COMMACK, N.Y. — Trusting his instincts after neighbors insisted the only occupant of a burning house was a dog, the Commack fire chief rescued not only a German shepherd but a woman trapped upstairs, authorities said.
The call reporting smoke spewing out of a house on Comanche Lane came at about 10:30 p.m. Saturday. Within six minutes, Commack Fire Department volunteers were there, said Chief Salvatore Formica.
Neighbors of 6 Comanche Lane told Formica no one was home except for a dog. They told him they had knocked on the door repeatedly but no one had answered.
Yet Formica said he had a feeling that wasn’t true.
“I’m saying to myself there’s a car in the driveway and it’s almost 11 at night,” he said yesterday. “Something wasn’t right.”
After kicking in the front door, Formica said he saw a large German Sheperd penned in the kitchen area and immediately knew the dog wasn’t alone.
“I saw a shadow on the second floor,” he said. “I heard a faint cry, someone saying ‘help me, help me.’”
The woman, 40, seemed “dazed and confused,” Formica said.
She was bleeding from an apparent head injury and her hands and arms were covered in blood, Formica said. She draped her arm around his neck and he guided her down the stairs and outside to safety.
“I don’t even know her name,” he said. “She told me she was smoking.” Efforts to reach the unidentified woman yesterday were unsuccessful.
She was transported to St. Catherine of Siena Hospital in Smithtown while Formica and his crew contained the fire within 15 minutes.
Suffolk police’s arson investigators will determine the fire’s cause, Formica said.
Formica yesterday said he simply “put two and two together,” when he thought there was more than a dog inside.
“The dog’s in great shape,” he said. “He was running around and barking.”
Copyright 2008 Newsday, Inc.