The Hero Down the Street

By Leila Ugincius

Nineteen-year-old Amina Kaabi wasn't supposed to be home in her Fan apartment the evening of Nov. 4. Her sister, Olfa, was visiting and the two had plans to go to their parents' house in Northern Virginia earlier that day.

It had gotten late, so the sisters decided to stay in Richmond one more night. They spent the evening just hanging out with Kaabi's roommate, Jennifer Dephillips, and a friend, Ashalul Hassan. A little after 11 o’clock they decided to sit out on the front porch.

"I don't even know what made us step out on the porch to be honest," Kaabi, a sophomore at Virginia Commonwealth University, said.

Whatever their reason was quickly forgotten as soon as they got outside. Across the street, Kaabi saw a flicker in a neighbor's window. For a split second, she thought it was candlelight, but then the windows lit up in flames.

Realizing it was a serious fire, the girls called 911. Then Kaabi searched her apartment for a fire extinguisher.

"When I first moved, my mom gave me a fire extinguisher — just in case," she said. "I couldn't find it — it was hidden somewhere — so I was freaking out even more."

What she did next has neighbors, officials and the community hailing her as a hero. Rather than waiting for the firefighters, Kaabi ran back to the burning house where she found the front door unlocked. She ran to the second floor, and knocked on the door.

Crystal Sexton, who lived in that upstairs apartment, had just woken up and was still processing what was happening when she heard the knock on the door. She was surprised to see Kaabi.

"You just don't expect to see a regular person, you expect to see a firefighter," Sexton said. "She was a girl my size."

After telling Sexton and her boyfriend to get out, Kaabi grabbed their dog. Smoke was everywhere and Sexton said she couldn't breathe or see. When they came outside, the top floor, where she had lived, was in flames.

Risking her life again, Kaabi then ran back into the building.

"I honestly don't know what I was thinking then," she said. "I go downstairs and I open one of the doors, and there's this man standing there. And he has a [tracheal tube] and he was holding on to something. So I tried to get him over my shoulder to walk him out of the house and he can't really walk so I scooped him up and ran outside."

The petite Kaabi doesn't know where she got the strength to carry a grown man: "I hear that adrenaline kicks in … I guess that's what happened. I really don't know how I carried him."

A passer-by helped Kaabi carry the neighbor into her apartment, while firefighters who had just arrived worked on putting out the fire.

In her apartment, Kaabi saved her neighbor yet again from a potentially dangerous hazard. Mucus was coming out of the man's tracheal tube, which he kept wiping with tissues. At one point the tube came out and he couldn't breathe. His face was red and Kaabi didn't know what to do. She called for the paramedics while her neighbor motioned for her to push the tube back in.

"So I had to push his trache back into his neck," she said. "It was the weirdest thing ever. I can't believe I did it."

Warren Cersley, shift commander and battalion chief of Richmond Fire & Emergency Services, formally commended Kaabi and her friends.

"When we pause to consider the time of night, cold temperatures, the possible absence of working smoke detectors, and the physical condition of the elderly neighbor, it is realistic to believe that the actions of these young people prevented a tragic outcome," Cersley said. "In my 37 years in the Richmond Department of Fire & Emergency Services, I have witnessed many inspirational acts of public service and extreme kindness. The compassionate actions of these Virginia Commonwealth University students will always be remembered as one of the most outstanding and exceptional that I have seen."

Kaabi had never met or even seen any of her neighbors before that night. She had no idea who lived in the house across the street. She still isn't quite sure what made her run into a burning building twice. The imminent question for her at the time was: “How could she not go in?”

"If somebody's in there, I can't just watch them be burned in a fire," she said. "That's so crazy. How could you just sit outside and not go in? Especially since it wasn't too late. There was obviously a chance for me to do it. So when I saw that chance I was like, 'why not?'"

However, she hopes it was a once-in-a-lifetime event.

"It was really scary," she said. "I don't know how firefighters do that every day. I will never forget it. It was really crazy. I have so much respect for the firefighters and paramedics, what they have to see."