HONEYMOONERS HELPED RESCUE BABIES FROM A BARCELONA FIRE
A Rhode Island couple on their honeymoon in Barcelona helped carry sleeping babies out of a burning nursery in September 2022. Doran Smith spotted flames while she and her husband, David Squillante, were walking to a park tour, and Squillante ran inside.
Smith and Squillante, both 38, are from Bristol, Rhode Island. CBN News reported that the trip had been delayed for nearly two years by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Boston Globe reported that the pair married in 2020, so this was the honeymoon they had been waiting on for a very long time.
East Bay RI reported that the couple were in Barcelona’s Gràcia neighborhood, headed for Park Güell, when women came running out of a nearby building in a panic. Smith looked over and saw fire.
“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.'”
Cribs across the street
Squillante went straight in. “Instinct took over,” he told WJAR. Fire is not foreign territory for him, either. CBN reported that his father and grandfather both served as firefighters in Bristol.
Inside was a nursery, and nobody there spoke English. “I found myself looking at 15-20 babies sleeping and immediately just kind of lined everybody up,” Squillante said. He told Firehouse the children ranged from newborns to 3 years old. The Globe reported he tried to calm the nursery workers with the word “tranquilo.”
Smoke was filling the room, which WJAR reported appeared to come from an electrical fire. The Globe reported that the room where the babies were was not itself on fire.
Other bystanders pitched in. “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 turned up in a play structure behind the building, and the last child ended up in Smith’s arms.
East Bay RI also reported that 25 children were accounted for, more than the 15-20 Squillante remembered seeing. Barcelona fire crews arrived and brought the fire under control. The Globe reported the couple knew of no injuries.
Squillante estimated the whole thing took about 10 minutes. He told TODAY it felt like an “instant.”
“It felt like we watched it in a movie,” he said. “It just didn’t feel real.”
“It was wild,” Smith said.
Once the children were safe and firefighters had things handled, the couple kept walking toward their park tour, as if it were a normal day. The Globe reported that Smith’s father encouraged them to share it after they got home. Smith works as a software engineer and Squillante in food sales, according to the paper.
Good News Network reported on October 17, 2022, that Squillante was exploring becoming a volunteer firefighter in Bristol. The Week repeated that on November 3, 2022.
