PROVIDENCE — First-grader Angel Jimenez looked out the window of his brother's room on an upper floor of Hasbro Children's Hospital Tuesday night and saw smoke.
"It got bigger and bigger," he said Wednesday. "I told my Mom there was a fire outside."
Francisca Jimenez notified staff. Many others called 9-1-1 from Hasbro and Rhode Island Hospital to report the fire. Angel, however, was credited with being the first alert, and on Wednesday, he got the full hero treatment, or at least the hero treatment that would appeal to a shy 7-year-old boy.
He was given a child-size firefighters helmet and escorted out of Hasbro's main entrance and into the navigator's seat of Engine 3, the first truck that responded Tuesday night.
Lt. Felix Ramos said his colleagues from the Tuesday night shift had jumped out, determined that the flames were on the third-floor roof over the operating rooms, carried 150 feet of hose up stairs to the roof, connected to a standpipe and extinguished the flames. By that time, Tower 1 had arrived to help. Both trucks are based nearby, at Public Safety Headquarters.
On Wednesday, Angel sat in Engine 3, calmly regarding the news cameras pointed at him. A firefighter told him he could blow the horn, which he did, multiple times. A firefighter in the bucket of the Tower 1 scissor lift caught Angel's eye by rising above both trucks, then expertly angling down to invite Angel aboard.
He rode into the air with his uncle and a firefighter.
Back on the ground, Public Safety Commissioner Steven M. Paré bent down to ask how Angel liked being up in the air. He didn't like it so much. Acting Operations Chief William Kenyon said he's been up there too and he didn't like it so much, either.
Angel answered questions patiently. He said he was in first grade, but he wasn't sure of the school's name. Neither was his mother. No wonder: It's the Sgt. Cornel Young Jr. & Charlotte Woods Elementary School on Prairie Avenue, commonly known as Young Woods.
With the help of hospital interpreter Anthoni Hoyos-Moreno, his mother answered that he learned about safety in daycare and school.
A citation signed by Mayor Jorge Elorza was put in Angel's hands, and he held it steady to show it around.
Then it was Paré's turn. Asked why so much attention is going to Angel, Paré said: "He was the first alert. Those initial seconds to get the Fire Department on the way" are important, he said. In a roof fire, "there was no alarm that was going to sound."
Calling Angel a superhero, Paré said: "He saw something and said something."
If firefighters had been summoned a little later, and if they hadn't known exactly where to go, the fire would have spread.
Paré said he hoped to see Angel in a Providence firefighter uniform someday. Angel had watched the entire firefighting effort from his brother's window.
Paré said that Tuesday night, after hearing how they had been alerted, he, the mayor of Providence, the CEO of Lifespan and the president of Rhode Island Hospital, which operates Hasbro, sought out Angel's family and crowded into the little hospital room to meet their hero. Outside in the hall, he and Angel high-fived.
Paré said the cause of the fire had not been determined.
Hasbro's OR was closed Wednesday because of water damage and electrical issues. Hospital spokeswoman Christina O'Reilly said all but elective surgeries were done in another of the hospital complex's 25 operating rooms, and elective surgeries will be rescheduled.
After the cameras and dignitaries left, Angel's mother and stepfather, Angel Duran, continued talking with Hoyos-Moreno, who told them the mayor would call them Wednesday night and invite them to City Hall.
Meanwhile, Angel ran around the nearly empty hospital lobby like a regular kid, waiting for the grownups to stop talking.
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