Ansonia man rescues elderly Derby woman from house fire (photos)

Chris Esteves saved an elderly woman from a fire on Olivia Street in Derby Thursday afternoon. Melanie Stengel/Register


By Patricia Villers
Register Staff
DERBY — Ansonia resident Chris Esteves was in the right place at the right time Thursday.
Esteves, 24, rescued elderly resident Theresa Tiano, from an early afternoon fire Thursday in a six-family house at 92-94 Olivia St.
Esteves, who works in downtown Derby, said when he parked his van across from the house he saw a fire had started and saw marshals from Derby Superior Court across the street trying to get people out. Several tenants made it out unassisted, he said. No one was injured in the blaze. Officials at the scene said it started on a third-floor porch.
Esteves said he heard there was an elderly woman still inside, on the third floor. He ran up the stairs and knocked on the apartment door, he said.
“I knocked and nobody answered,” Esteves said. “I opened the door and she (Tiano) didn’t even know there was a fire. She grabbed her cane,” he said, and he helped her down the flights of stairs.
When they got to the first floor, Esteves said he “grabbed a mat and put it over me and her” because debris was falling on them.
Esteves said he tried to go back in to get her pet birds, but was forced to retreat. “I saw that I had to get out then or I wouldn’t have made it.”

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