Smoky fire chases disabled residents out of apartments

PINELLAS PARK -- As fire alarms blared and smoke spread through the halls Thursday night, many residents of Freedom Village couldn't see, hear or escape.

The 100 or so people who live in the five-story building are blind, deaf, in need of a wheelchair or hampered by serious medical disabilities.

They had only moments to make some terrifying choices: Wait in your apartment for firefighters, or try to get out by yourself? Take the elevator, though it may be unsafe, or sit in your wheelchair as the halls fill with smoke?

"They have told us to stay in our rooms," said Drew Ritch, blind since birth and a resident since 1988. He waited for rescue workers in his third-floor apartment, even as he felt water from a sprinkler puddling on the floor.

Not Betty Ross.

"I boogied out of there," said the third-floor resident with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis. "I didn't know these feet could move that fast."

No one was seriously hurt in the fire, which started shortly before 7 p.m. at 7700 66th St. N. Four or five residents were being checked for possible smoke-inhalation problems, said Pinellas Park fire Chief Ken Cramer.

The fire elevated to three alarms because numerous firefighters were needed to evacuate residents from the building.

The cause had not been determined late Thursday.

Smoke reached all five floors, but damage from the fire was confined to the apartment where it started, unit 319.

The woman who lives there wasn't home at the time, neighbors said.

Marc Serafine, who lives next door in unit 321, smelled smoke and started banging on his neighbor's door. No one answered, so he had someone else go downstairs and get a key from management.

"When we opened that door, the smoke was thick, just pouring out of there," said Serafine, who has used a prosthetic leg since his right leg was amputated after a motorcycle crash.

He ventured into the burning apartment twice to try to rescue his neighbor's schnauzer, Sassy, but the smoke was too thick. Serafine rounded up his daughter and his chihuahua and got out.

Freedom Village's fire alarms go off every now and then, but only for fire drills or false alarms, residents say.

This was the first actual fire anyone could remember. They weren't concerned until they smelled smoke.

"I was smelling this awful smoke, then this electrical smell. Then I heard a pop and a sizzle," said Diane Burndahl, a blind woman who lives on the fourth floor, directly above the fire. "I thought, "I'd better get out of here.' "

It took a lawsuit last year to force Freedom Village to install electric door openers in some apartments so residents could get out quickly in case of a fire alarm.

But Pinellas Park's fire chief praised the complex Thursday, saying its sprinklers helped douse the flames.

"It's a very safe building," Cramer said. "Each apartment is basically a concrete envelope. It's one of the better-protected buildings in the county."

Residents of all high-rise buildings are advised not to use elevators during a fire.

"I like to go by the rules. They say, "Don't use the elevators,' " said Girberto Feliciano, 67, who lives on the fourth floor.

But both he and his wife use wheelchairs. The stairwell was out of the question. And the smoke was getting worse.

They summoned the elevator, got in and pressed the button for the ground floor.

"Sometimes," Feliciano said, "you have to take a chance."

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