Senior rescued from burning apartment
St. Catharines firefighters fought two fires simultaneously on Friday
An elderly St. Catharines woman was rescued from a second-storey balcony after her Scott Street apartment was engulfed in smoke and fire Friday afternoon.
Deputy fire chief Dave Upper said firefighters were already fighting a kitchen fire at a home on Pioneer Court when they were called to the Tabitha Manor seniors apartment building at 99 Scott St. at about 2:24 p.m.
Upper said firefighters arrived at the seniors’ apartment to find the woman trapped on her balcony, as thick black smoke poured from the apartment behind her.
He said they immediately set up ladders against the railing and carried the woman down to safety before entering the burning apartment to extinguish the flames.
Upper said the woman, whom firefighters did not identify, was receiving medical oxygen at the time which accelerated the spread of the flames and added to the difficulty and danger they faced extinguishing it.
“It’s a very big danger,” he said. “Oxygen definitely will feed the fire.”
He added there was no danger of the oxygen tanks exploding.
Upper said the woman was smoking in her bedroom when she dropped the lit cigarette on the oxygen line, sparking the blaze.
He said the woman told firefighters she went out to the hallway to get a fire extinguisher but by the time she returned smoke and flames prevented her entering her bedroom.
She instead made her way onto the balcony hoping to be rescued. Before firefighters arrived, several of the woman’s neighbours tried in vain to save her.
Joseph Duguay, 58, said he heard the fire alarm and saw smoke escaping from around the woman’s door across the hall.
“I went right to her room and opened the door, but I couldn’t get in,” he said. “It was a wall of black smoke.”
Despite suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) himself, Duguay said he threw a bucket of water into the woman’s apartment and entered the smoke-filled room to search for his neighbour.
“I was concerned that maybe she was asleep and the fire got her,” he said.
Unaware she was already on the balcony, Duguay said he called to her several times but got not reply.
“But there was so much smoke, I had to get out.”
Other residents, including Jacob De Kock and Corneilia De Jong, took similar action, calling to the woman from the doorway of the apartment, although they didn’t enter.
No injuries were reported in the fire on Pioneer Court. Although paramedics treated the woman rescued from the balcony, Upper said she refused to be transported to hospital.
The fire on Pioneer Court, which started about 15 minutes earlier, added to the challenges firefighters faced.
Although they were in the midst of a “full response on Pioneer Court,” Upper said the platoon chief had to leave that fire along with three firetrucks and their crews to respond to the Scott Street blaze.
As a result, he said, firefighters were shorthanded when fighting the fire on Scott, adding they should have technically had a fourth fire truck and crew on scene.
Damage estimates were not available Friday.
Although Upper said the bulk of the damage at the apartment building was contained to the woman’s apartment, he said there was light smoke throughout the entire building and residents waited outside for a few hours as firefighters ventilated it.
De Kock said the fire was the most excitement he has seen in the building in the 27 years he’s lived there.
“We’ve had minor fires, but this is the first big one. We haven’t had this much excitement in awhile.”