Neighbors, Rescuers Save Children in Chicago Fire

May 28--Adrenaline continued to pump through Areal Delacruz's body long after the blaze that gutted an apartment building in his Edgewater neighborhood had been put out.

Delacruz, 21, was among a handful of good Samaritans who came to the rescue Sunday when a four-story apartment building in the 6100 block of North Kenmore Avenue caught fire, trapping dozens inside.

Eight residents, six firefighters and one police officer were hospitalized with minor injuries after the fire broke out, Chicago Fire Department officials said. More than 150 firefighters and 20 vehicles responded about 11 a.m. to find people hanging out of windows.

But by that time, neighbors had already rushed to their aid.

With the help of a friend, Delacruz carried several children to safety as their parents passed them through a window on the second floor.

"We were in the right place at the right time," he said. "I'm still shaking."

Delacruz and Ernest Prentic, 24, who lives on Kenmore just south of the scene of the fire, walked outside Sunday morning to screams for help and spewing smoke, the two men said. As they approached the fire, they also spotted a man holding a baby out of a second-story window.

Delacruz and Prentic ran to help. Prentic climbed to the top of an adjoining structure to get close enough to the window, he said. With a man Prentic believed to be their father handing the children through the window, he passed them to Delacruz on the ground below.

"It was a blur," said Prentic, sweating later as temperatures climbed in to the 90s Sunday afternoon. "But I think there were five babies."

"They were all crying," he said, as a toddler, in his diaper and bare feet, raced in circles around TV crews on the sidewalk opposite the building's scorched facade.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, and the Fire Department is still trying to determine if the building had working smoke detectors, officials said.

The fire's only fatality was a dog that paramedics were not able to save, neighbors said. While no one was critically injured, the fire left dozens of the building's residents temporarily homeless.

District Chief Timothy Sampey said it could have been much worse.

"The firefighters definitely did a phenomenal job ... even the civilians were very helpful," Sampey said. "It saved on many more casualties that could have happened."

Firefighters rescued 28 people and several pets from the burning building, Sampey said.

Jon Fajardo, 29, was among 13 people who escaped by climbing down the firefighters' ladders. "There was smoke everywhere," Fajardo said after he was reunited with his girlfriend, Jaime Barber, 31.

Barber, who was not home Sunday morning when the fire broke out, was relieved. Fajardo was unharmed, and her 10-year-old Jack Russell named China would recover.

"The firefighters are heroes," she said. "They went back for China; she's my baby."

Mark Blackburn, 25, was visiting a friend when he looked out the first-floor window and saw the smoke. He stuck his head outside and craned his neck to see a baby in a car seat dangling from above.

"The smoke was thick. They were holding the baby out so (the baby) could breathe," he said, pointing to the second-story window frame, by then charred black. "I could hear them calling out for help."

Blackburn climbed on a cement overhang that juts out over the building's entrance and covered parking below and reached up to take the child safely from the father.

Shortly after the fire had been struck out, he stood shirtless in the heat behind police tape while crews continued to work on the scene.

"I know a lot of people lost their things, but nobody died," Blackburn said, still smiling with pride. "I wouldn't mind being a firefighter."

efmeyer@tribune.com

Copyright 2012 - Chicago Tribune