When firefighter Nicholas Ruiz arrived at Oakfield Apartment Homes in Wheaton Tuesday morning, about 30 people were out front of the garden-style building at 2221 Georgian Way.
Some had just escaped the burning building. Others were neighbors drawn by the heavy smoke coming from the three-story structure. Among the first to arrive, Ruiz asked them if anyone was still inside.
Some said no, but someone said yes. A woman was still up there. She was pregnant.
"I went up to the third story and started kicking doors open," Ruiz said. "The second one, she was in there and frantically running around."
Heavy smoke had forced the woman to a back bedroom and to the balcony, where she called relatives for help.
"I went in and grabbed her, put my glove over her face" to shield her from the smoke, told her to hold her breath and began to take her out of the unit, he said. "But because of the heavy smoke, she didn
