[情報] Tennis star cool during deadly fire (詳細版)
這篇文章算是把火災狀況描寫的最詳細的了
好多地方寫的超...."刺激"!?"感動"!?"好笑"!?(我不應該這樣說/_\因為有人喪生了)
阿...我不知道怎麼說啦
自己看看吧！
By Karen Crouse, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
The thing that struck Blanche Roddick, at home in Boca Raton, Fla., was how
calm her son sounded. It was early Saturday morning in Rome, and Andy Roddick
was standing on the balcony of his burning hotel, speaking into his cellphone
and describing in a newsman's measured clip the chaos all around him.
Guests at the Grand Hotel Parco dei Principi were trying to escape the licking
flames by jumping onto the wraparound balcony outside Roddick's sixth-floor
suite. He heard screaming outside his door.
When Blanche, summoning the most soothing voice she could muster under the
circumstances, suggested that Andy - in Rome to play in this week's Italian
Open - wet some bathroom towels and stick them under his door, he corrected
her.
"Mom," he said, "it's way beyond that."
Roddick, the reigning U.S. Open champion and the No. 2-ranked tennis player in
the world, had awakened around 5 a.m. to an acrid smell. He padded to his front
door, swung it open and was assaulted by billowy black smoke.
There were people in the hallway, groping for fresh air. Some of them were
hysterical. Roddick, 21, pulled close to a dozen people into his spacious
upgraded digs - the hotel management had insisted on opening its Royal Suite to
him - and herded them onto the balcony.
There they huddled, awaiting help. Soot was falling from the sky. Bodies were
landing like birds on Roddick's terrace.
Sjeng Schalken, a 6-foot-4 tennis player from the Netherlands, dropped like an
albatross into Roddick's open arms. He had jumped from his room on the seventh
floor.
Schalken's wife, Ricky, was another of the half-dozen people Roddick guided to
a safe landing. In January at the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam event
of the year, Roddick had faced Schalken in the quarterfinals and dispatched him
in three breezy sets.
They had been fierce opponents then. But now Roddick and Schalken were comrades,
banding together. As the heat grew more intense, the bodies on Roddick's
balcony grew more dense. Roddick told his mother there were two dozen of them
jumbled together, waiting to be rescued.
At one point, Roddick told his mother, "I have my head about me. It's amazing
how calm I am."
Somebody had to be. A few people on the balcony grew more panicky with every
passing minute. Roddick had to get in the faces of a couple of people who were
easily twice his age and tell them in the nicest way possible to get a grip.
On the floor directly below Roddick, an American from Georgia had tied
bedsheets together to make a rope. James Lawery, 58, tried to shimmy to safety
from his balcony. He wouldn't make it. He fell to his death.
Bernice and Paul Busque, a Canadian couple in their 60s, were the other
casualties of the blaze. They died of asphyxiation.
Roddick was still on the phone with his mother when the emergency vehicles
screeched to a halt in front of the building and firefighters spilled out. She
had to laugh at what she heard him say next.
"Hey," Roddick cried out. "You guys with the ladder. If you come over here,
I'll buy you pizza!"
That's Blanche and Jerry's youngest son. Ever the entertainer, always playing
to the crowd.
Before they hung up, Blanche Roddick could hear Andy delivering instructions
to the people around him. Her heart swelled with pride when the voice she knows
better than her own said,"I'll be the last one down."
And people wonder how Roddick kept his composure when he was down two sets and
had a match point against him in his U.S. Open semifinal with David Nalbandian.
In time, Roddick made it to the ground floor of the property. Several people he
recognized were already standing outside. The 200 guests who were evacuated
included Mike and Bob Bryan, the No. 1-ranked U.S. doubles team. They were
barefoot and dazed.
There was Max Mirnyi, a big server from Belarus. He was hard to miss. The 6-
foot-5 player, clad only in shorts, was clutching a blanket around his
shoulders.
Two young American female tourists were questioned by police over the origin of
the blaze, which started in their room, gutting it and another.
The other guests were taken to the Austrian embassy, where they waited in a
long snaking line for the privilege of using the restrooms and freshening
themselves up. Later in the day, they were allowed back in the hotel to
retrieve their belongings.
The rackets of Marat Safin, the 2000 U.S. Open champion, were reduced to
piles of ash. Roddick's stuff survived the fire. Nobody had to tell him how
fortunate he was.
Last month, Roddick wowed the Delray Beach Tennis Center crowd with his
bravura, winning both his singles matches to lead the U.S. to a Davis Cup
victory against Sweden.
On Saturday, Roddick's bravery was front and center.
--
Andy....你...還有什麼時候不能開玩笑...
還有..請吃Pizza太小氣了吧XD
--
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