Ex-Marine heads into church blaze in rescue attempt
A retired Marine plunged into a blazing, smoke-filled church parking garage in search of victims of a fire that sent two people to the hospital last Friday. Torrance resident Dave McCarthy, 53, was waiting for his twin boys to finish basketball practice at American Martyrs Catholic School, 1701 Laurel Ave. when he smelled smoke coming from a nearby parking lot at American Martyrs Church. McCarthy, a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, ran to the lot shortly before 1:45 p.m. and saw black smoke billowing out of an underground parking structure. He crawled down the garage’s stairs in search of victims after a worker yelled that someone was trapped. “There was smoke from the floor to the ceiling,” McCarthy said. “I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. There was one inch of visibility.” McCarthy searched and shouted for trapped victims. After a minute, he came back up and asked a church employee for a fire extinguisher and to call 911. McCarthy crawled down into the garage for a second time but found no one. “Then I started to lose it from the inhalation,” he said. “I could see the flames. I had the extinguisher and crawled around.” Ten firefighting units from Manhattan…
Read this story on easyreadernews.com