Man rescued from Tuesday fire in fair condition

RACINE — A Racine man rescued from the balcony of his burning apartment was in fair condition Wednesday at Columbia St. Mary’s Burn Center in … Read more

RACINE — It was a sleepy Tuesday afternoon, so at first Bruce Hansen thought the commotion in the street was just kids horsing around.

Then he went out on his front porch and saw bright orange flames barreling forth from the second-floor window of 1322 Chatham St.

Pete Lui was standing in the corner of his balcony clad in a sweat-soaked T-shirt trying to keep as far as he could from the red hot flames blazing behind him.

“He was just hugging that railing and all the flames were just coming out at him,” said Hansen, 63, who lives across the street.

Lui’s next-door neighbor Sabrina Martinez, 28, called 911 at 2:02 p.m. just seconds after smelling the smoke.

Racine firefighters eventually rescued Lui and transported him to Wheaton Franciscan-All Saints hospital, 3801 Spring St., but between that call and the arrival of fire trucks, neighbors joined Martinez and her husband in an effort to save the man’s life.

A neighbor from down the street grabbed a ladder and Edwardo Martinez climbed it in hopes of getting Lui, who is partially paralyzed, away from the fire.

“I climbed up the ladder, right up to edge of the porch. There was one guy who had a hose on us,” Edwardo Martinez said Tuesday afternoon, still trying to catch his breath. “He was afraid to come down the ladder because he didn’t want to hurt himself or anyone else. He said, ‘I can’t do it.’”

By then the firefighters had arrived.

After quickly setting up, firefighters climbed up to Lui on the balcony. One from the balcony handed Lui to another waiting on the ladder. Then, cradling Lui in his arms like a child, a firefighter made his way down the ladder to the ground.

Later Tuesday afternoon Lui was transferred from Wheaton to the burn unit at Columbia St. Mary’s hospital in Milwaukee, according to a Wheaton spokesperson. Attempts to get information on his condition were unsuccessful Tuesday.

NEIGHBORS’ ATTEMPTS

Edwardo Martinez later said that he inhaled so much smoke during the rescue effort that afterward he “just started throwing up.”

Sabrina Martinez said she and her husband and Dick Pugh, Lui’s landlord, had also tried to enter the house through the door but couldn’t because the smoke was too thick.

“The man was going to die. How do you not go in when you know that?” Sabrina Martinez said, starting to cry. “We know he’s handicapped. He can barely walk.”

While she spoke, close to a dozen firefighters were attacking the blaze. Black smoke billowed from the building, as water cascaded from the roof and the second-floor balcony.

Firefighters were still battling the blaze at 3 p.m., which had been caused by the “careless use of smoking materials,” according to the Racine Fire Department.

The fire caused an estimated $65,000 in structural damage to the house and another $5,000 in damaged content, according to the department. No smoke alarms were found in the building, according to the department press release.

Sitting along the bricks of Hansen’s terraced garden Tuesday, neighbors watched with concern.

The first-floor tenant of the building arrived on scene a few minutes later. Gripping her cell phone, she wept as she was embraced by one of her neighbors.

“We all take care of each other,” Sabrina Martinez said. “That is just the way we work around here.”