Carpentervsille employee rescues 87-year-old from burning house

A village employee rescued an 87-year-old woman from her Carpentersville home Monday, helping her out of the house as smoke rose from a kitchen fire.

Ed Szydlowski, a village engineer, saw smoke Monday coming out of 1416 Kings Road -- and instead of just phoning it in, he stopped and entered the home through the open door.

On his way back to village hall at about 11 a.m., Szydlowski said he saw smoke coming from the side door of the house and a woman screaming from an upstairs window.

As he approached the house Szydlowski said he could hear the activated smoke detector.

"It wasn't all that," said Szydlowski, who is also a Hampshire trustee. "The whole thing took about three minutes."

Upon entering the home, Szydlowski said he saw an elderly woman trying to descend a staircase while a fire burned on her kitchen stove and filled her home with smoke.

"I helped down the two or three flights of stairs and by the time we got to the door, the police and fire department had arrived," Szydlowski said. "Another man stopped and helped me put out the fire. But he left."

The small fire resulted in smoke damage to the kitchen and living room, and in the end, the scared woman suffered minor smoke inhalation, Fire Chief John Schuldt said.

But the woman, who lives in the house alone, could have been a lot worse off if it hadn't been for the engineer, Schuldt said.

"I'm sure her injuries would have been more severe," Schuldt said. "She would have most definitely inhaled more smoke."

By the time Carpentersville fire personnel arrived on the scene four minutes later at 11:01 a.m., Szydlowski and another resident were comforting the woman.

Paramedics examined the woman and did not find it necessary to bring her to a hospital.

As village engineer, Szydlowski is responsible for overseeing roads, sewer and water installations, inspections, infrastructure reviews and engineering projects.

He has no training in rescue operations and as a result of his actions, Schuldt says he'll recognize him with the Fire Chief's Award of Merit at the village's May 6 board meeting.

It's a citizen honor he's only given out three other times in his nearly 12 years at the head of Carpentersville's fire department.

Schuldt classified the fire as routine, but says it's Szydlowski's extraordinary actions, despite his lack of training, that warrant the honor.

"We don't just throw those around those are few and far in between," Schuldt said. "He risked injury to help her out."