DAY-CARE FIRE TRAGEDY : ‘I Did My Best. I Loved Those Kids’ : One Man’s Heroic Effort to Save Babies

Bill Applebee was out of the truck and running toward the fire even before the driver had pulled over Thursday.

Several times he would crawl through opaque black smoke, feeling for two infants trapped inside the burning house in a desperate but futile attempt to save them.

“I’m glad I tried, but I’m very disappointed. I just wish I could have found them,” he said softly as he lay in a hospital bed, fitted with a tube to help him breathe.

“At some point I realized that I just couldn’t go back in. I couldn’t get any oxygen by then; the whole place was on fire.”

Applebee, 28, was one of several passers-by and neighbors who made valiant attempts to save the two infants, who were later found dead inside the home by fire fighters.

Two other children in the house and the baby-sitter, Pat Orozco, escaped with minor injuries.

Applebee, a service representative for the Huntington Beach Water Department, and co-worker Lee Norton had just made a call about half a mile from the house in the 5100 block of Audrey Drive when they saw smoke billowing above the roof lines.

The two arrived at the scene before the house was engulfed in flames, Norton said.

“When we got there we saw smoke coming out of the garage door in the front of the house,” Norton said. “I let Bill out and parked the truck and then called the fire department.”

In fact, Applebee, described as a soft-spoken but determined young man by his

co-workers, had jumped out of the Water Department truck before it had come to a stop and sprinted toward the house to see if he could help, Norton said.

Applebee spoke to a woman standing across the street who pointed toward the back of the house and screamed that two babies were still inside.

He then found a hose at a neighboring home and drenched himself with water to ward off some of the heat.

“I ran to the back and the door was open and a lot of smoke was coming out,” he said. “I crouched to the floor and began feeling for anything that could possibly be a body.”

Applebee said it was too dark and smoky to see anything, and the heat was ferocious. He began coughing and choking and groped his way outside again.

But he thought he still might be able to save the children.

Applebee said he entered the burning house three or four times, and was overcome by smoke each time. He was not certain how long he stayed there, gasping for air and then dashing back inside.

At one point while feeling his way along the carpet, which had begun to burn, he came across a couple of objects that he thought might be children, and he hurriedly removed them.

“I figured if I could only find a soft bundle I could bring it out,” he said. But the soft bundles turned out to be stuffed animals, not babies.

While the fire raged inside, his co-worker, Norton, became increasingly nervous about Applebee’s safety.

“I was looking through the crowd and I couldn’t spot him. I thought he was trapped inside,” Norton said. “At one point the windows blew out and the roof began to cave in. But then he just emerged. I was really relieved to see him walk out.”

Applebee, who is married but has no children, was in stable condition at Humana Hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.

He said he was feeling all right but was still bitterly disappointed.

His supervisor at the Water dePartment, Bert Cardon, said Applebee will receive a fine welcome when he returns to work.

“I talked to him and his wife at the hospital, and we expressed our gratitude and told him how proud we are of him,” Cardon said. And he relayed a bit of information that Applebee did not volunteer: “We were not at all surprised to hear that Bill did something like this, because he has expressed an interest in becoming a firefighter and, in fact, is one of the designated employees in the department qualified to handle fire emergencies.”

INTERVENTION TEAM--Red Cross volunteers counsel grieving families at scene of fire. Page 12