By Carlos Sadovi and Kristen Schorsch
The Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — After locking up his attic apartment at about midnight Thursday, Thomas Pagan laid his head on a pillow when he smelled something burning.
Pagan, 24, opened the door leading to an enclosed back porch of the two-story brick home in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood and saw huge flames.
“It was like 120 degrees,” Pagan said. “It was really hot. I woke my girlfriend up and said, ‘There’s a fire.’”
The blaze kept them from escaping through the back door, so they headed for the front window, pushed an air-conditioning unit out the window and smashed the glass. A barefoot Pagan climbed onto a pitched roof and coaxed girlfriend Jessica LaPorta, six months’ pregnant, to follow him while he called 911.
Though he couldn’t see much through the smoke billowing from the house, Pagan said he could make out beams of light from flashlights below.
“The cops and everybody were saying, ‘Hold on, they’re coming, they’re coming,’” Pagan said. “Sure enough, I heard the clank of the ladder from the firemen.”
The smoke was so intense Pagan couldn’t see the ladder and had to feel for it with his foot. He started climbing down first and had LaPorta, 24, follow him so he could try to catch her if she fell.
They were safe, but one floor below, Pagan’s grandmother, Patricia Policky, 70, and his uncle, Richard Policky, 44, had perished. Another relative, Robert Policky, had his lungs badly burned from the heat and smoke after trying to pull his mom from the flames, family members said.
Fire officials continue to investigate the cause of the blaze they say likely started in the back porch. Police sources say the fire appeared to be accidental.
Neighbors said the blaze swept through the house in the 2700 block of South Keeler Avenue so fast those who survived were lucky.
“We could feel the heat from over here,” said Amanda Knych, 25, who lives across the street.
The smell of charred brick and siding was still thick Thursday as a demolition crew tore through the remains of the home. A house next door also sustained fire and smoke damage.
Another neighbor, Maribel Arroyo, 36, said she usually wakes up around midnight to feed her 3-month-old, Ivanna, but this time she heard sirens. She looked outside and saw flames.
“I told (my husband), ‘We’ve got to get out as soon as possible,’” Arroyo said.
Family members and friends gathered at the south suburban Summit home of Jennifer Novak, one of Patricia Policky’s daughters. They shared stories about their loved ones who perished in the fire and expressed hope for those hospitalized.
Robert Policky, 52, was in critical condition in the burn unit of Stroger Hospital, said his sister, Jennifer Novak. LaPorta, also at Stroger, was resting comfortably after doctors gave her medicine to stop contractions she started having after escaping the fire.
Patricia Policky, who lived in her home for about 40 years, was the matriarch of a family that not only included her four children and dozens of grandchildren, nieces and nephews but also the neighborhood kids who sought a refuge from the streets, said Novak, 39.
“Everyone called her Ma,” Novak said. “She was a staple in the neighborhood.”
Her house was full of owl figurines and she loved bingo and sequins, family members said. Her son, Richard, was a Cubs fan who always calmed down any feuding family members and friends.
“I can’t go there anymore,” said Richard Policky’s son, Richard Policky Jr., 24.
Funeral services are pending.
Copyright 2009 Chicago Tribune Company