By Vince Gasparini
syracuse.com
BALDWINSVILLE, N.Y. — Lawrence Lauber was getting ready for bed in his Baldwinsville apartment when he heard popping sounds.
He didn’t think anything of it until he saw his cat staring at a wall.
It was engulfed in flames.
Lauber, 80, and his neighbor, Barbara Iorio, 81, made their way into the smoky hall on the third floor as fire spread through New Legacy Apartments.
Lauber was in a wheelchair and unable to walk on his own. Iorio was using a walker. They couldn’t get out on their own.
That’s when two Baldwinsville officers — Sgt. Jason Guinn and Officer Dylan Hardesty — reached them, after running up the stairs.
“Help us,” Iorio told the officers.
This is the story about how the two officers saved the two residents from a massive fire that broke out at about 9:30 p.m. Jan. 24 . It took fire crews nine hours to put out the fire that caused the roof of the building to cave in.
The officers, who were honored by the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office and their own department for saving the man and woman, recently talked with syracuse.com about that night. This story is also based on body camera videos from that night.
When the officers arrived, Guinn started asking residents who had escaped the fire if there was anyone else in the building as he ran toward the entrance.
“They were saying there’s people trapped on the third floor,” Guinn recalled. “So, at that point, we realized we had to go up.”
Guinn and Hardesty dashed inside, passing fleeing residents and sprinting up the stairs as the sound of fire alarms blared throughout the building.
The officers made their way to the third floor, where they found Lauber and Iorio in the hall just outside the stairwell.
The two residents had smoke stains on their faces and were trying to find a way to escape the fire engulfing the apartment building. But they were trapped.
The fire was spreading. Guinn, who also has been a volunteer firefighter for 19 years, realized the roof could fail. The officers knew they didn’t have a lot of time.
Hardesty picked up Iorio and carried her downstairs and outside, while Guinn went down the smoke-filled hall, banging on doors to see if there was anyone else left.
He started kicking down doors and running through bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens shining his flashlight to see if anyone was still there.
“Is anybody here?!” he shouted again and again as he made his way through each apartment.
Every few minutes, Guinn ducked into the stairwell to catch his breath before going back to continue searching for more people.
Hardesty made it back to help get Lauber out as firefighters started to reach the third floor.
The hall lights went out and water spread across the floor from sprinklers.
The officers turned their attention to getting Lauber to safety.
“No use of his legs, he’s over six feet tall,” Hardesty recalled. “We made the decision that we needed to carry him down manually; his wheelchair was going to have to stay.”
The officers struggled to carry Lauber down the stairs by his arms and legs as firefighters pulled hoses up the stairs to reach each floor.
At one point, Lauber had to duck underneath a hose to make it to the next set of stairs.
It took almost three minutes for the officers to carry and drag Lauber down to the first floor through the firefighters and hoses.
They made it to the first floor and, with the help of several firefighters, brought Lauber outside. The officers put him down on the snow-covered ground.
As Lauber was lying there, he said, he could see how badly the fire had damaged the building.
“I could see through the top of the roof, the flames were already eating that side of the building up,” he said. “I said, ‘Holy crap.’ ”
Lauber was briefly hospitalized for smoke inhalation. His cat, Sam, died in the fire. Iorio made it out of the fire with no injuries.
Baldwinsville Police Chief Mike Lefancheck said Lauber and Iorio would have “likely been seriously injured or perished” if not for the efforts of the two officers.
The two officers were honored in May with the Medal of Valor, the department’s highest honor for bravery in the line of duty, for their actions that night.
They were also awarded the Medal of Gallantry by the District Attorney’s Advisory Council in May.
Guinn and Hardesty have been on the force at the Baldwinsville Police Department for 15 years and eight years, respectively; Guinn has also spent the last 19 years as a firefighter at the Fairmount Fire Department .
“We trust each other, we work together on a pretty regular basis,” Hardesty said. “When I went in there, I just knew whatever he told me to do, do it, and he’s going to take care of whatever else needs to get done.”
Staff writer Vince Gasparini covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, a story idea, a question or a comment? You can reach him at vgasparini@syracuse.com.
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