Community Rallies Around East End Fire Victims Who Lost All
Posted February 4, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Members of the Leslieville community are rallying around the hero who saved a toddler while his wife perished in a terrible east end fire.
For Javiera Ocaranza, Werner Schmidt’s selfless act will never be forgotten. As his 63-year-old disabled wife Louise lay trapped inside a burning apartment, he saved Ocaranza’s 22-month-old daughter by catching her after she was dropped from an apartment window.
“He is my hero and I thank him and his family,” Ocaranza told CityNews. “I’m sending my condolences to their family and I’m so sorry for everything that happened.”
“I am in shock still,” she adds. “I’m just looking at my house and surveying my home and…I am just counting my blessings.”
Ocaranza saw Schmidt briefly at the police station following the incident, but never had a chance to thank him properly. She hoped to do that on Wednesday, but the events overwhelmed Schmidt and he and his children are now in seclusion.
Schmidt and several others lost all of their possessions in the fire, but their neighbours are now rallying around them and trying to help out.
“They have nothing they just ran out with the clothes on their back so (they need) clothing…and any type of support they can get,” said Erica Brooks.
Clothing can be dropped off at the Duke of Connaught Public School at 70 Woodfield Rd. in the Queen and Greenwood Ave. area.
Brooks hopes to have a trust fund set up at the Royal Bank by Thursday.
