Oshawa fire hero remembered for selfless acts
OSHAWA -- Laura Green was smoking outside when she saw a nearby house in downtown Oshawa shake severely enough to make the snow fall off the roof.
She saw an orange glow emanate from one of the windows, and seconds later, people were running out into the street without shoes, screaming that there was a fire.
Green said she saw her neighbour Steven Macdonald run out of the house, only to watch him return inside. She said he tried to extinguish the flames that were, at this point, more than half a metre high. He emerged from the building with his pregnant daughter Alysha, she said.
But once he heard someone scream “my baby!,” he ran back in without hesitation to look for anybody else trapped, Green said.
After he went inside for a second time, Green said, the front entrance was blocked by a wall of fire.
“I knew he was going to have to find an alternate route to get out of the house if he was going to survive,” Green said.
Jordan Coutu, who witnessed Macdonald’s second trip into the house, saw him call out through an open window.
“He was saying that he couldn’t find the kids,” said Coutu, referring to nine-year-old Madeline and four-year-old Jackson, who died in the fire Monday morning with their mother, Lindsey Bonchek.
Macdonald did not make it out of the burning house.
At 50 years old, his life ended as his friends said he lived it: with pure selflessness and a natural instinct to help others.
“He’s just the kind of guy that would do anything for you, it’s just ridiculous how he would go out of his way,” said Chris Mayer, a friend of Macdonald’s who knew him for about 30 years.
Mayer recounted a time when he needed to see his family up at his cottage in Havelock, where he and Macdonald spent a lot of time together, but a snowstorm had his car stuck in the driveway.
“He got out of bed without me even asking him, got into his truck, drove miles away to me, shovelled the whole place . . . handed me his key, and said ‘here, go see your family.’ ”
With gestures like that, Mayer wasn’t surprised that Macdonald tried to save people in the fire. Macdonald’s daughter Alysha is seven months pregnant. Because of his last act of courage, he’ll never get to meet his granddaughter.
“He was so looking forward to that. He had bought so much baby clothes and furniture and walkers,” Mayer said.
Macdonald is survived by his two daughters, Alysha and Meaghan.