Survivors recount crushing, fiery escapes
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People stacked several deep became trapped in the club's doorway as they tried to escape.
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VIDEO
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News footage from inside a Rhode Island nightclub captures the instant that a rock band's pyrotechnics ignited a deadly fire and celebration turned to fear and flight. (February 21)
Devastated, Great White singer Jack Russell tells affiliate WCVB how he reacted as flames consumed the wall behind his band. He says the band had permission for the pyrotechnic show. (February 21)
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| THE STATION |
Capacity: 300 Four working fire exits Fire sprinklers were not required Passed annual fire inspection
Source: West Warwick Fire Chief Charles Hall
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(CNN) -- Pressed between blinding black smoke above her and motionless bodies beneath her, Lisa Shea felt certain she would die in the West Warwick, Rhode Island, nightclub fire.
"The whole place got tons of black smoke. We were breathing black smoke," a shaken Shea recounted Friday morning with her voice still raspy from the ordeal. "I got knocked on the ground. People were standing on my back, my head. I was holding my head and I said, 'I'm going to die here!' All I could think about was my mother, and I said, 'I got to get up! I got to get up!'"
Shea found her way to another room and leaped through a window to safety. She recalled seeing people pressing clumps of snow against their skin. "It was the worst thing I'd ever seen. It was terrible."
Brian Butler, another patron, was at the Providence-area Station nightclub, which was hosting a concert by the band Great White. He said many fans watching flames creep down the wall behind the band during its pyrotechnic display thought the fire was part of the show and didn't immediately panic.
But once clubbers realized the seriousness of the fire, escape became extremely difficult.
Butler was in a crush of people pushing through the front door. But that exit quickly became a death trap. "I went back around the front again and that's when you saw people stacked on top of each other trying to get out of the front door. And by then the black smoke was pouring out over their heads, out the side windows on the other side."
Jack Russell, the lead singer for the band Great White, said in an interview Friday morning that he quickly realized things had gone very wrong with the band's pyrotechnic show. "I tried to put it out with water bottles," he said. "There were no fire extinguishers on the stage. The worst part was when the lights went out."
Butler, a television photographer, was at the club that night videotaping a segment on nightclub safety. " I noticed when the pyrotechnics stopped, the flame had kept going on both sides," he said. "I never expected it to take off as fast as it did. It just, it was so fast. It had to be two minutes."
John Schmidt said the decision to leave quickly saved his life because the flames sprinted through the building. " I was very close to the door," he said. " I'm telling you right now, we wouldn't be having this conversation if I was in there another 20 seconds."
