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Woman saves friend from fiery mobile home
By JORGE SANCHEZ, Times Staff Writer LECANTO -- It was late at night, her boyfriend was already sleeping beside her in the front seat of the car, but Regine Hugel couldn't shake a nagging thought that crept in her mind. She had already been to a friend's funeral that day, then to a nightspot in Homosassa and finally had a late-night visit with friends on Oct. 4. It was only a few miles more to her boyfriend's house on Grover Cleveland Boulevard. But her mind kept telling her to make one more stop, at the home of friend Chris Schwartz. That meant driving the other way, toward Lecanto. "I really can't explain why I felt that way, but it was strong enough in my mind to make me go out of my way to check on him," she said. When Hugel and her boyfriend Dave Sinclair, 19, pulled into the driveway of Schwartz's doublewide mobile home on Scarboro Avenue, they faced danger. "I could see the flames already coming out of the window," Hugel said. "The fire was in the kitchen." She was terrified that her friend and possibly others were inside, either unaware of the fire, which was destroying the home, or unable to escape. In the next few seconds, Hugel, 19, a waitress at her mom's diner in Hernando and a college student, made a decision. She went into a blazing mobile home to save her friend. "She's that way," said her mother, Sabina Hugel. "She feels very strongly about her friends; sometimes, I think, even more than her family." With flames leaping out windows and smoke filling the inside, first Dave and then Regine tried the front door. The handle was so hot it burned her hand. "Dave ran next door to wake Chris's parents up," Hugel said. But her plan was more direct and dangerous. Hugel punched through a living room window, slicing her left hand open, and jumped inside amid the smoke and flames. "There was smoke everywhere," she said. "I just sort of crouched down and went down the hallway to where I knew Chris' bedroom was. I was just thinking I don't want my friend to die." Schwartz said he remembers being asleep and then hearing pounding and yelling. "I woke up and she was there. The house was full of black smoke and I could hear things burning and cracking," he said. Schwartz said he thinks Hugel helped him out the back door, but says his memories of the events are unclear. "I was slapping and shaking him to wake up but he really didn't come to. I pulled him out of bed by his shoulders and dragged him back up the hallway and out through the front," Hugel said. Hugel said she hardly believes they both made it out. She couldn't feel her cuts or burns. She got in her boyfriend's car and drove to the convenience store on State Road 44 and County Road 491 to call for help. "I saw my car driving away, so I figured she was in it and safe," Sinclair said. Hugel called her mother, and firefighters also tracked her down. They took one look at her and wanted to put her in an ambulance. "But we don't have insurance so I asked how much was a ride going to cost," Sabina Hugel said. "They told me around $400 and I said, 'No way. I'll drive her myself.' " At Citrus Memorial Hospital, emergency room doctors stitched and bandaged her wounds. A week later, she still has a large bandage on her left hand. Hugel is studying to become a pharmacist at CFCC, and as fate would have it, she's also left-handed. "It's very hard to write," she said. The events of Oct. 4 will only strengthen the bonds of the friends. They've known each other since the third grade. Schwartz was Hugel's prom date last year. He said Sinclair is his best friend. "I'm sure glad they decided to stop by that night," Schwartz said. "They definitely saved my live."
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