Copyright 2006 The San Diego Union-Tribune
By ANGELICA MARTINEZ
The San Diego Union-Tribune
ESCONDIDO, Calif. — Not many people can say they’ve rescued someone from a burning building. Even fewer can say they did it on their first day on the job.
Yesterday morning, Dominick Polito, a firefighter/paramedic with the Escondido Fire Department, did just that.
He pulled to safety a baby and a woman from the second story of an apartment building on fire.
The fire began in the kitchen of a first-floor apartment on South Juniper Street near East 8th Avenue at 3:16 a.m. It spread to an upstairs apartment, where the mother and baby were trapped amid heavy smoke from the fire, said Carol Rea, spokeswoman for the Escondido Fire Department.
When firefighters arrived, they saw the woman leaning out a window, holding her baby out to get it away from the smoke.
“It appeared she was getting ready to jump,” Rea said.
Firefighters extended a ladder to the upstairs apartment to help her out.
Polito climbed up the steps and rescued the two, first the baby, then the mother, Rea said.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze in 20 minutes.
When it was all over, 12 residents -- the mother and child upstairs and 10 people living downstairs -- were displaced.
The cause of the fire is not yet known. It caused $300,000 in damage to both apartments.
The mother and child from the upstairs were taken to a hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation and have since been released, Rea said.
The American Red Cross was called to help the residents, but Rea said all ended up finding temporary shelter with friends or family.