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Scott Dziengelski, graduated from Meadowbrook in 1999
Northeast Times Weekly – December 27, 2007 edition
Homeless for the holidays
By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer
The Dunphy family of Somerton received an early Christmas gift this year. |
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It might seem a strange thing to say, but this year’s special gift arrived with a devastating fire that ravaged the family’s 130-year-old hilltop home on County Line Road. The Dec. 16 inferno claimed virtually every material possession owned by Michael and Janet Dunphy, as well as those of the five youngest of their seven children. It left their three-story stone and wood-frame home looking like a medieval ruin.
The fire also left Janet Dunphy burned and battered, a result of her desperate leap from a second-story window.
On the other hand, acts of individual heroism and widespread kindness have kept the family intact. For that, the Dunphys are eternally grateful.
"My son (Michael), he was on the news and said, ‘We have nothing, but we have everything because we have each other,’" Janet Dunphy said while recalling the chaos last week after her three-day hospital stay.
The matriarch was one of nine people to escape the rapidly spreading flames shortly before 5 a.m. that Sunday, hours after the family had hosted a holiday party for employees of the elder Michael’s local Weichert Realtors firm.
Michael and Janet were asleep in one upstairs bedroom, while their two youngest daughters, Kerry and Erin, were asleep in another second-floor bedroom. Kerry attends fifth grade while Erin attends first grade at St. Christopher’s School.
Adult daughter Angelique, who works for her father, had decided to stay the night and was sleeping on a living room couch, as was her sister Brianna, a sophomore at Archbishop Ryan.
Son Michael, a sophomore at Cabrini College, was home on break and staying in the downstairs rec room with two of his pals, Scott Dziengelski and Kirk Manion.
Oldest daughter Alyssa did not stay at her parents’ home that night, while daughter Harley, a seventh-grader at St. Christopher’s School, was at a friend’s sleepover party. |
According to a Philadelphia Fire Department spokesman, the fire originated in a first-floor dining room when a lighted Sterno can — a device used to keep buffet trays warm — burned through a table, fell to the floor and ignited curtains. The flames soon spread through the wooden interior of the home, which was decked out in all of the Christmas decorations accumulated by the family over the previous 22 years.
The Dunphys had lived there since moving from Northwood in 1985.
Angelique and Brianna were the first to discover the fire. The older daughter recalls screaming, "Get out. Get out." The racket awakened young Michael, who raced up to the second floor and pulled his two youngest sisters to safety.
Meanwhile, Manion and Dziengelski roused the parents before fleeing through billowing smoke, down the stairs and outside. But there was one problem.
"They thought I followed them, but I couldn't breathe," Janet Dunphy said. "I ran back. I thought I could wet a towel to cover my mouth."
But in those few split seconds, the stairs became impassable. She had no way to get down to the first floor.
Outside, the escapees gathered at their designated emergency meeting spot, the end of the driveway. But Janet was nowhere to be found.
Realizing that she was still inside, Dziengelski raced back into the burning house. His shirt caught fire and burned his neck, but he couldn’t reach the woman, who had retreated into a bathroom.
Dziengelski returned outside and stood below the bathroom window with the senior Michael Dunphy as Janet pried open the aged sash, climbed through the opening and dangled down the exterior wall with her hands clutching the sill above. Then she let go, dropping nearly 20 feet as Dziengelski broke her fall.
"Scott and I were standing under the window," the older Michael Dunphy said. "I think he got most of her."
"They were amazing. For the rest of my life, I’ll never forget how brave they were," Janet Dunphy said of the heroics. "The fact that Scott tried to run back into the house the second time to get me is beyond me." |
Bensalem Township police were the first emergency vehicles to arrive at the home, which is on the Philadelphia side of the border with Bucks County. It was then that Janet Dunphy first realized that she had suffered heavy burns to her left arm. She was also suffering from smoke inhalation. The officers put her into a police car until an ambulance arrived.
Meanwhile, the older Michael Dunphy took his two youngest daughters to the nearby home of one couple, the Adlers. Another local family, the Gallaghers, offered the fire victims blankets and clothing to keep warm.
Philadelphia Fire Department and Bucks County fire companies responded to the blaze. With the entire building consumed by flames, firefighters were forced to keep their distance and spray it from the outside. Portions of the old stone exterior walls collapsed.
Firefighters pulled a second alarm at 5:33 a.m. and finally declared the blaze under control at 6:12 a.m.
Three occupants were taken to local hospitals, including Janet for her burns and smoke inhalation, her husband Michael for smoke inhalation and chest pain, and Dziengelski for his neck burns. Dziengelski was released later that day, while Michael Dunphy stayed overnight. |
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