By Marnie Eisenstadt and Nancy Buczek
The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)
Copyright 2006 Post-Standard
All Rights Reserved.
Mario Russo and Chris Barrella were watching the end of a movie just after 2 a.m. Tuesday when they heard screaming from outside the Briggs Street house they share in Syracuse.
Russo said he heard his neighbor, Marlene Ruggieri, yell for water because her house was on fire. Russo looked out the window and saw flames shooting from the porch of 153 Briggs St., so he called 911. But with the next yell for help, Russo and Barrella decided they couldn’t wait for the firetrucks to come.
“She was saying, “My kids are inside,”’ Russo said. Reports from the Syracuse police recount Russo’s story, as well.
The 37-year-old ran upstairs, threw on some shoes and a sweat shirt, and ran across the street with Barrella. Russo went to a first-floor side window and Barrella went to the back door.
Russo pushed an air conditioner into the window, then hauled himself up the ledge of the open window.
With his legs still on the sill, he crawled into the thick, black smoke.
There, in front of him, was 5-year-old Kalin Watts. “The kid ran into my arms,” Russo said Tuesday afternoon, standing in front of the boarded-up window where he had plucked the little boy hours before.
As Russo slid through the window, Barrella was at the back of the house. He said he couldn’t see through the smoke, but walked into it, yelling for anyone who was still left inside. Then he heard Russo yell that he had the boy.
Russo, who works with homeless men at the Oxford Inn, and Barrella, a construction worker, said they didn’t think about the risk to their own lives as they entered the burning house.
“I don’t think anyone would think about it,” Russo said. “Isn’t that what anyone would do?”
“I was just thinking about the kid,” said Barrella, 29.
In front of the house Tuesday afternoon, a green coloring book and a child’s bike lay among scraps of blackened wood and insulation.
Kalin, his two siblings and a friend got out safely, as did Ruggieri, according to police.
Norah Essi, who lives in the other apartment in the house, was able to get out safely with her child
Syracuse fire Investigator Ken Heffernan said his office is still investigating the cause of the blaze. It was unclear Tuesday whether an arcing electrical wire that fell off the house or fireworks on the roof caused the blaze, Heffernan said.
Firefighters from six Syracuse companies were dispatched at 2:47 a.m. to the fire. A live electrical wire had come unattached from the house and was on the ground by the front door when firefighters arrived, Heffernan said. That caused additional problems for firefighters, he said. National Grid shut off power to the house.
Several people told police they saw or heard fireworks just before they saw the flames. Amber Butler, of 154 Briggs St., told police she looked out a window after hearing a loud popping noise and saw some type of rocket firework lodged near the satellite dish on the porch of 153 Briggs St., according to the police report. Russo and another neighbor also told police they heard fireworks around the time of the fire.
Fireworks are illegal in New York state, but sales are legal in other states.
Tom Ruggieri, Marlene Ruggieri’s father and the owner of the home, said his daughter and her children are doing OK, but they won’t be able to get back into the house for a while.
“As far as I’m concerned, my Fourth of July is ruined,” he said Tuesday afternoon.
The damage to the home is covered by insurance, and Ruggieri said he already had people at the home Tuesday to begin rebuilding it.
The roof and siding on the house next door at 155 Briggs St. were also damaged because of the intense heat of the fire, according to police reports.