, were treated for smoke inhalation.
Walker was not the only man who acted quickly Tuesday morning.
Delshawn Dansler made it out of his second-floor apartment, When the 25-year-old looked up to the third floor, he saw a woman on the balcony holding a baby.
Not wanting to take the baby through the hallway smoke, Dansler said he told the woman to drop the baby and he’d catch the toddler. He caught the child, and firefighters rescued the woman from the balcony.