WINTER PARK, Fla. – It was 1 a.m. on Monday when Andre Rosa woke up to a fire at his apartment near SR 436 and Howell Branch Road in Winter Park.
“We woke up to the fire alarm,” recalled Rosa. “I smelled the smoke immediately.”
Rosa met our News 6 team outside the hospital Friday, where his wife, Asia, is still in a medically induced coma. His oldest son was also in a coma but has woken up and is recovering days later. Rosa has spent every moment by Asia’s side.
“I don’t want to leave until she’s better,” said Rosa.
Rosa said his family lost everything in an instant. He remembers seeing the fire first by the A/C unit before it started spreading.
“We see that the A/C unit is on fire,” said Rosa. “We grab the fire extinguishers. We try to pull the fire alarm.”
Rosa’s ring cameras captured the emergency as it unfolded.
[BELOW: 3 treated, 13 displaced after fire breaks out at Sapphire Winter Park apartments]
“My wife is yelling, you know, ‘call 911!’ And she’s like, ‘get the kids!,’” said Rosa. “And, so I run because the fire is at the end of the hallway. I run past the fire. I yell for all the kids to get up. I see my two youngest come out of the room. I grab them.”
The cameras show Rosa’s 13-year-old and 7-year-old sons escaping as smoke starts building in the hallway.
“And I’m thinking my 16-year-old is behind me because I yelled out for everybody to get up, and there’s so much smoke I can barely see anything. So, the fire is almost consuming the hallway to where we can’t get out. So, I push my kids and I’m like, ‘Go! Run! Run past!.’ So, we run past the fire and they go out the front door.”
Rosa said he went back inside with the fire extinguisher to try to stop the flames from spreading when he realized his 16-year-old son was missing.
“I’m thinking everybody’s out of the house, so everything’s ok. I run back and take a deep breath and run back inside. I try to fight the fire with the fire extinguisher,” Rosa said. “It’s not working. It’s growing out of control. And I ran outside because I ran out of breath. I try to do it again. I go back outside, and then suddenly, I hear my son yelling, ‘Help me! Help me!’ And then I realize that he was trapped in there in the back of the hallway.”
Rosa said at that moment he realized his wife had run back inside to get to 16-year-old Aiden too.
“It’s completely consumed with smoke, and the heat was so unbearable,” Rosa said. “I tried to get as close as I can, spray the fire with the fire extinguisher, but the smoke was in my eyes. I couldn’t see anything. I tried my best, you know, and sometimes I wish I could have done more.”
Help came quickly from the first responders and from the building next door.
Christine Mallon and Jonathan Mitchell said they heard a smoke detector going off and then realized Rosa and his family were in desperate need of help.
“He came out with the kid. He’s just coughing and choking and was like, ‘my family is trapped inside.’ He was calling out for them,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said he ended up grabbing a fire extinguisher and smashing a window to help the 16-year-old and Rosa’s wife escape.
“All of a sudden I hear someone banging on this window here,” Mitchell said as he showed our News 6 crew where they were pulled to safety. “I took the fire extinguisher and bust the window open.”
Mallon said she helped the kids, who had escaped the fire and were now in the freezing cold Monday morning.
“They were sleeping and so they didn’t have any shirts on,” said Mallon. “My other son was inside getting blankets to throw over them. And then of course we had the kids come inside the house as well, and then the mom sat here until paramedics came. They were pretty bad. They couldn’t breathe.”
Mallon and Mitchell said they haven’t stopped thinking about their neighbors.
“I think we were just at the right place at the right time,” said Mitchell. “You know, thankful to God that we were able to be there.”
Rosa said his wife and son suffered severe smoke inhalation, and have burn blisters in their lungs. He said Asia has a history of asthma which has made her healing process much slower.
“We’re just taking it day by day,” Rosa said. “I’m really grateful for everybody that’s been reaching out and helping us. You know, we need all the help we could get.”
Rosa has started a GoFundMe page to help pay for growing medical costs and living expenses. If you would like to help, you can find it here.