By Burt Constable
The Chicago Daily Herald
GURNEE, Ill. — The Moon family had just pulled away from home on their way to a Friday night gathering when Ben Moon spotted smoke coming from a six-story condominium across the street in the Heather Ridge community of Gurnee.
“I just knew there would be people in there, older people, slow-moving people,” said Moon, 38. While his wife, Michelle, used her cell phone to call 911, Moon sprinted into the smoking building.
“You could smell it right when you walked in,” said Moon, who immediately pulled the fire alarm at 6:46 p.m. and then went door-to-door in the building at 920 Vose Drive.
“He was knocking on doors telling people they had to get out,” Gurnee Fire Department Battalion Chief Tim Panner said of Moon. “It was important for him to that” because no one was in the fifth-floor unit where the fire started, and the fire could have spread by the time residents discovered it or buildingwide alarms sounded.
Running from floor to floor, Moon said he saw smoke by the time he reached the third-floor hallway.
“The fourth floor was worse, and the fifth floor was really bad,” said Moon, an engineering technician with Sundyne Electromagnetic in Pleasant Prairie, Wis. “By the door (of the unit on fire), I could barely see my hand in front of my face.”
Not everyone could get out on their own.
“A lady who couldn’t walk very well, I took her down a half a flight of stairs and then went back to knock on doors,” Moon said, noting firefighters later took her the rest of the way.
“Everybody got out safely because Ben was knocking on
the doors,” said Kat York, 61, another neighbor who was walking her dog when she saw the drama unfold.
“He’s a hero,” Michelle Moon said, noting that their daughter, Shelbee, was very worried about her dad.
“I wanted to go in with him. I was mad sitting in the car,” said the 16-year-old junior at Warren Township High School. “I was just praying and hoping he would come out with the other people, too.”
Firefighters wearing masks and using the hoses inside the building quickly extinguished the fire. No one was injured, Panner said. But firefighters stayed on the scene for more than three hours as about three dozen residents, most of them senior citizens, were escorted to a clubhouse and lobby in nearby buildings, Moon said.
Moon’s wife and daughter grabbed chairs and helped escort people across the street.
“There were some people who couldn’t walk across the street,” Michelle Moon said, noting that another neighbor ferried those folks in a minivan.
While Michelle Moon posted a note on Facebook about her husband’s heroism, she added the he didn’t need the recognition, “Giving the gift of help to someone truly in need was plenty enough,” Michelle Moon wrote.
When her father finally came out 20 minutes later, Shelbee Moon said, he seem unfazed by the physical stress.
“He’s got a little gut, but he is in pretty decent shape.” she said with a chuckle.
Some of the residents might have been hesitant to answer the door because of a recent shooting in the neighborhood, Moon said.
“I’d be a little nervous with some guy banging on the door,” Moon said. “I wasn’t being all gentle. I was trying to rush.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation, but people were allowed back into the building once the smoke cleared. The fire damaged one unit and caused some damage to the patio above it, Panner said.
While his wife praised him as a hero, Moon didn’t say anything to co-workers when he went to work Saturday. He didn’t even talk about it much on Friday night when firefighters left and the Moons returned home.
“After that,” Moon said. “I came home, took a shower and went to bed.”
Copyright 2010 Paddock Publications, Inc.