Quick-Thinking New York Volunteer Makes Rescue Wit

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Quick-Thinking New York Volunteer Makes Rescue Without Gear

STACEY ALTHERR

Newsday

It took the experience and dedication of a Hicksville Volunteer Firefighter to save an elderly man trapped in a burning house.

Firefighter/EMT Patrick Scanlon was returning from a call on a minor house fire when he heard the reports of another house fire on his car scanner.

It was about 7:10 p.m. on a foggy Jan. 13. Scanlon drove up the street but didn't see any problems. It wasn't until he arrived at the house that he noticed flames shooting from an upstairs window.

"I didn't know if there were people trapped," he said. "I didn't hear that on the scanner."

When he arrived, an elderly woman told him her husband was inside.

Scanlon, a supervisor for the Town of Oyster Bay's Old Bethpage solid waste water disposal facility, said his 33 years of firefighter training told him he needed to get inside fast. "That's usually the rule, two in and two out, but that rule goes out the window when there's a life involved," he said. He was not wearing his fire gear.

Once inside, Scanlon reach a hallway that was dark, smoky and very hot. "I kept my nose to the carpet and outstretched my arm," he said.

Two feet into the bedroom, where the fire had started, he felt the chest of the man.

Scanlon dragged the man down the hallway. A neighbor met Scanlon at the top of the stairs and helped carry the man downstairs. They were met by former Hicksville Chief Owen Magee, who assisted Scanlon in getting the man outside.

"I stayed with him until the fire trucks got there," Scanlon said. "I was covered with blood."

The man, a stroke patient who was on blood thinners, was so badly burned about the face, ears and hands by the fire that his skin was peeling. He also had inhalation burns in his lungs. The fire was extinguished in 30 minutes, Chief Bob Chiz said.

Scanlon visited the man two weeks ago, but he was still heavily sedated. "I say a prayer for him every day," Scanlon said.

A lifelong resident of Hicksville, rescue volunteerism has become a family affair. His wife, Eileen, is the bioterrorism coordinator for Nassau County Department of Health; his son is a second-year medical resident and chief of the Jericho Fire Department, and his sister and brother-in-law also are Volunteers in Hicksville