Once a hero, always a hero
Former Woonsocket police officer is in right place at right time again, coming to aid of potential fire victim
WOONSOCKET – It’s been over a decade since Woonsocket Housing Authority Director Robert Moreau worked as a policeman, but he can’t seem to let go of his protect-and-serve impulses.
Moreau’s lifesaving reflexes kicked in again Tuesday – for the third time since the retired veteran of the Woonsocket Police Department put law enforcement behind him.
It happened as he was driving into the city shortly before 3 p.m., when he saw flames licking up from the underside of a porch at 840 Cumberland Hill
Road, a brown two-story at the top of a small hill. The flames were growing fast, already rising 15-20 feet up the sides of the house as he stopped his vehicle and began ascending the concrete staircase out front.
As he approached the house, he saw a man lying on the lawn – a male tenant overcome with exhaustion after escaping from the residence.
“He said the guy on the first floor didn’t come out,” recalled Moreau. “He said, ‘His car’s right there and I did not see him come out.’”
Without hesitation, Moreau walked across the porch as flames were beginning to engulf the structure and approached the front door. He banged on it “three or four times,” but no one answered.
“I made a decision to kick in the door,” said Moreau. “As I kicked in the door, I saw a guy running towards me. He started screaming, ‘What’s the matter? What’s the matter?’”
Moreau told the man his house was on fire, which was news to him. A police report identified the man as Robert Cooke, and it says he told members of the WPD that he was sleeping before Moreau broke down his door to lead him to safety.
Moreau said he escorted Cooke across the porch. Flames were all around it at that point but the surface of the porch was still clear enough to get across safely.
Moreau said Cooke told him he had been working on his computer and must have dozed off because he didn’t hear the smoke alarms other tenants in the house did.
Fire Chief Paul Shatraw said it was obvious how grateful Cooke was for Moreau’s quick-thinking reaction to the fire.
“He certainly was thankful that Mr. Moreau kicked open the door,” said Shatraw. “He had no idea the front of the house was on fire.”
Firefighters received a call for help that may have been placed by the sister of Kayla Thompson, who posted a photo of the fire on Facebook. In a comment accompanying the photo she said her sister dialed 911 while “another guy was trying to get everyone out of the house.”
That other guy – Moreau – has an unusual penchant for being in the right place at the right time to help people in trouble.
In March 2018, Moreau was attending a boxing tournament at the Fall River Police Athletic Club when a man suffering from cardiac arrest collapsed on the floor a few feet in front of him. A volunteer boxing coach with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northern Rhode Island, Moreau and a Boston firefighter helped restore the man’s heartbeat using chest compressions and a portable defibrillator.
The victim, a man in his 50s’ named Mike Halchuk of Stoughton, Mass., was in a coma for three days and later credited Moreau and the firefighter with saving his life. He thanked them publicly.
A few months before that, Moreau was attending a play with his wife at the Providence Performing Arts Center when a woman sitting near him, a few rows back from the stage, started choking on something she’d eaten. He performed the Heimlich maneuver on her and she was fine after that.
Moreau, 57, says his life-saving instincts were instilled in him through his training and experience as a policeman. After 25 years with the WPD, he retired in 2009 to take a similar post with the Woonsocket Housing Authority. After a stint as the WHA’s head of security he was later appointed deputy director of the public housing agency and, in 2019, was promoted to executive director.
A soft-spoken man with a self-effacing sense of humor, Moreau has also had something of a career in local politics. He served as an appointive member of the Zoning Board of Review for several years and, in
2011, he was elected to the City Council and served about five years, including a stint as council president.
“After being a police officer for 25 years, it’s just a normal reaction,” he said of his heroics at the fire. “It’s always in your blood to react.”
Shatraw said the fire spread to the exterior sides of the building and, except for some wind, members of the Woonsocket Fire Department had little trouble knocking it down in just a few minutes. A police reports said the occupants of two other units – including the man Moreau saw lying on the lawn – all escaped safely after fire alarms sounded in the residence. The house has been shut down for repairs, however, and the occupants have been offered temporary shelter and other aid through the Red Cross.
Police say the cause of the fire appears to have been a cigarette that was was improperly disposed of in a container on the porch, but confirmation is pending an investigation by the state Fire Marshals Office.
“I’m glad I was in the right place at the right time,” Moreau said. “I just reacted.”