With no fire alarm sounding, she saved lives banging on doors till her wrist broke, say hotel guests
CBC
Melinda Sharpe woke up at 6:50 a.m. NT on Saturday to a horrific scene. She was at the Driftwood Inn in Deer Lake, N.L. with a girls' volleyball team. The hotel was on fire.
Sharpe wasn't woken up by a smoke alarm or a sprinkler. She was woken up by the sound of her neighbour yelling in fear.
She says there were no smoke alarms or sprinklers going off that she could see or hear.
Sharpe didn't waste any time. She got out of bed and started banging on people's doors.
Sharpe was busy saving lives by banging on doors so hard, she hurt her arm.
"I was hitting all the room doors really hard and I think I got (it) broke," Sharpe told CBC News.
"I took off down the stairs and started pounding on all the girls' rooms telling them to get out. 'There's a fire, hurry up,' like, every hallway, going down, trying to get everybody out," Sharpe says.
"By the time I turned around from the hallway to come back out, I couldn't see a thing. It was literally smoke everywhere," she said.
"We had girls falling down. They had no glasses, they couldn't see. One of the teachers couldn't see. She was crawling her way through the door.
"No fire alarms going off, no sprinklers, no nothing. Just freaking madness."
Sharpe has questions about how the hotel was allowed to operate. She wants someone held accountable.
"I'm just wondering how the place got passed (inspection) because there's absolutely no fire extinguishers, no sprinklers, no nothing. I know as a person who has worked in places before, how important it is for the fire extinguishers to get checked monthly? Like the safety call. There's no muster station. I don't understand how that is even allowed."
One of the parents pulled a fire alarm, but Sharpe didn't hear any alarms go off even after pulling it.
Gloria Bender and Ellen Barnes were in a room when they heard Sharpe banging on their door.
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