East Brunswick’s Domenic Chimirri gets national bravery award after saving woman from burning house
A BRUNSWICK East hero has described how he kicked in a door and crept beneath smoke to find an elderly woman hiding in her bedroom as her house burnt down.
North West
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WHEN Domenic Chimirri heard a voice coming from inside a burning house he didn’t think, he just acted.
The Brunswick East man was heading home after visiting his local, the Moreland Hotel, in August 2016, when he noticed flames coming from a house in Brunswick’s Davies St.
Mr Chimirri called 000 and walked to the front of the house and called out for any occupants.
He faintly heard a woman’s voice.
“I had to pull open the security door at the front and kick in the main door and just went straight in,” he said.
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The then 53-year-old said smoke in the house was just below head height, so he crouched and scanned the home for the voice he had heard, eventually finding a frail elderly woman in a bedroom.
“She was hiding in the back corner and there was a heater in the front of her room. The gas line had broken so it was shooting out flames right near the door. The walls were all glowing red,” he said.
Mr Chimirri skirted around the flame and approached the woman, quickly realising she spoke little English.
“I spoke to her in Italian and that calmed her a little bit but she was very scared, so I tucked her to my chest and we slowly got around the flame and out the door,” he said.
When he didn’t hear a definite answer from the woman about whether there were more people inside, Mr Chimirri returned to the building to check one last time before firefighters arrived on the scene. Within minutes the building collapsed.
“I’m a bit of a daredevil I guess, I have been all my life,” he said.
“If I ever saw the same scene again I would do exactly the same. Just do it and think about it later.”
Mr Chimirri was last week one of 40 people to be awarded a commendation for bravery as part of the Australian Bravery Awards, on behalf of Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove.
“They are a source of courage, support and inspiration, and we are a stronger, safer and more caring nation because of them,” Mr Cosgrove said of the awardees.
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