By LINDA G. RASTELLI
One year ago today, Jennifer Kalogiannis and her boyfriend, Mark Trezza, were awakened before dawn in her Sea Bright apartment by horrifying screams.
It was bitterly cold that morning, with temperatures in the single digits and a sharp wind driving across the Shrewsbury River. Trezza went out on the balcony and saw next door neighbor Debra Yuhasz on fire, crawling on her hands and knees toward her balcony. The two units shared a common bedroom wall.
While Kalogiannis called 911, Trezza ran for a fire extinguisher, which he used to spray Yuhasz, who had made it out to her balcony.
Yuhasz, 47, lay there until she was rescued by firefighters, but died of her injuries two weeks later at St. Barnabas Medical Center’s burn unit in Livingston.
That terrible night at the Fountains condos was just the beginning for the survivors of that tragedy, “one of the worst fires Sea Bright’s ever had,” according to Sea Bright Police Chief Bill Moore.
Many residents lost their homes, pets, and all their possessions. Kalogiannis had been renting at the Fountains, and her possessions were uninsured.
“I lost everything — all I took was my cat,” she says. “At the time, your mind goes blank. I was running from room to room. It was a surreal experience.”
While Trezza and Kalogiannis were evacuating, there was no smoke or fire in her apartment at all, and it seemed the fire would be contained to the other unit. They holed up in his car with coats over their pajamas, unable to leave the parking lot because of all the rescue vehicles hemming them in.
Forty-five minutes later, Kalogiannis watched in horror from the parking lot as her apartment caught fire, too.
“It spread through the roof,” she says.
It was a nightmare that seemed to go on and on. “We sat in the car for four or five hours,” she says. When she went back in afterward, “everything was burnt beyond recognition.”
She feels fortunate to have survived, Kalogiannis says, but it’s been a tough eight months, even with therapy. She now lives in Long Branch with Trezza and works in Red Bank.
“I thank God every day I made it out alive,” she says, but “it’s been very difficult.”
The fire was ruled an accident, according to a report Philip C. Payne, Deputy Fire Marshall for Monmouth County.
Fire investigators suspect a cigarette caused the blaze, which also injured two firefighters who and decimated most of a building in the complex.
