Compass staffer turns firefighter, saves condo

When Constantine Lagoudakis arrived in Cayman 18 months ago, he didn’t expect he’d be adding “volunteer fireman” to his resume.  

But that’s what he was called upon to do this week.  

Going home for lunch Wednesday, Caymanian Compass staffer Mr. Lagoudakis said he was waved down on Old Crewe Road by two women and a child “jumping around and shouting frantically.”  

A condo, the center unit in the Amlett Mews complex across from First Baptist Church, had caught fire, according to resident Carmen Gomez, who was home with her son at the time the fire broke out – around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.  

Mrs. Gomez said she was cooking an egg on the stove when the phone rang and a friend stopped by at around the same time. She said she got distracted and forgot about the stove.  

“When I come [back] inside, it was all smoke and I ran out,” she said. “One woman who was passing, I asked her ‘help me to call the fire [department],’ she went and come back and called the next man who was passing.”  

That man, Mr. Lagoudakis, stopped and went into the condo unit to investigate.  

“I asked if there was anyone else in the house, [Mrs. Gomez] said no,” he said. “I ran into the house, was looking for a fire extinguisher, couldn’t find one.”  

At this point, flames from the oven had spread up into the kitchen cabinets above and were starting to lick the ceiling. Mr. Lagoudakis found he couldn’t turn off the stove directly because the handles on the range had melted from the heat.  

He was able to find the home’s electric panel and shut it off. Cutting the power is usually one of the first steps firefighters take when faced with a residential blaze because of the dangers associated with spraying water, and having standing water, in the vicinity of an electrical fire.  

“I kind of worked in contracting when I was younger, doing electrical and plumbing with my dad, so, when something like that happened, you learned what to do,” Mr. Lagoudakis said.  

However, he still needed some water to put out the blaze, which he found just outside the apartment door.  

“There was a hose … right next to the door, I just noticed it because it was attached to the Jet Ski outside,” he said. “I went inside and just hosed down the place.” After the flames were out, Mr. Lagoudakis said he checked around to make sure no one else was inside the home and that everything was all right.  

Mrs. Gomez said she and her son had already vacated the apartment and there was no one else in the apartment. Firefighters and police eventually showed up, but by then, the situation was under control. 

“When the fire department come, it was already done,” Mrs. Gomez said.  

Mr. Lagoudakis then had to go home and explain to his wife why he spent Wednesday’s lunch hour running into a burning building.  

“My wife was saying ‘why on Earth would you go in there?’” he said. “I really didn’t even think, I just kind of did it. I just acted because [at the point he arrived] the fire was just touching the ceiling. Because it was the middle unit [of the complex], it could have been a whole lot worse.”  

The story might have kept quiet had Mr. Lagoudakis, who was not seeking publicity for the incident, not talked about it when he got back to the office Wednesday. But in Cayman, especially at the Compass, word travels fast.  

“I did not want this to actually escalate to this level [of a news story],” he said. “I was just telling this as a good story.”