My day started out as a normal day. I usually start out with a check of my email, voice mail and the news, all that went well so I decided to go run some errands. I finished those and stopped by a friend's house around lunch time, he's been unemployed so I stopped by to check to see if he had any good luck in his job search.
When I got there his niece came to the door and said that he started working today. I said that was great news, I really felt happy for him and was glad he landed a really good job.
I leave and head home feeling a little hungry so I decided to do something I saw on the Food Channel, fried hot dogs. I had done it once before and they came out a little too done. I placed a pan of oil on the stove, which get's hot really quickly on my electric stove. Just as I finished turning on the stove my phone rang, being unemployed myself, a ringing phone elicits a Pavlovian response, so I run to the back of the house to catch the phone (having missed a great job opportunity several weeks ago by missing the call, I wasn't about to let it happen again) I picked it up and it's my good friend, Chris, that had just gotten home from his new job.
I tell him how happy I was that everything worked out for him (here comes my first mistake)...I sit down.
We begin to talk and I forget all about "the stove". 2 mins is all it took!
I throw the phone down, but it did not disconnect Chris, I turn down the hallway to the kitchen and the first thing I see is my refrigerator glowing in a bright orange glow (oh shit!). I sprint to the kitchen and as I turn the corner I see my entire stove fully engulfed in flame (here comes mistake #2). 2 weeks ago my fire extinguisher had hit the red mark, so what do I do, I throw it away but forget to replace it.
Now I turn to where that damn thing has been for 5 years and it's not there. My stove, the cabinets, the stove hood and the ceiling is now a raging fire. My next thought was to grab the pan and throw it off the balcony so I grab the handle and it wilts in my hand (oh shit!) what do I do now. Next thought, smother it...I run back to the bedroom yelling for everyone to get out of the house. On the phone still, Chris heard me and the smoke detectors going off, jumped in his car and sped over.
I get to the bedroom and grabbed a comforter and threw it in the shower to wet it. I run back to the kitchen and I pull the pan off the stove onto the floor (I DO NOT recommend doing this) which caused a splash of burning oil to fly out in every direction, this turn out to be a good thing because it reduced the volume of burning oil.
I open the blanket and threw it on the floor and jumped on top of it smothering out the burning pan. I jumped up and put out the hood, cabinets and ceiling. Just as I got the fire out I heard the fire trucks pulling up.
The fire department rushed up the stairs (I live on the 5th floor of a high rise apartment building) and began their work.
I went down to the EMS guys and got some oxygen and they gave me a ride to the hospital. I spent 3 hours there getting checked out. I burned my face slightly and inhaled plenty of smoke but other than that I'm in good shape.
If there is anything that I can pass on to people is that we are just too distracted by our need to stay connected. This incident took less than 3 minutes and jeopardized my entire building and I felt really bad for that.
Texting while driving, talking on the phone while driving or even being distracted in our homes while doing something as simple as cooking some hotdogs can put, not only ourselves, but loved ones and neighbors at risk.
Less than 3 MINUTES is all it took...and I nearly burned down the whole damn building.
I will be doing volunteer work trying to bring awareness to the dangers of house fires.