By Paul Rioux
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
Copyright 2006 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
Awakening before dawn Thursday in a bedroom choked with smoke, Heather O’Brien opened the door and was knocked back by a wall of flames. Unable to open a window, she called 911 to report the fire at her Covington home, pleading with the operator to send help fast because she was trapped inside, police said.
Coughing violently as she lay on the floor, O’Brien stayed on the line for a couple of minutes and struggled to describe her location in the house before losing consciousness, Covington police Lt. Jack West said.
Moments later, a firefighter and a police officer smashed a window at the front of the East 6th Avenue house and rescued her husband, Benson O’Brien, who was slumped over a sofa in the den with severe burns on his back, police and firefighters said.
A second team of rescuers kicked in the front door and found Heather O’Brien lying next to the bed near her cell phone, which was still connected to 911, Covington Fire Chief Richard Badon said.
“We just barely got there in time,” Badon said. “Another minute and we probably would have been too late.”
Benson O’Brien, 29, who had stopped breathing, has first- and second-degree burns over 28 percent of his body. He was taken to St. Tammany Parish Hospital and was later transferred to the burn unit at Baton Rouge General Medical Center, Badon said.
Heather O’Brien, 30, regained consciousness as she was placed in an ambulance. She is being treated for smoke inhalation at Lakeview Regional Medical Center near Mandeville, where she is in good condition, West said.
Lt. Wade Sharp, the police officer who helped rescue Benson O’Brien, was treated at the scene for smoke inhalation. Hours later, Sharp began coughing uncontrollably and was scheduled to go to a hospital for a chest X-ray that afternoon, West said.
Badon said investigators have not determined what caused the 4:30 a.m. fire at 220 E. 6th Ave. off Jahncke Avenue. He said firefighters responding to the scene were slowed by dense fog and heavy smoke blanketing the area.
“There were no visible flames and you couldn’t see the house numbers, so it was hard to figure out which house was on fire,” he said. “There was so much smoke that it seemed like the whole block was burning.”
The fire started in the living room and had spread to the kitchen before firefighters extinguished it about 10 minutes after their arrival, Badon said.
He said Heather O’Brien was rescued by firefighters Steven Michell and Joey Cacioppo. Firefighter Gary Blocker worked with Sharp to rescue Benson O’Brien.
“The smoke was extremely heavy,” Blocker said. “After we broke the window, there was just enough light to see the silhouette of a body.”
Blocker and Sharp, who were not wearing respirators, climbed through the window and had to come back for air once before they were able to carry O’Brien to safety.
“I can’t say enough about my guys and the police officers,” Badon said. “Everywhere they could find a place to get inside the building safely, they did it.”
In 1997, Sharp was awarded the Police Department’s Medal of Valor after he rescued a man and his dog from a burning second-floor apartment at the River Oaks complex on Lurline Drive.
The 911 operator asked Heather O’Brien to describe where she was in the house from the perspective of someone standing in the front yard, West said.
“In the middle of all the confusion, she gave us a description from her perspective inside the house,” he said. “Everything was reversed, so we started searching on the other side of the house from where she was.”
He said this turned out to be fortunate because it led rescuers to discover her husband, whose condition was more dire.
“We didn’t even know anyone else was in the house, and we never would have found him in time if we hadn’t started the search on that side of the house,” West said. “She made a mistake, but it ended up saving her husband’s life.”
Noting that the house had no smoke alarms, Badon urged residents to install smoke detectors in their homes and to check the batteries regularly.
“For $12 you can get a darn good smoke detector that could save your life,” he said. “I’d say that’s a pretty good return on your investment.”