Woman, 81, Bound to Wheelchair, Saved From Fire

When they saw smoke spewing from a condominium in Cypress on Wednesday, Mike Bennett and his uncle, Steve Langsdorf, jokingly told each other, “Hey, let’s go save somebody’s life.”

Then, the men said, they heard a woman repeatedly scream, “Please help me. I’m dying. I’m dying.”

Seconds later, despite thick smoke and intense flames, the pair and two other passers-by formed a human chain, crawled inside, found 81-year-old Shirley Glatt and carried her to safety.

Once they were outside, the fire intensified, “literally exploding,” a witness said, and consumed the condominium at 4235 Larwin Ave.

Orange County firemen credited the four with saving Glatt, who couldn’t walk because she wore a leg cast and had suffered burns to her legs, Dan Southworth, a county Fire Department spokesman, said.

Bennett, 26, of Long Beach, and Langsdorf, 36, of La Habra, both lumber salesmen, were driving to a friend’s house in the same neighborhood when they saw the smoke about 4:30 p.m.

At the same time, David and Linda Chamberlain, who work in a nearby real estate office, arrived at the scene.

Linda Chamberlain said Glatt’s husband, Solomon, 84, was near the front door, visibly stunned. He said his wife was inside but couldn’t walk, she said.

Together, rescuers pried the front door open, and David Chamberlain rushed inside but was met by a cloud of dense, black smoke.

Bennett said Chamberlain went back in and he followed, after Langsdorf and another man, known only as Brad, held each other’s feet with their hands and crawled inside linked to each other for safety.

‘Just Had to Do It’

“When I heard the lady, I just had to do it,” Bennett said later.

Inside, he said, “it was nothing but black, thick, very toxic-smelling, eye-burning smoke. We were crawling around on the first floor maybe only 15 feet from the front door. We noticed a wheelchair and then we heard her voice.

He said Glatt “kept yelling, ‘I’m dying. I’m dying.’ And we were saying, ‘Where are you? Where are you?’ She would answer, ‘In the den,’ but we still didn’t know where that was. We kept feeling our way inside looking for her.”

Bennett said that when he “got to her, her head was pointed to the door. Someone else grabbed her legs and I grabbed her upper body and we carried her out.”

Linda Chamberlain comforted the elderly man outside in a courtyard and watched while her husband and the other rescuers searched frantically for the woman inside the burning condo.

‘Mixed Emotions’

“I really had mixed emotions about my husband being in there,” she said. “The windows were already cracking and breaking and once they carried the woman outside, flames started literally exploding and the whole house went up.”

Firemen and paramedics arrived a short time later.

Both Glatts were treated at La Palma Intercommunity Hospital and released. He suffered burns to his hands and both suffered smoke inhalation.

Damage to the home and contents was estimated at $105,000, Southworth said. The cause of the fire is under investigation.