Published July 14, 2008 11:11 pm - A walk to Walgreen’s for a carton of cookies-and-cream ice cream may have saved a man’s life Monday night.
Ice cream saves life
Passer-by alerts police to apartment fire; sleeping man rescued
By SHELLEY TERRY - Staff Writer - sterry@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon
ASHTABULA — A walk to Walgreen’s for a carton of cookies-and-cream ice cream may have saved a man’s life Monday night.
Randy Cassidy of Ashtabula saw smoke at 9 p.m. blowing out of the second-story, rear window of S&B Floor Covering Carpet, 4127 Main Ave.
“I saw smoke and called the cops,” Cassidy said, noting he believes he knows the man who lives in the upstairs apartment. “I was concerned.”
Firefighters were able to immediately respond to the scene since the fire was almost right across the street from the fire station.
They quickly gained access to the apartment with a lift from the ladder truck and onto the roof of Magic Mirror Styling Salon, which is adjacent to the carpet store. Firefighters discovered a smoking saucepan left cooking on the stove, while the male tenant man slept in bed.
“They saw him inside,” Ashtabula City Fire Capt. Mark Dalton said. “There was pretty heavy smoke inside the apartment.”
The man, wrapped only in a bed sheet, appeared unharmed from the window but a great deal of smoke billowed out of the apartment’s windows.
Firefighters brought the man down to Main Avenue with the ladder truck to an awaiting Community Care Ambulance and emergency personnel. He was transported to Ashtabula County Medical Center.
“Lucky we walked by,” Cassidy said. “Cookies-and-cream ice-cream saved the day.”
A small crowd gathered across the street from the brick flooring store to watch the firefighters, who threw the smoking saucepan out of the second-story window and ventilated the apartment with a large fan.
In the end, damage to the apartment was minimal, Dalton said.
“(The tenant) will probably be able to move back in as soon as he gets out of the hospital,” he said.