Mar. 7 - Mar. 11: FIRE!!!

Wow...what a week. I am in total shock. There's really no point in boring you with the sordid details of my work week, because there's no way I would remember any of them after the day I had Thursday.

Thursday morning was like any other...I walked to school and taught a couple of my morning classes. Around 12:00 noon, just as I was helping my students complete their phonics work before our lunch break, the school cook ran into the classroom with fear in her eyes, whispering, "Fire!" I rounded up my children, and we walked into the hall, running into the other teachers and students. I calmly lined the children up, and just as I was about to lead them out, the Korean teachers told them all to go get their coats....WHAT??!! So I helped them throw on their coats, thinking that it was probably just a minor fire, considering I didn't see or smell any smoke or hear any fire alarms sounding. I opened the glass door to our school's suite, and was hit with a blast of gray smoke. I looked across the hall to the stairwell, and all I saw was thick, opaque black smoke barrelling up the stairs like an angry chimney.

My first thought was to go down, but one of the Korean teachers yelled that we should go to the roof. I ran to the stairwell's doorway and started helping to direct the teachers and children up the stairs. At one point, one of the babies of the school, a tiny 5-year old named Jennifer, stood frozen in the doorway. I picked her up, and started making our way up the stairs. The smoke was so thick you could not see an inch in front of you, but I was feeling around for the children, making sure they were safely climbing up the stairs as quickly as possible. Jennifer had her face buried into my shoulder, and I did my best to console her while encouraging the children to keep climbing.

The Damaged Stairwell. 

As we are on the sixth floor, we only had to ascend two flights before reaching the building's roof, but it felt like twenty. There was absolutely no oxygen left in the air, and every attempt at taking a breath was in vain. Just as my legs began to weaken and unimaginable thoughts began to flash in my mind, we finally reached the doorway to the roof. We greedily gulped the fresh oxygen while making sure the children were all okay. After I made sure the children were being counted, I realized that one of the teachers was missing. Just as I said a quick prayer before heading back into the building to find her, she came running out of the doorway.

The thick black smoke was billowing out of the air vents and staircases, and we knew we had to get off that roof. We were separated from the neighboring building's roof by a nine foot tall fence topped with barbed wire. My coworker Chris climbed over, and with the help of some Korean guys, we lifted the children up over the fence and into safety. Finally, I climbed over, and we made our way down to the street.

The street was swarming with fire trucks, but not one single paramedic...and we needed oxygen! The firefighters were just watching the fire in awe, not even making an attempt for any search and rescue of anyone trapped inside the building. I was dismayed, but finally we all hopped into one of our school buses and headed for the hospital. The children were all tested for smoke inhalation, and the teacher who was in the building the longest had to be hooked up to an IV most of the day. Finally, around 5:00 pm, after the children were safely back with their mothers, we teachers nervously made our way back to survey the damage at school. Of course, the buiding was not off limits, and the clean-up process had already begun. As we climbed the soaking, black stairwell, we were hit with the pungent smell of smoke. The fourth floor was completely gutted, but amazingly the fire seemed to have been contained there.

The burnt-out remains of the 4th floor. 

Other than the strong smell of smoke and a layer of ash and dust over all surfaces, our school was just as we had left it. We grabbed our bags and jackets and were informed that we would still be having school on Friday by our boss, who wasn't even there that day and did not even see the need to ask if we were okay. Aaahhh...it feels so good to be appreciated, especially after such an intense and traumatic day.

After we left the school, we teachers finally decided to get ourselves tested and treated for the smoke inhalation. We were prescribed medication and breathed in a lovely aromatherapy concoction. I wearily made my way home, through the rain, with way too much on my mind. Friday morning, the school still reeked, and half the children did not come back, but who can blame them?

I am still in shock after what happened. I have never felt so close to death in my entire life. I know now that if we had tried to go down the stairs, which is always your first reaction, we would have been trapped on the fourth floor. I have no doubt that we would have never been able to go back up to the roof from there. I am appalled that there were no smoke alarms, and if it had not have been for our cook seeing the fire trucks outside, we would have kept on teaching. I am angry that the firefighters made no effort to look inside the building to direct people outside. And I am disgusted that my uncaring boss felt the need for us to all come back to school the next morning after the day we had all endured.

All in all, I am very happy that we all made it out not only alive, but in good health. I will never, ever take lightly the sound of a fire alarm again; I will certainly be the first one out the door!

Most of the large windows in the building were blown out.