CBC News
OTTAWA, Canada — An Ottawa bus driver saved four people from an apartment building fire Thursday afternoon.
Peter Paquette was operating his Route 5 OC Transpo bus — which runs between the Billings Bridge and Montfort stops — around 2 p.m. when he spotted dark smoke coming from a window at 160 Lavergne St., in Ottawa’s Vanier neighbourhood, firefighters said.
Paquette, a former volunteer firefighter who has worked as a bus driver for about 12 years, stopped his bus and raced into the three-storey building.
He went broke down the building’s main doors, then went knocking on doors to alert people of the fire. If there was no response, he kicked those doors in, too.
Sandy Maxwell Paquette, Peter’s wife, said he told her the halls were filling with smoke and that alarms were going off, but the residents were staying in their apartments.
“He said he sent a male out and had to drag a woman and say, ‘Follow me.’ … I guess they were in a state of shock,” she said.
Smoke inhalation
Paquette helped get four people and one dog out of the building. As he made his final exit from the smoky building firefighters were arriving on the scene.
Paquette was taken to hospital and treated for minor smoke inhalation and a minor foot injury. His wife said Paquette was treated with oxygen and is expected to be released Thursday evening.
One building resident was also taken to hospital for smoke inhalation.
District fire Chief Dean Rousson called Paquette a hero in a news release.
“Oh, I think he’s not going to like that,” his wife said.
“He won’t want the attention, I don’t think. He’d probably be the type to say, ‘What would you do? Wouldn’t you do the same thing?’”
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Copyright 2010 Roll Call, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2010 CBC
All Rights Reserved