A teen and his mentors help rescue woman trapped in a house fire

While walking in Southeast Washington not long ago, Kentre Valentine heard a woman screaming for help. Her ground-floor apartment was on fire, and she was trapped in a bedroom between a window outfitted with security bars and a doorway blocked by flames.

Kentre, an 18-year-old senior at Anacostia High School, had been headed to an after-school enrichment program, called the House DC, a few doors from the woman’s apartment. He yelled for someone in the program to call 911 and ran to help.

“I felt I had to help because if my mom was in a burning building, I wouldn’t want somebody to just walk past her,” he said.

Although Kentre wore an orthopedic boot on a bruised right foot, he still managed to kick in the door to the foyer of the four-unit building. He later said he didn’t feel the pain from reinjuring his foot until the drama had ended.

Meanwhile, he continued to kick. When smoke forced him outside, he was joined in a renewed rescue effort by two House DC staffers — Dequwan Smith and Willie Hazzard. And, on the afternoon of Sept. 26, as a crowd gathered in the 1600 block of 17th St. SE to watch the fire, the trio of rescuers put on a master class in courage and caring.

In a city where young Black men and boys are often stereotyped because of crimes committed by a relative few, the actions of the trio personified the character of the vast majority — the helpful, civic-minded who go about doing good deeds, large and small, every day without fanfare or notice.

“Not everybody out here is a carjacker or a shoplifter,” said Tracey Valentine, Kentre’s mother. “I raised a good boy.” And a brave one, too.

After forcing their way into the building, the three men broke through the door of the woman’s burning apartment.

“I didn’t even think about it,” Kentre said. “I just did it.”

But her apartment door did not open into the bedroom where she was trapped. Instead, it opened to a hallway that was hot from nearby flames and thick with ink-black smoke. The rescuers retreated and tried again — this time by punching and kicking a hole in the exterior foyer wall that was also an interior wall in the woman’s bedroom. After making the hole large enough for a small person to squeeze through, they discovered that a chest of drawers was blocking the way into the room.

They were preparing to muscle their way past the chest and make a mad dash through the smoke to reach the woman and extract her from the burning room. But they held off when they heard sirens.

Just in time.

The trio had embraced a mission that the fire department had dispatched dozens of emergency personnel to handle, including firefighters equipped with oxygen masks, air tanks, flame-retardant clothing, helmets, saws, ladders, crowbars and hoses.

“Generally, we don’t recommend civilians going into a burning building,” Vito Maggiolo, spokesman for the D.C. fire department, told me. “It’s not like in the movies where you see people running through the smoke and flames unscathed.”

He noted that a lot of furniture and household furnishings these days contain fast-burning synthetics that produce dense, toxic, superheated smoke. The trio had received more than a taste of that.

“We used to say that, on average, a person has about eight to 10 minutes to get out of a burning house, but with today’s combustible synthetics, that’s been reduced to about three minutes,” Maggiolo said. “That’s why we put such emphasis on smoke detectors.”

The young rescuers said they were moved by the woman’s distress.

“Whenever we came back outside to catch our breath, I could see her coughing and crying,” said Hazzard, youth minister and director of the book club at the House DC. “And I’m saying, ‘Man, we’ve got to break in and get her out of there. Now.’”

Sure enough, as soon as firemen cut the bars away from the window, Hazzard reached for the woman and pulled her outside. “I didn’t want to see her spend another second in that place,” he said.

Smith, who is associate director of male programs and conflict resolution, was just as adamant. “Anybody who can look at a person in a situation like that and do nothing, something is wrong with them,” he said.

Several of the more than 50 youngsters who attend the House DC after-school programs had witnessed the heroics.

For students at southeast D.C. school, an adventure on the Anacostia

“We talk to them a lot about treating people with respect,” Smith said. “Now they have a real-life example of what we mean by helping your neighbor even if you don’t know your neighbor personally.”

The rescued woman, who appeared to be in her 60s, sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to a hospital. An elderly disabled man who lived in the apartment above hers was rescued unharmed.

Jacob Johnson, who manages the sound studio at the House DC, had made the 911 call after being alerted by Kentre. “The fire department arrived just in time,” he said. “If Kentre hadn’t seen the fire and alerted us when he did, I don’t think the woman would be alive.”

Kentre was taken to a hospital for treatment of his reinjured foot and fitted with a new orthopedic boot. The old one had come apart from all the kicking. He’s scheduled for an MRI on Thursday.

Back at Anacostia High School, where he is a member of the football team, some classmates were impressed that he had risked missing his last season as a player trying to save somebody’s life.

Kenneth Walker, the school principal, held a special heroes breakfast for him. “Kentre’s bravery and determination at the house fire is just an indication of what he is capable of accomplishing throughout his life,” Walker said.

His classmates thought he’d accomplished enough for a lifetime.

“They gave me a new name — ‘Superhero,’” Kentre said with a proud smile.

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