Worker risks life in fire at care center

A maintenance worker risked his life to enter a burning room inside a three-story retirement home Monday morning only to discover that the man he was trying to save wasn’t there.

The fire inside the ground-floor room forced the evacuation of an entire wing of the 140-resident Riverview Retirement Community, 1801 E. Upriver Drive. Fire Chief Bobby Williams said one resident suffered minor smoke inhalation, but he didn’t believe the injury was serious enough to require medical attention at a hospital.

The fire was contained to room 172, but smoke filled the adjoining rooms and the length of the first-floor hallway, said Scott Crafton, a 25-year-old maintenance worker who responded to the 9:30 a.m. fire alarm.

Crafton said he first tried to go down the hallway to the room, but smoke in the main corridor was so thick he could see only about 2 feet. Instead, he grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran outside to the window of the burning room.

“I pried the window open and started shooting it with the fire extinguisher,” Crafton said. “I crawled in the window and called out his name but I got no response. I got about two steps before I was engulfed in flames and I had to get out.”

As other staffers handed him four more fire extinguishers, a nurse’s aide yelled at Crafton and told him that the man was not home.

“Luckily he wasn’t in there,” Crafton said. “I wouldn’t have been able to get him out.”

Once outside, Crafton and other staffers then pulled out windows and entered the smoke-filled rooms adjacent to the burning unit. He and another staffer pulled a woman out of each unit.

“They didn’t know what was going on,” Crafton said. “They were trying to go back in and get their walkers. We said, ‘No. We’ll get you new ones.’ “

The staff already had the evacuations under way when fire crews arrived, Williams said. They called for at least three ambulances and Spokane Transit Authority buses to remain at the scene just in case the fire forced a major evacuation. In the end, none was needed.

Crafton said the fire was coming from an electronically adjustable bed and it spread from there, melting a television and burning drapes.

Williams said a fire investigator was on scene.

The remaining fire crews set up gas-powered ventilators to push the smoke from the building so the residents could return.

Patrick O’Neill, president and CEO of Riverview Retirement Community, said his staff evacuated about 45 residents and kept the other residents in their rooms and out of the way of emergency crews.

“The staff did an amazing job. It was just like clockwork,” O’Neill said.

“The residents were calm. I guess all those fire drills paid off.”