By Rick McCrabb
Journal-News
BUTLER COUNTY, Ohio — Brandon Richendollar, a son of a Florida firefighter, doesn’t consider himself a hero.
Instead, he just reacted like he was trained growing up.
This summer, Richendollar, who lives in an apartment above Meeker Plumbing in the 700 block of Charles Street in Middletown, smelled smoke. When he left his apartment and walked down the stairwell, he saw that someone had stuffed mail from the four apartments into one mailbox and lit the papers on fire.
He quickly poured water on the burning mail. Then he returned to his apartment, unsure who or why someone would start a fire.
Ten minutes later, Richendollar, 30, and his fiance, Robin Waldridge, 30, heard the smoke detector going off in the hallway. He ran out of the apartment, turned the corner and saw a baby stroller that was sitting near the top of the steps on fire. He checked to make sure there was no baby in the stroller, then pushed it down the stairs and out an open door behind the complex.
He grabbed a two-liter of water and doused the carpet that was on fire and banged on the apartment doors, notifying residences to evacuate the building.
“He acted faster than I did,” Waldridge said. “He just reacted.”
There were nine people in the apartment building at the time, and landlord Dan Tracy wonders what may have happened to the property if not for Richendollar’s quick actions.
“At first I was like, ‘That kid saved me from another burning building,’ ” said Tracy, who has suffered four major fires in his 30 years in the rental business.
Later, he realized Richendollar, who works at The Stand on Verity Parkway, may have done more than protect an 80-year-old structure from an arsonist.
“He had common sense,” Tracy said. “There were people who had a high risk of dying. He should be recognized for what he did.”
Then Tracy added: “He did the right thing.”
As a token of his appreciation, Tracy waived the rest of Richendollar’s rent that month.
When Middletown police investigated the fires, they viewed footage from a surveillance camera that Tracy had placed in the hallway. Police said the camera showed Laura Lee Pankratz, 41, who lived in Apartment 3, setting the baby stroller on fire.
Later in the video, police said, Pankratz was seen throwing a cigarette in a hallway closet, attempting to catch the cardboard and paper on fire.
“She looked so cold,” said Tracy, who viewed the video with police."She looked at the fire, walked into her apartment and it was like she said, ‘Oh well, I’ll wait until it takes over.’”
Pankratz was arrested that night and charged with aggravated arson. She told police she set the fires because she was upset with Tracy.
She was indicted of the felonious charge on Aug. 19, and the case was sent to the Butler County Grand Jury. She pleaded guilty to a lesser charge that has a maximum sentence of 18 months in jail and a $500 fine. She will be sentenced on Dec. 17, according to the Butler County court records.
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(c)2015 the Journal-News (Hamilton, Ohio)
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