Leap of Faith
Correction Officer Rescues 12-Year-Old Girl from Fire

Joseph Bonolli had called it a night. His 12-year-old daughter, Deanna, was asleep upstairs in their small, two-story home on Chambers Street in Trenton. Left alone on the first floor, he stretched out on the living room couch and closed his eyes, comfortable in the warmth that poured from the open stove. Yet, while he slept, a silent assassin went to work.

Fire officials say the blaze started in the kitchen, feeding on the cabinets above the stove. With no sprinkler system in place to douse the flames, the fire spread to the kitchen furniture, its smoky tentacles creeping up the stairwell onto the second floor.

Bonolli's lungs filled with smoke. Choking and disoriented, the 60-year-old awoke, stumbling to the door, and found his way outside. But upstairs, he realized, Deanna remained trapped. A wall of smoke now stood between him and the stairwell. The fire was worsening by the moment, and Bonolli frantically searched the deserted darkened neighborhood for help.

It was past 1 a.m., and after leaving a relative's nearby home, Alfred Whittaker noticed smoke curling across Chambers Street like fog. Whittaker, a senior corrections officer at the Central Reception and Assignment Facility, decided to investigate.

"I went up, and I saw the back end of the house was on fire," he said. "I called 911, knocked on the door."

The only answer came when the girl opened her window and began screaming for help. Smoke billowed out from behind her, the fire department had not arrived, and fire officials later agreed that Whittaker was her only hope.

"Because of the heat and smoke from the fire in the kitchen," said Trenton Fire Department Chief Fire Marshal Richard Farletta, "there was no way [she was] going to get down the stairs and out the door. She was lucky."

Whittaker told Inside Corrections, "I coaxed her into sitting on the windowsill, turning around, grabbing the ledge and jumping down. I talked to her calmly, told her to keep her head out of the window.

"I started out in corrections in juveniles, so I have some experience in trying to calm kids down. But I couldn't believe that I stayed that calm, because all I could see was the little girl hanging out of the window."

Whittaker took his measure of the girl. She seemed to respond to his voice. She was sitting now, composed in the fiery chaos around her. She was two stories up, at a height of probably 20 feet. Whittaker figured he could lessen the distance if she hung from the window. It wouldn't be much, but every inch counted, as did every second.

"Listen to me, I said, I'm going to be honest with you," he related. "I will catch you when you drop. I will not drop you."

Deanna did as instructed, balancing certain death against the kindness of a stranger, and literally took a leap of faith.

"So she fell into my arms," Whittaker said, "and I gave her to her father."

Father and daughter, together again, stained with soot and freezing in the early morning winter chill, walked away as flames engulfed their home.

The police did not get Whittaker's name. In police reports, he is listed as simply "white male, 40-50 yrs., off-duty-corrections officer." In order to avoid the drawn out title, they refer to him as "Person #1." The Trenton Fire Department didn't mention him at all in its official write-up, as if Deanna Bonolli leapt to the ground with wings on. But Whittaker was undaunted by the lack of attention.

"I wasn't looking for any glory," he said. "I left right after and didn't pursue anything. I just got in my car and went home."

It is typical of the 17-year corrections veteran, who believes that seeking the limelight is a waste of time, and these days Whittaker, 51, is marking time very carefully. A victim of lyme disease, he has been waiting for two years for a liver transplant. He undergoes chronic blood work while the search for a donor continues.

But he passes the burned-out home on Chambers Street while visiting his father nearby, and the gutted, blackened shell is a reminder that time isn't promised to anyone.

"I have my good days, and I have my bad days," he said. "But little kids always come first in my eyes. Even if it came between me and them in a transplant, I would give it to the kid, because they have a longer life."