Spent the morning at the deadly fire. This is what I filed:
GARY DIMMOCK
OTTAWA CITIZEN
Lynn Legault, a nurse who cared for the elderly, died in her apartment after fire swept up the stairwell of a three-storey walk-up in working-class Gatineau Thursday.
Her oldest daughter arrived at the burnt-out apartment building hours after the 3:30 a.m. fire when friends, and then the police, confirmed the worst.
It was Legault who didn’t make it out of the early morning fire that is now under police investigation.
“She was a real sweetheart. She was always helping people. We became good friends living here,” said Pierre Trottier, her next-door neighbour in Apt. 31 at 50 Robinson St.
They first met when Legault was throwing out an old television set. She offered it to him, and they became fast friends, watching hockey together, on her new flatscreen TV. She cheered for the Sens and the Montreal Canadiens, and her favourite player was Habs right-winger Rene Bourque.
She shared everything from food to cigarettes, and always made a point out of thanking someone who had helped her. For Trottier, it was a takeout chicken dinner for the time he had painted her apartment.
Trottier awoke to a fire alarm around 3:30 a.m. and then saw smoke when he opened his door. He escaped down the back stairs.
“I thought she was already out. In a certain way, I feel a big guilt trip,” said Trotter, 33.
Some neighbours in the apartment building said they heard a woman calling for help. By this time, the building’s front stairwell was completely on fire. Firefighters managed to rescue Legault, but she was pronounced dead at hospital.
Bruno Grenon woke up around 3:30 a.m. to the smell of smoke. He figured someone didn’t put out a cigarette properly or his roommate was using the stove in their second-storey apartment.
Grenon, 34, touched his door before opening it. It was lukewarm and he opened it only to see flames in the stairwell ‘not even a foot away,’ he said.
He shut the door, ran to the bathroom and wet a towel then shoved it under the apartment door to keep the smoke from coming in.
He then woke up his roommate and a friend, yelling that there was a fire and for them to get up.
Moments later, smoke from the fire below started billowing into his apartment windows so he shut them.
They were trapped, and wanted to let responding firefighters, paramedics and police that were still up in the apartment so they started banging on the windows for help.
“I was pounding on the window trying to get somebody’s attention,” Grenon recalled.
Paramedics and firefighters couldn’t get up the fully engulfed stairwell, so they used an aerial ladder to rescue the trapped tenants.
“I have to lift my hats off to the firefighters who got us out. I thanked them and I’ll be thanking them again,” said Grenon.
Grenon, who works in construction, said everything he lost — including a $4,000 homemade gaming computer — is ‘just material stuff’ given the fact he, like some 20 others, cheated death.
Gatineau Police and firefighters are investigating to see if the fire was deliberately set. Investigators know that the fire started in the basement but they have yet to conclude how it ignited.
Some residents said they couldn’t hear the fire alarms because of the building’s fire doors at the lobby, which is being credited for keeping the fire contained to the stairwell at the front entrance.
Alain Prud’homme, 44, was one of the tenants who couldn’t hear the alarm. He was awake playing video games at 3:30 a.m. when he smelled smoke. He ran out of his first-storey apartment and grabbed a fire extinguisher. He ran to the front of the building’s front entrance and started using the fire extinguisher but couldn’t see the flames because there was too much smoke. Seconds later, the police arrived and told him to get away. Then firefighters arrived and worked hard to bring the deadly fire under control.
A firefighter was assessed by paramedics on the scene for exhaustion, but returned to fight the fire.
Two other residents taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation were later released.
The displaced tenants are now staying at a nearby hotel courtesy of the Red Cross. They have also been given vouchers for a buffet restaurant, where they can eat for free for the next three days.
gdimmock@ottawacitizen.com“>gdimmock@ottawacitizen.com
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