Comcast Technician Makes Unscheduled Stop
Tech Lends Help, Ladder During Apartment Fire
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 12/8/2008 10:30:00 AM
Six Silver Springs, Md. residents were able to escape their burning apartment building Saturday night, in part due to the assistance of a Comcast technician who stopped to help.
Technician Jorge Rivera, who works in technical operations, said he was traveling to a 10 p.m. appointment in the city Dec. 6 when traffic slowed and he spotted smoke drifting from a building to his right. He saw a group of people trapped on a third-floor balcony who, at that moment, dropped a baby girl to observers below.
"As soon as I saw that baby girl coming down, I stopped and grabbed my ladder," Rivera told Multichannel News. Observers had been unsuccessfully trying to remove a ladder from a parked service truck near the building when Rivera arrived.
With his adrenaline pumping, Rivera said it was like his ladder "weighed nothing” as he and others helped get the people out of harm’s way.
He and other citizen rescuers got the ladder deployed and two more children and several adults climbed down to safety, he said. Some people took pictures or shot video of the fire, he said.
"I'm grateful for the people that actually helped. I'm really proud of them," Rivera said. "We were just reacting."
After the escapees assured Rivera they were unhurt, Rivera actually went to complete the rest of the night's appointments. He notified his supervisor about what had happened and the dispatchers moved some of his jobs to compensate for the time spent on the rescue, he said.
At the next appointment, not far away, the resident said, “Hey, there's a fire over there. Did you know that?" recalled the tech.
Rivera just said "yes" and completed the night's rounds.
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