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Date: 5/4/2023
WESTFIELD — Rescued from his burning house in February, Marcos Natal had a chance to say thank you to three Westfield firefighters on April 27, and so did the city government.
“I’m still here,” said Natal, 30, who was pulled from his burning East Silver Street home on Feb. 6.
Natal spoke of those harrowing moments when he realized his home was on fire after a ceremony at City Hall where Mayor Michael McCabe recognized the firefighters’ heroic efforts.
Natal said it was just an average day and while he was getting ready to go to work at the Dunkin’ on East Maple Street, he suddenly saw a “whole lot of smoke in the house.”
He grabbed a fire extinguisher and got his aunt out of the house, but once outside, she reminded him of the three cats still inside.
Despite the obvious danger, Natal went back inside, heading to his bedroom to grab one of the cats he knew was under the bed.
Once inside, he stooped to look under his bed for the cat, stood up, and when he turned around, there was thick, black smoke filling the room.
At about the same time, he began hearing Westfield Fire Capt. Christopher Kane outside calling for him.
Kane was driving to work when he saw the smoke coming from the home and stopped to make sure everyone was out of the dwelling.
Natal tried moving in the direction of the voice, yelling back to let them know where he was.
“I was holding my phone (with the flashlight on) to give them a way to see me or so I could see my way out,” he said. “But it was too late.”
Natal, who has three children, was overcome by the smoke and lost consciousness.
Only moments later, Engine 3 firefighter-paramedic Scott Bullock and Fire Capt. Keith Supinski arrived at the burning home, went inside, and then upstairs, and began crawling down a hallway toward where Kane had heard Natal calling for help.
Using Kane’s information about where he thought Natal might be, they found him. He wasn’t breathing, but he had a pulse.
“I thought he was [dead] when we started dragging him out,” Bullock said.
They dragged him from the home and seconds after he got outside, he began breathing and regained consciousness.
Supinski was hesitant to talk about the rescue.
“We don’t think about it, but you just do it,” he said.
Bullock said that given the heat from the fire, it was amazing that Natal survived, and that he saw him through the smoke.
“All I could see was just his fingertips,” Bullock said, adding that the heat in the house from the fire was almost overwhelming.
“Even with the [protective gear] we had on, it was hot in there,” Bullock said.
Natal spent three weeks in the hospital as his injured lungs recovered.
“Everything worked in Marcos’ favor [that day],” Supinski said.
Only one of the three cats survived the blaze, the one Natal was looking for in his bedroom.
Natal said he knew that he cheated death that day, and perhaps again just days after the leaving the hospital.
While taking a shower, he slipped, falling between the sink and commode in his bathroom.
“Death came by and tapped me on the shoulder to say, ‘I’m watching.’”
McCabe presented the three firefighters with city proclamations honoring their efforts.