Two Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies carried a resident who could not leave an apartment on his own to safety during a smoke-filled building evacuation in St. Petersburg, according to WFLA. The station identified the deputies as Areostatico and Hery. Its report said a woman alerted a deputy that the resident needed help getting out.
A single rescue in a wider safety context
The U.S. Fire Administration says physical disability was the second-leading human factor contributing to residential-building fire fatalities, at 30%, in data covering 2017–2019. That is national background, not a finding about the resident or the circumstances of this St. Petersburg fire.
The agency says fire services can help people with disabilities understand their fire risks and develop prevention plans suited to their abilities. That general advice does not establish what arrangements, if any, were in place at the apartment involved in this rescue.
A separate local example
Apartment fires can also require action on a much larger scale. The Tampa Bay Times reported on Dec. 18, 2024, that a separate electrical fire at downtown St. Petersburg’s Lutheran Apartments forced roughly 275 senior residents to relocate temporarily. That building-wide displacement is a distinct incident, not evidence of a trend or a connection to the rescue reported by WFLA.
The available account of the current rescue does not establish the apartment’s address, the fire’s cause, the extent of damage, whether anyone else was injured or how long the evacuation lasted. The reported outcome is that deputies helped a resident who could not leave independently reach safety.
