Annie Hagwood with William Gardner & Arthur Cherry.
Two teens helped two women out of their homes as flames leapt from an Orchard Street house on Mother’s Day, moments after one of the women’s relatives had left a 73rd birthday party in her honor.
The fire started on an exterior first-floor wall of 390 Orchard, near the corner of Edgewood and part of the Kensington Square housing complex, around 2:45 p.m.
William Gardner, a 16-year-old student at Hyde School who lives on the block, had just bought a pineapple soda at Shop Smart at Edgewood and Orchard. He was coming out of the store when he saw the flames and smoke.
His friend Arthur Cherry, a 17-year-old student at ACES Whitney North, was across the street at the Ethan Gardens complex, where both he and Gardner live. His aunt told him people needed help getting out of the burning house.
Firefighters had not yet arrived.
Both boys ran to the house. Along with a 43-year-old neighbor named Shawn Douglas, they banged on the front door. No one answered. It was locked.
They ran through smoke and past flames up a ramp to the side of the house. The door there was open. They ran in.
They found a woman in her doorway, frightened amid the smoke.
First they lifted their shirts over their mouths and noses. (They’re shown demonstrating afterwards in the photo.) Then they grabbed the woman by the arm and brought her outside and to safety.
The boys were then directed next door, where they found 73-year-old Annie Hagwood lying on a bed. Smoke was coming in to her apartment, which is in the rear of the building and right next to the house on fire.
Hagwood’s family had left her house 10 minutes earlier. Sunday was her birthday; they had brought her a cake and had a little party.
Hagwood, who is confined to a wheelchair, needed help to get out. The boys helped her get up. They brought one of her wheelchairs outside the apartment. The helped her walk out to the wheelchair.
She sat in it, relieved, as firefighters arrived and tackled the flames in front of a crowd of neighbors on both sides of Orchard.
Twenty-five firefighters came to the scene, according to Acting West Battalion Chief Billy Gould.
They found that the occupants of the two-and-a-half story house had safely left already.
The firefighters took about 10 minutes to douse the flames.
They went inside, opened some walls, and succeeded in keeping the one-alarm fire, which had begun on the exterior of the house, from spreading, Gould said. It was too early to determine a cause. Gould said he was hopeful all the families would be able to return to their homes later in the day.
The first woman the boys ushered out from the burning house watched from a next-door porch. She confirmed the boys had come to her rescue. She declined to be identified or photographed. (“I have enough going on right now,” she explained.) She was asked about how she felt about the fire occurring on Mother’s Day. “Every day is Mother’s Day,” she replied.
As Annie Hagwood praised the two teens, they were asked if they’d like to become firefighters one day.
They have other plans, they said. William Gardner, who runs track and plays football at Hyde, is aiming for a career in sports. Arthur Cherry’s goal: To become a choreographer.
After Sunday, he has a scene involving flames and fleeing people to draw on.