By Mark Gomez
The San Jose Mercury News
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Two Santa Clara University students who woke up suddenly to crackling flames and thick smoke jumped to safety from their second-story apartment building this morning.
Nick Cheadle, a senior sociology student who is set to graduate in about three weeks, was startled by his beeping fire alarm sometime around 4:30 a.m. He found his “living room filled with smoke’’ and front door engulfed in flames.
Cheadle dashed to his bedroom, threw on some sweatpants and grabbed his “Nature of Math” project due later this week.
He then headed to his balcony, climbed over a wooden ledge, and dangled as close as he could to the ground, before dropping to soft grass.
Santa Clara firefighters responded to the fire at the Park Central Apartments at 1050 Benton Street at 4:37 a.m. Fire spokesman Dave Parker said a woman, also a university student, who lives across the hallway from Cheadle, also jumped out of her second story window, suffering only a sore ankle and light abrasions.
Parker said only the two apartments were affected and no one else was hurt.
Arson investigators are on scene, but have not released what might have started the fire.
Cheadle is glad he’s alive and not hurt. But the fire is the last thing he needed this week, as he’s almost set to graduate. He’s got two exams, a presentation to give and of course, his math project, which took him at least 20 hours to construct full of elaborate paper displays, which he had carefully arranged in a paper bag that he was able to grab and save.
“Luckily, that was right on my desk,’' he said.
Cheadle is now hoping he can return to his apartment and see if his laptop hasn’t melted or been destroyed. His Power Point is on it.
“Hopefully, I can get in there and get my presentation,’' he said. “Then I won’t be too angry.’'
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