LI Fire Captain On Lifesaving Rescue: 'Everything Lined Up'

HUNTINGTON STATION, NY — When Michael Colonna went to bed for the night, he had no idea he would end up saving three people's lives just hours later.

"I was there at the right time," Colonna, a captain with the Huntington Manor Fire Department told Patch. "Everything lined up for us for having a good outcome of it. Nobody got killed.”

Colonna, around 12:30 a.m. on July 4, recalls a fellow firefighter alerting him to a deck fire a quarter-mile away from his Huntington Station home. Colonna immediately hopped into his truck and drove to Wyoming Drive, where he saw a glow coming from behind a house.

The fire had already made its way to the roof line of the right side of the house. Colonna, 46, heard some commotion at the front door. He ran up in nothing but his sneakers, shorts and T-shirt. He did not have time to grab his gear or wait for a hose, as he immediately saw a woman at the bottom of the stairs of the side-split house.

The woman was looking up the stairs when Colonna pulled her out and dragged her to the front door. She told the captain there was someone else in the basement.

Colonna predicted the layout of the home, as most houses in his neighborhood share the same design. He met a man coming up the stairs and told him, "Hey, let's go." As the two reached the kitchen, the back window and door were destroyed, and fire and smoke began pouring into the dining room and kitchen. Colonna got the man to the front door.

Then, the woman who Colonna originally evacuated ran back into the house and up a flight of stairs. Colonna heard from another member of the department she was trying to save the cat, which was found dead the next day.

Colonna dragged the woman downstairs and brought her to the front door as the fire began rolling through the hallway.

Someone then pointed to the left side of the house, and Colonna knew he had to make one more trip through the blazing inferno that was once a home. The captain climbed up the stairs and saw a man's silhouette coming down through the smoke. Colonna watched as the figure collapsed. He grabbed the man, dragged him down the stairs, and he and two Suffolk police officers brought him outside to safety.

“At the same time, I was choking from all the smoke," Colonna said.

He notified the fire chiefs arriving at the blaze that he'd gotten everybody out. Colonna ran back around the outside of the home to see the whole deck on fire, with the flames ripping through the roof.

By the time he went back around to the front, he saw that the front doorway — where Colonna had made multiple evacuations — and the living room and kitchen had been completely engulfed.

Finally, Colonna grabbed his gear and took a team into where the front door used to be. The firefighters knocked down the fire after a while and searched the rest of the house.

Colonna eventually ran out of air and exited the burning debris.

"I was throwing up and choking on everything I took in before," he said. "My chief just said, ‘You’re done, go get checked out.’"

His carbon monoxide and heart rate levels were really high, and Colonna knew he had to go to the hospital. He remained there until 9 a.m. before he "conked out" for the rest of the day, he said.

"I couldn’t speak for about four days after the smoke inhalation," he said. "It builds up on your larynx."

Colonna, who has a wife and daughter, said it never crossed his mind that he could have died that night.

"I just knew there were people in there. I knew from experience and training how far I could probably go. There’s only so far you can go."

Colonna said his wife was called around 2 a.m. that morning.

"She told me she had those 10 seconds of ‘I don’t want to pick this call up,’ because she thought it was possibly something bad on my part," Colonna said. "Right away, I know Chief [Chuck] Brady said, ‘He’s OK, he’s OK. We had to take him to the hospital."

Colonna said he knew how far he could go that night. He also knows every second matters when it comes to saving lives in a fire, which is why he didn't hesitate to run into the burning home with nothing more than the clothes on his back.

"If I stopped to go to the back of my truck and get my gear out, I may not have been able to get that last guy out or the woman who went back in," he said. "That one or two minutes for me to take the extra time to get that gear on, I would’ve been able to go farther in, but who knows where I would’ve been in that case? I might have been in a time where I couldn’t get out or I would have had to find another way out. Things all lined up where they needed to line up. Everybody else came, and they helped put the rest of the house fire out. It’s really thanks to all the guys before me who showed me the way. I would think any of us, especially around Huntington, I would say we would all do the same thing."

Colonna, an officer with the fire department and an MTA employee, was recently recognized by Huntington Councilman Salvatore Ferro with a proclamation for his lifesaving efforts.

"Capt. Colonna’s resourceful, quick-thinking efforts were instrumental in saving three lives, averting what could have been a tragic loss to families, friends and community which was an act of heroism which deserves special recognition by the Town of Huntington," Ferro's office wrote in a statement.

Receiving the proclamation felt "good," Colonna said, before thrusting the spotlight onto his fellow firefighters.

"It makes the department, all the other brothers and sisters around town look good," he said. "I’m more of a humble type, I guess you could say."

Colonna has been a member of the Huntington Manor Fire Department for 11 years. He was with the Halesite department for 17 years before that.

Firefighting runs in the family, as Colonna's brother-in-law is with the Huntington Fire Department, while his brother is the ex-chief of Halesite.

"I’m sure anyone of them given the situation would make the attempt the same way."