‘Felt like a lifetime,’ says Dracut man
Early Saturday morning, 20-year-old Michael Patenaude of Dracut was driving home from a friend’s house when he saw a burning house and an elderly woman running into the cold darkness to escape the flames. The car in front of him — the only other one within sight — kept driving past the flames, but Patenaude jumped into action. Here’s what he did next, as told to the Herald’s Jordan Graham:
“I pulled to the side, and as I was pulling up, she was coming out ... The house was already in flames. It was a bad fire already. I seen her running out into the driveway with the dog in her hands, so I knew no one had called any type of emergency services.
She had a dog in her hand, she’s like, “Oh my God, my other dog is in there.”
There was no one else around besides me and her, so I just didn’t even think about it, put my sweatshirt over my face and I ran in. The house just didn’t stop, it burned the whole time I ran in there, I wasn’t even thinking.
When I first got in there, I couldn’t even see anything. It was already a crazy fire. I kind of heard the dog, it was under the chair where she said it would have been, so I went in there and I went to grab it.
It ran in the other room, so I had to go in there and try and find the dog. It ran away from me twice, ran into the bedroom. There was no fire in there yet, but it was the smokiest part of the house, so I couldn’t see it. I went to go grab it again and then it ran away.
It’s hard to tell how long I was in there, it felt like a lifetime, but it could have been shorter. When you’re in a situation like that, it feels way longer than it probably was. I don’t know, maybe five, six minutes. I was in there for longer than I wanted to be.
There was a living thing in that house still. If my dogs were in here, I’d want somebody to grab them if there was a chance to. The house wasn’t collapsing at that point, so I knew I’d maybe try. Patenaude finally got the terrified dog out of the house. I’m just glad that’s all that was in there.