Student in hospital after fire

Geoff Dutelle woke up in his first-floor apartment on the 3400 block of Louisa Street on… Geoff Dutelle woke up in his first-floor apartment on the 3400 block of Louisa Street on Nov. 4 around 9:15 a.m.

He crawled out of bed, meandered over to the T.V. room and expected to slam down a Pop Tart and coffee on his way to work, just like any other Saturday.

The 21-year-old Pitt student wasn’t even disturbed by the faint beeping coming from inside the building; it just sounded like someone had left an alarm clock going off, not a smoke detector.

Then he heard people screaming outside.

“It’s what you expect to hear, drunk people in South Oakland,” he joked.

But then he heard something else.

“Help! My friend is trapped upstairs in a fire!”

Meanwhile, not too high above him, flames blasted through a third-floor apartment where a party had taken place the night before and a male Pitt student had fallen asleep on the couch while smoking a cigarette.

Although Pittsburgh assistant fire chief Francis Deleonibus said the fire is still under investigation, McKee Apartments’ property manager Marilyn Fields mentioned that the cigarette might be the cause.

The Pitt student is currently at Mercy Hospital because of smoke inhalation.

Two other men, also in the apartment, were able to escape on their own. One of them was taken to Mercy Hospital but has been out since the incident.

Other residents were able to hear their smoke detectors and evacuate, which can be confirmed in a video shown on KDKA’s Web site.

Luckily, across the street at the Pittsburgh Fire Bureau’s Fire Station 14 — adjacent to the building on fire — a member of the department was cleaning and thought he smelled smoke. He alerted the department and called for help on the radio.

At about 9:30 a.m., sirens echoed through the air as a fire truck and other rescue vehicles lined the street.

“Our first concern when we got there was the residents’ safety,” Deleonibus said.

The fire was building momentum when the firefighters got to work.

“Fire department! Get out of the building,” one firefighter banged on Dutelle’s door.

“That’s when I knew I needed to get the hell out of there,” Dutelle said.

He rushed around his apartment, grabbing a book or two, laptop, cell phone and wallet, and darted out the door and onto the street.

In the next minutes, firefighters searched the building for anyone lagging behind and found the injured student on the third floor where the fire began.

According to Fields — who declined to give the names of the burning apartment’s residents to protect their identities — the male Pitt student was incoherent.

Firefighters attempted to enter through the front of the building to rescue him, but they were too overwhelmed by the intensity of the smoke and heat.

They contacted more firefighters who then entered through the rear of the building.

Fortunately, the fire escape went directly to the kitchen of the burning apartment. They searched the area, found the man lying on the ground and dragged him across the floor to the fire escape.

“I was so impressed with the fire team,” Dutelle said. “It was incredible to watch them go to work.”

The firefighters smashed the windows, sounding like gunshots, to try to ventilate the building and weed the water hoses through.

The men’s red, white and black helmets peered through the smoke and out the windows as they speedily set up their equipment to smother the flames.

Dutelle watched as much as he could, but to keep from getting in the way, he walked down to Caribou Coffee to call his parents.

Fields telephoned the residents and their parents to make sure they had places to stay for the night. The American Red Cross funded the first couple nights of hotel stay for any residents who needed it.

At around 2:30 p.m., the fire marshal allowed the residents to enter the building that once housed 20 people to retrieve their immediate necessities before they closed the building.

All of the utilities — the gas, electric and water — were completely shut off, and all residents will be relocated to other properties.

“Fortunately, we have several units available,” Fields said of McKee Apartments. “We’re having people help move the kids into other units.”

According to Deleonibus, the fire resulted in $75,000 in damage to the building and $30,000 in its contents.

Editor’s Note: Geoff Dutelle is a former sports editor of The Pitt News.