5 Risk Lives to Save Woman, 89, From House Fire

Four police officers and an elderly caregiver risked their lives Friday to save an 89-year-old woman who was trapped inside her burning home.

Three of the officers, John Brisslinger, Paul Gomez and Det. Dan Morgan crawled through dense smoke in search of Maria “Tessie” Bach.

“The three of us got down as low as we could,” Morgan said. “Toward the back of the house, we could hear her screaming and yelling.”

They found Bach in a bathroom at the back of the three-bedroom home at 522 Florence Ave. “The house was so filled with smoke, we just grabbed her and brought her down to the ground and then we carried her out, trying to stay as low as we could,” Morgan said.

Emma Patrick, Bach’s 82-year-old deaf caregiver, was in the home when the blaze broke out at 11:15 a.m. In an interview in the house several hours after the one-alarm fire, Patrick described what happened by jotting on a legal pad as she walked through the house.

The kitchen, where the fire began, suffered the most damage. Paint and plaster were peeled from the walls. Dishes, utensils and pans were blackened. The smell of smoke permeated the single-story house.

Patrick, who lives in a converted van parked in front of the home, said she was giving Bach a shot of insulin for her diabetes in Bach’s bathroom when she first smelled smoke.

“I went to the bedroom--saw a cloud of smoke and ran to keep her” in the bathroom, Patrick said.

She then slammed shut the door of the bathroom, which is accessible only through Bach’s bedroom, and closed the bedroom door to keep the smoke away from Bach before heading to the kitchen.

Patrick ran to the phone in the kitchen and, with flames shooting over her head, dialed 911 and left the receiver off the hook in hopes that a dispatcher would trace the call and send emergency crews.

“I had opened the [kitchen] door to let the smoke out and ran back to Tessie to bring her out, but Tess is very difficult to move,” she wrote.

After Patrick got outside, she realized neighbors also had called 911.

Police were first on the scene, and when they arrived neighbors were yelling, “Someone’s in the house, someone’s in the house,” according to Morgan.

As one neighbor sprayed the house with a garden hose, the officers decided to go in. Officer Bob Miller went first, but he came out moments later suffering from smoke inhalation. Morgan, Brisslinger and Gomez then went into the burning home.

After the officers rescued Bach, they brought her out to the front lawn and waited for paramedics and county firefighters, who arrived in about two minutes, Morgan said.

All four officers were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation, Morgan said. Bach and Patrick also suffered smoke inhalation and were taken to St. John’s Regional Medical Center. Patrick was treated and released, while Bach was admitted to the hospital and was listed in fair condition Friday night, a spokeswoman said.

The cause of the fire, which did about $11,000 in damage, is under investigation. A preliminary investigation revealed that the blaze was “cooking-related,” county Fire Department spokeswoman Sandi Wells said.