By Linda Busetti
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the issue of 1/17/02)
According to the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, Fesen, a Knight of Columbus from St. Michael Parish in Annandale, is a hero for what he did next.
Fesen, a 43-year-old lawyer, was traveling home on I-95. Near Fredericksburg, he saw a great deal of smoke coming from a 25-foot recreational vehicle on the left side of the road.
"Smoke was pouring out of the rear window. I thought I better pull over. No one was coming out — that’s what caught my attention," Fesen said. Other cars slowed, but continued to pass by. He pulled his car in front of the RV.
"The smoke was so thick you could not look in the front windows. Through the grill, it was obvious the engine was on fire. There was a loud bang — something exploded. I thought, "For sure they are coming out,’" Fesen recalled.
"No one was coming out. The door was half way back in the vehicle. You could tell someone was trying to get out. Someone kicked the door from inside. It banged open and then banged shut. Then it banged open again," he said.
"I looked in the door and smoke poured out. I looked to the right. The dashboard was on fire. The floorboard was on fire. You could see flames. They were getting bigger. I said, ‘Is there anyone in here?’"
A man’s voice answered, "Help! Help!"
"I went in and I’m tall," said Fesen, who is 6' 10". "I stood up breathing all the smoke." He left the vehicle to get air, but quickly re-entered.
Anthony Ferrara, a retired New York City police officer, was frantically attempting to get his wife Janet, who is disabled, out of the RV’s right front passenger seat. She wasn’t moving. Fire on the dashboard was spreading. "Help me get her out. I can’t get her out," Anthony Ferrara implored. The high-backed seat made getting her out very difficult.
"Fire continued to spread. The only way to get her out was over the back of the seat," Fesen recalled. "We grabbed her and yanked her over the back of the seat. We dragged her out. She couldn’t help herself at all. We pulled her by her ankles and wrists to the back door. As soon as we got her out, we plopped her on the muddy ground," Fesen said. "I looked back and right then the window that she was sitting next to blew out and flames shot out."
The two men pulled Janet Ferrara to the back of the RV. Anthony Ferrara told Fesen he was afraid the propane tank might explode. Ferrara said he had stopped to fill the gas and propane tanks shortly before the fire broke out. Together they pulled Janet to safety behind the wheels of a semi-tractor trailer that pulled behind the RV.
Virginia State Troopers arrived shortly before the RV was engulfed in flames. The Ferraras, who were traveling from their home in Palm Coast, Fla., to a family gathering in New York, lost everything in the uninsured RV. An ambulance arrived to assist them. Fesen drank some water, spoke with the fire marshal and returned to his vehicle to continue the drive home.
Fesen called his secretary on a cell phone. "You wouldn’t believe what just happened," he said.
It wasn’t until he got home and related the story to his wife, Teresa, that Fesen had time to think about what might have happened. A year and a half later, there is concern in Teresa’s eyes as she listens to him say, "It was nice to help them — but I couldn’t believe how fast that fire spread. From the time I went in, there was just a couple of minutes to get her out before the window blew out with flames."
The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission (www.carnegiehero.org) has honored 8,558 acts of heroism since 1904. Industrialist Andrew Carnegie instituted the award to honor rescuers in a mining accident.
Fesen had no idea that Anthony Ferrara nominated him for the Carnegie Hero award until someone from the commission called. After months of interviews, questionnaires about the incident and submission of photos of the burnt out RV, Fesen was notified on Dec. 20 that he was one of 24 recipients of the award, which is given five times a year. According to the commission, a hero is "a civilian who knowingly risks his or her own life to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the life of another person." Although Fesen enjoys being called a hero, he notes, "Two of the other awardees died attempting to rescue someone."
It is clear the Fesens’ two daughters, Mari, 9, and Christine, 7, are proud of their Dad as they admire the citation he received. A bronze medal and $3,500 grant are also presented to each awardee.
Recently, Janet Ferrara called Fesen’s actions, "Very heroic — he got me out of the chair. I was in a state of shock at the time. Thank God they got me out." It was only afterward, she said from her home in Florida, that she had time to think about what might have happened. "I’m so glad he was there because if he hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be here today."
Copyright ©2002 Arlington Catholic Herald. All rights reserved.
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