Barcelona Nursery Fire: Honeymooners Help Rescue Babies

A Rhode Island couple on their honeymoon helped rescue sleeping babies from a Barcelona nursery fire.

Doran Smith and David Squillante, of Bristol, Rhode Island, were honeymooning in Barcelona in September 2022 when they walked into the emergency. CBN News reported that the couple were 38. The trip had been postponed for more than two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, TODAY reported.

Barcelona Nursery Fire: Honeymooners Help Rescue Babies — Photo: newlyweds Doran Smith and David Squillante

They were on their way to tour a park when Smith noticed women running in panic from a nearby building. East Bay RI reported that the building was in Barcelona’s Gràcia neighborhood and that the couple were headed to Park Güell.

“I saw a flame coming out of the doorway next to the door that these women had come out of,” Smith told WJAR. “So I said, ‘Oh my God, there’s a fire.'”

Inside the nursery

Squillante ran into the building.

“Instinct took over,” he told WJAR.

Inside, he found a nursery full of sleeping babies. “I found myself looking at 15-20 babies sleeping and immediately just kind of lined everybody up,” Squillante said.

He said no one inside the nursery spoke English. The room filled with smoke from what appeared to be an electrical fire.

Other bystanders jumped in to help. “We were just literally taking cribs with a few kids in (them) and rolling them across the street to the high school lobby,” Smith said.

East Bay RI reported that Smith had started out filming on her phone, then put it away to help. A child was found in a play structure behind the building, the outlet reported, and the final child ended up in Smith’s arms.

Barcelona fire crews arrived and brought the situation under control. Squillante estimated the whole ordeal lasted about 10 minutes, though both he and Smith said it felt like an instant.

“It was wild,” Smith said.

Once firefighters had things handled, the couple kept walking toward their planned park tour.

How many children?

The couple’s count and the local count did not match. East Bay RI reported that 25 children were accounted for, more than the 15-20 babies Squillante estimated seeing.