“I din know why I just get up and walk around,” says 49-year-old Anita Ward, a security guard. But whatever prompted that routine procedure, Ward soon found herself rallying to the rescue of two girls from their home which was on fire.
She speaks simply, but from the way she speaks you know that the incident is still on her mind. “I din’ know why,” she says.
Last Saturday in the early part of the afternoon a fire said to have been started by a fan engulfed the roof of Arthur Chandra’s Bel Air home and destroyed it. Chandra, an educator, was at school teaching at the time and his two young daughters were alone at home.
Nearby, at Demerara Tobacco Company, Ward who works as a guard decided to walk around the building. As soon as she begun, she smelled something burning. Unsure of what it could be, but certain that something was burning, she decided to walk around the building and saw the roof of a nearby house engulfed in flames.
Tersely indicating to her colleague what she was doing, she headed over to the house while calling the fire department on her cellular phone.
The line was busy and she then called the police who responded.
Ward, a mother of five and grandmother of three, immediately thought of them and wondered if any children were in the burning building. Ward, who says that in her line of work she sees many things but stands back and watches, was now galvanized into action.
“I love my kids and I love my grandchildren and the first thing that came to me is if kids were in the building,” she said.
Finding no alternative, she jumped over the fence and headed up the back steps. Looking through the window she saw the two girls, who, she said, were looking at a computer. After failing to get their attention, she tried to push the door open but couldn’t.
Then she noticed that it didn’t seem very strong. “It didn’t look as if they knew it [the roof] was on fire,” she said and “I put my foot between the door and stamp and it opened.”
However, when she told the girls that the house was on fire “they just watch me as if they want to know what is going on.” They retreated to a corner of the room and stared at her.
Feeling the heat, she grabbed them and carried them downstairs. She also prodded a parrot from its perch and it flew into a nearby tree. She took them across the road and questioned them and then headed back to the building and rescued a dog. Calling the fire department again, she still received a busy tone and called the police for the second time and they answered.
By that time the other guard was yelling to alert persons in the vicinity but she couldn’t speak. She had become speechless in the gripping anxiety of the moment.
Soon after the first fire truck arrived but it encountered problems. Then the police came followed by another tender and as they fought the fire she couldn’t hold back her tears. Reassured that everything was under control she headed back and informed her supervisor.
After going home she couldn’t stop thinking about the two girls she had rescued and later visited them to see if everything was okay. Apart from the damage done to the house, they were alright and Ward said she was “happy”.
Asked what could have guided her actions that day she simply said: “God was with the children.”
