THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 12, 1995 TAG: 9511120111
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
Sgt. Brian Robertson didn't hesitate when a 12-year-old boy ran up to his police car at 4 o'clock Saturday morning yelling that his uncle's house was on fire.
Robertson, 36, radioed for help and then bolted to the burning townhome, where he found two more children on a roof. He helped them down and then, braving smoke, heat and spreading flames, kicked in a door and ran inside to rescue a 34-year-old man.
``The fire was rolling,'' said Mike Wade, a fire department spokesman who credited Robertson with saving the man's life. ``He didn't have a lot of time.''
Robertson, a 14-year veteran of the police force, was on routine patrol when a call came in about a fight in the Northridge area.
Another police unit was given the call, and Robertson responded to assist. Before he could reach the scene, however, ``I saw a young boy running down an alleyway between two fences'' behind the 5200 block of Richard Road.
Robertson turned a spotlight on the boy, who quickly threw his arms in the air and came running up to the police car, yelling that his home was on fire.
``At that time, you couldn't see the fire, but there was a little smoke in the air,'' Robertson said. He radioed for help and then followed the boy, Derrick Hughes, 12, back down the alley.
As they approached the boy's home, ``I could see the kitchen was on fire and there were a couple (of) kids on the patio roof.''
Alerted to the fire downstairs by a smoke detector, five boys had escaped the smoke-filled house through an upstairs window. Three of them were able to jump to safety on their own. Robertson helped the last two climb down from the roof.
``The kitchen was going pretty good by this time,'' Robertson said, and the flames were spreading.
Robertson quizzed the five boys, Derrick Hughes and his brothers, Adam, 15, Antonio, 14, Dione, 13 and Milton, 10.
``I asked them if there was anyone else in the house, but they said there wasn't,'' Robertson said. Concerned that in the panic of the moment they may have overlooked someone, he asked specifically about their parents, sisters and brothers.
They insisted that they had been home alone.
With that, ``I ran around the front of the house and started knocking on doors on either side to let people know there was a fire and it was spreading rather quickly.''
Still concerned that someone might be in the burning townhome, he went to a front window and peered inside. Smoke filled the air inside, and it was hard to see anything clearly, but ``I saw what looked like a human figure sitting down or kneeling on the living room floor,'' Robertson said.
He knocked on the window. ``I could see that it was moving,'' he said of the figure. ``I screamed that the house was on fire, which was pretty obvious by then. But I didn't get a response.''
Robertson smashed a window and yelled again. This time, ``the person inside screamed, `My house is on fire! My house is on fire!' '' But the man appeared confused, Robertson said, and incapable of getting out.
Robertson kicked open the front door and ran inside.
``He . . . didn't know what the hell was going on . . . he was dazed,'' Robertson said. ``I grabbed him by the arm and pushed him out the door.''
Robertson ran back in the house a second time. ``I was only in there a few seconds,'' he recalled. ``The smoke was so thick and the heat was so intense I could only stand it a few seconds.''
Robertson yelled again to see if anyone else was inside but heard nothing over the noise of the fire. He retreated outside, where other officers and fire units were arriving.
The man who had been inside, Lynwood Hughes, was treated for smoke inhalation. He is the boys' uncle.
Robertson downplayed his own injuries. ``It's very minor smoke inhalation - they gave me 10 to 15 minutes of oxygen at the scene - and there's a little burn on my face and hand.'' His hair was singed, too.
``It's nothing to keep me from work,'' said Robertson, who went back on duty for his scheduled shift late Saturday.
Wade said that while the boys thought they were alone, Lynwood Hughes had been asked by his sister to babysit her children while she tended to another urgent family matter.
Although the townhome was gutted, homes on either side were spared serious damage. ``The firefighters did a heck of a job,'' Wade said.
The cause of the fire was ruled accidental and traced to food left on a stove. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Bill Tiernan, The Virginian-Pilot
Sgt. Bryan Robertson: "The smoke was so thick and the heat so
intense I could only stand it a few seconds."
KEYWORDS: FIRE RESCUE by CNB