Man rescues girl from fatal blaze
Three killed in Brampton fire while four make it out safely
Nineteen-year-old Sheldon Teague, who broke down a door to save a young girl in a Brampton house fire early Tuesday, doesn’t consider himself a hero and said he’s “horrified” by the memory of the incident after three others died in the blaze.
Brampton’s fire chief said that by the time firefighters arrived, Teague had rescued the girl. She is in serious condition in hospital after the house fire on Madison St., near Dixie Rd. and Williams Pkwy.
The Fire Marshal’s office said seven people were believed to have been in the home at the time of the fire. Three people in a basement apartment escaped unharmed and four people were in the upper levels of the home.
Authorities have not released the identities of the dead as they are in the process of notifying next of kin.
Police blocked off the street leading to the house, but throughout the day those who knew the victims came looking for information.
Awoman, believed to be18 and a student at the University of Guelph-Humber, and her mother died in the blaze, a friend said.
Nicole Chevolleau started sobbing as she looked at the house. She described her friend as a talented 18-year-old who had just started at the university.
“She was really smart and she was really sweet and so was her mom. They were just really nice people,” she said. “I still can’t even process it. I was in class when I found out and I left.”
“Her mom was really nice . . . She cares a lot about her daughters and her daugh- ters’ friends, too,” Chevolleau said.
Brampton Fire Chief Michael Clark said “we have no idea what started the fire.”
Teague told reporters he was staying overnight at his friend’s basement apartment. He was watching a movie on his laptop when he heard screaming at about 3:30 a.m.
“The friend that I was staying with in the basement pretty much said that she smelled something funny,” Teague said. “I kind of smelled something too. It smelled like smoke.”
After waking up his friend’s father, Teague put his shoes on and went outside.
“As I stepped out, I could see fire coming from the upper bedroom. I went around to the front, kicked in the door and the whole house was pretty much completely engulfed in flames,” he said. “I started yelling for someone to come to me because I could still hear them screaming.”
Teague said he ran back downstairs to grab his friend’s phone and ran upstairs where her neighbours, a family of four including two daughters, lived.
He said he used the phone as a flashlight to help the upstairs neighbours see him through the smoke.
“I tried to just tell them to come towards the light,” Teague said.
He said he could see a girl who must have been 10 or younger.
“She made it about halfway down the hallway, I believe, and then I could start to kind of make out her legs so I ran toward her, picked her up, brought her outside,” he said.
He said he ran into the home again because he could still hear voices screaming.
“The flames by then pretty much took up all the front of the house and the front hallway was completely covered in smoke and I couldn’t make it through. I just stood there and continued shouting for whoever could hear me just to come towards my voice.”
No one else came. Firefighters soon arrived and took over.
Clark said the girl suffered thirddegree burns and smoke inhalation and was rushed to hospital.
He said the crew attacked the fire through the front window and had it under control within 10 minutes.
“Another two crews went down into the basement and they eventually made their way up to the back of the house where they discovered three deceased persons,” Clark said.
He did not reveal the age of the injured girl or the ages and genders of the dead.
The fire was contained to one unit of the semi-detached bungalow.
Next-door neighbour Amangeep Hazra said she rushed her young son and mother-in-law downstairs and out of their house after waking up to all the smoke.
Hazra said they briefly saw a man next door rescuing a young girl as they ran from the scene and into their car.
“By the time we came down, the girl was screaming,” Hazra said. “We didn’t see the face but we just heard the screaming in the morning.”
Hazra’s young son Karanvir described an eerie scene.
“My heart sunk,” the boy said. “I came outside and the whole neighbourhood was silent, except for the fire and the girl screaming. I got really scared, I started shaking and I got into the car.”
Hazra said the family of four who lived upstairs rented the home for the past five years.
“It’s a very fitting reminder that we should always have working smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms in our dwellings and an escape plan,” said Ross Nichols of the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office.
He said it was unclear if the smoke alarm in the house was working.
Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey got news of the fire in an email.
“Our hearts and prayers go out to this family and I’m so grateful that (Teague) was in the building and rescued this young woman . . . ,” she said. “I think all of our blood runs cold at the thought of a fire in the middle of the night and the panic that would have obviously overwhelmed the people in the building, and we’re just praying for them.”
Carla Pereira, a Peel District School Board spokesperson, said one of the victims had graduated high school last summer and that the girl who was rescued is an elementary school student. She said a response team was offering support to friends of high school graduates who are still in school and to classmates of the young girl.
Teague said it was a “horrifying” experience. He said he’d been to the house before to visit his friend but had never met the upstairs family.
But he recalled thinking in the moment he had a responsibility to help. “Someone and their daughters in need, why am I going to sit there and wait for someone else to come save them when I can do the job?”
Teague brushed off the notion he acted heroically. “I’m not a hero. I’m just a regular person who did what needed to be done in the moment. I kind of wish that I could have helped more people.” With files from The Canadian Press, Fakiha Baig, Andrej Ivanov and Megan Dolski.