By T.J. Pignataro and Lou Michel
The Buffalo News
BUFFALO, N.Y. — A neighbor is being credited with risking her life Monday to rescue a couple in their 60s from their burning apartment in the Kenfield/Langfield Homes on the city’s East Side.
Tina Mickel, who lives next door to the couple, crawled into the smoke-filled apartment to pull out the woman and then went back inside to rescue the man.
“They’re great people — salt of the earth; the kind of people who would help anyone,” Mickel said of Peggy Carr, 63, and Clarence “Buddy” Counts, 65. “I was going in to get them out.”
The couple remained in critical condition late Monday in Erie County Medical Center, where they were being treated for severe burns and smoke inhalation.
Buffalo firefighters responded to 249 Oakmont Ave. at 2:17 p.m. for a reported fire in Apartment 468, which was occupied by Carr and Counts.
Mickel, 57, realized that something was wrong when she heard an alarm sounding nearby. Mickel and another neighbor went to Apartment 468 and found the door there locked. She said smoke was coming out of the mail slot and window frames.
That’s when they sent a teenage girl named Sabrina to the office of the manager, who returned with a key to open the door.
Mickel said they were met with some resistance upon opening the door because both Carr and Counts were on the floor just inside the doorway. But they forced open the door, she said, and Mickel crawled in and grabbed the woman.
“I didn’t see any fire, but the smoke was so thick, you couldn’t see a foot in front of you,” Mickel said. “I went in and hoisted [Carr] up.”
She quickly passed Carr to other waiting neighbors who carried her out of the burning apartment as Mickel said she grabbed Counts and began pulling him by the legs through the doorway.
Division Chief Scott N. Barry said that when he arrived at the blaze, the man and woman were unconscious and already on the sidewalk outside the apartment.
“I asked how these two unconscious individuals were able to get to the sidewalk, and people in the neighborhood reported that the lady next door had gone in and got them,” Barry said.
The victims were taken by ambulance to ECMC.
Mickel, who said Carr had just been in her apartment visiting less than 30 minutes before the fire, downplayed herself as a hero, saying she was only helping her friends.
Barry has a different take on the rescue, however.
“What she did was crawl in about 4 feet to get the first person, and she dragged that person out. Then she crawled back in about 10 feet with heavy smoke venting over her head to get the second person, who is disabled,” Barry said. “If it turns out that these people live, it will be because of her, and my hat is off to her.”
“They say Buffalo is the City of Good Neighbors, and I think this woman is a sterling example of that,” Barry said of Mickel.
In describing just how dangerous fires are in these small brick and steel apartments at the public housing project, Barry explained that heat builds up quickly inside them and that “it’s kind of like an oven.”
The building is a two-story brick structure. The fire Monday started on the first floor and spread to the second, fire officials said.
Engine 23 firefighters were the first to arrive, at about 2:20 p.m. They began battling the fire, while other firefighters provided first aid, including oxygen to the victims.
Fire Lt. Christopher A. Ray reported “heavy black smoke” coming from the apartment.
By approximately 3 p.m., fire officials declared the fire out; the cause remains under investigation. Damage to the apartment was estimated at $50,000.
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