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by RALPH R. ORTEGA and FERNANDA SANTOS
She could feel the heat of the flames, smell the smoke that slowly gagged her and hear the wailing sound of a fire truck siren right outside her door.
But 75-year-old Marion Gaines, who has been blind for four decades, could not get out of the Bronx flat she had called home for 29 years.
"I'm trapped up here!" she screamed yesterday, hoping someone would come to her rescue.
Just then, Firefighter Richard Donovan climbed up a fire escape toward the roof of 1178 E. 221st St., in Baychester.
Passing a third-floor window, Donovan heard a faint cry from inside the smoke-filled home and immediately dived into the kitchen, crawling across the linoleum floor until he reached Gaines, who lived alone.
"It was for the grace of God that I happened to be passing the window and heard her," Donovan, 38, told the Daily News.
"She wouldn't have held on too much longer," he said. "A few more minutes and she wouldn't have survived."
The 14-year FDNY veteran pushed Gaines onto the window ledge, then perched her on the fire escape landing and slid his oxygen mask over her mouth.
"I'm a fireman," he told her. "I'm here to help you out."
It wasn't until he asked her to hold on to the ladder poles so they could safely make their way to the ground that Donovan realized Gaines could not see.
"Just hold me tight," he told her before he slung her over his shoulders and began to carry her down the slippery steps.
"I pressed her body against the ladder and went step by step by step," said Donovan, of Ladder 51 in Baychester.
"He was wonderful," an emotional Gaines told The News from her bed at Jacobi Medical Center.
"I wished I could see him," she said. "I'm so appreciative. I thought I was going to die in there by myself."
The widowed grandmother, who has been blind for 44 years, said being trapped in a burning home was her greatest fear.
"That's the one thing I had hoped never happened to me - and it happened," she said.
"Being in the dark, fumbling, trying to find your way to the window. ... All I know is, it's a horrible thing for anybody to go through - and for a blind person, it's terrifying."
Two other people who lived in the house suffered minor injuries in the 3:19 a.m. blaze. Firefighters got the fire under control in less than an hour.
"There was a lot of fire, a lot of heat, a lot of smoke," said Donovan, who lives in Dobbs Ferry, Westchester County, with his wife, Ivanka, and their sons, Richard, 6, and Jason, 4.
Gaines, a retired file clerk, believes God gave her a second chance in life through Donovan - and she told The News to make sure he knows.
"You're a godsend," she said. "I thank you so much for rescuing me."
With Tom Raftery |
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