Two emergency medical technicians on Long Island have been singled out for praise after an ordinary call took an extraordinary turn. The pair were honored for saving a family of five from a burning home in Ronkonkoma, stepping in at a moment when what should have been a simple errand suddenly became a race to get people to safety. Their actions turned a routine shift into a rescue that almost certainly changed the outcome for everyone inside the house.
The situation began a few weeks ago, when Ryan Pappas and his fellow EMT were transporting a patient back to his home from the hospital. As they approached, it became clear that the drop-off location was the site of an emergency of its own. Rather than the quiet handoff they expected, the technicians arrived to find the very address they were heading for already in trouble, with the home on fire.
The seriousness of the situation came into focus once Pappas went to check where the patient was going. He looked upstairs and saw that the attic was covered in flames, an alarming sight that left no doubt about the danger. What he described seeing made clear this was not a small or contained problem, but a fire that was actively spreading through the upper part of the house.
There were five people inside the Chestnut Avenue home when the fire broke out, and the blaze had started from an air conditioner in the attic. That detail underscored how an everyday household appliance had set off a potentially deadly emergency, and it meant that a full family was now in harm's way inside a structure where the flames were taking hold above their heads.
The EMTs moved quickly to get everyone out. They alerted the people inside to leave immediately and worked to confirm that no one was left behind. By their account, they made sure that everyone escaped, including an elderly woman and a child, the two who would have been most vulnerable and hardest to move quickly in a sudden evacuation from a burning home.
Once the family was clear, the technicians carried out the practical steps that followed. They evacuated the home, called 911 to summon help, and moved their ambulance to clear the way so that arriving fire trucks could reach the scene without obstruction. Those measures helped ensure that the professional firefighting response could get to work as fast as possible once it arrived.
The patient they had been transporting was the father of Amit Shah, who expressed gratitude that the first responders acted so quickly to keep his father safe from the fire. On Wednesday, Catholic Health honored the two technicians with its EMS Medical Directors Award for clinical excellence. The recognition came even as the family faced a difficult aftermath, as they are unable to live in the home for now and are expected to be displaced for about eight months.