FOR a few seconds the clubgoers in the Station thought the flames were part of Great White’s act.
They were stomping their feet and cheering when the heavy metal band mounted the stage at 11 p.m. and launched into their opening number, “Desert Moon” – with a sparkling stream of fireworks providing an extra flourish.
Some thought it was exciting when flames started licking the ceiling and the foam backing behind the stage.
“Nobody really thought much of it,” said Christopher Travel, of Lakeville, Mass. “They just assumed, ‘Oh, something caught fire; it’s going to get put out.’ Nobody came forward with a fire extinguisher.”
Lead singer Jack Russell even tried to douse the flames with some bottled water.
But clubgoer John Dimeo knew it wasn’t part of the show.
“I’m a sprinkler fitter. I know what a fire looks like, and I got the hell out of there,” he said.
“Within 30 seconds, the flames were 10 feet tall,” said Jack Rezendes of Jamestown, R.I.
The flames consumed the ceiling and walls and spewed thick acrid black smoke.
Everything turned dark. People panicked. They gasped for breath, and couldn’t see.
“The place went up like theFourth of July,” said Russell.
“Like a tinderbox,” said bass player Dave Falice. “It was a horrific scene. People were jumping out of windows, dragging people out.”
Russell and Falice ran out a side door with their bandmates – all except one, Ty Longley, who’s missing and presumed dead.
Clubgoer George Guindon, 35, of Coventry, R.I., was amazed at how “the smoke took over everything . . . I dove over the bar and prayed I’d hit the window.”
“I thought that I’m either going to die doing something or die doing nothing. I jumped over the bar, hit the ground and ran through a window.”
Once outside, he was rushed to a hospital to be treated for burns on his head and cuts on his hand. But he survived.
Jackie Bernard, 41, of West Warwick, was at the club with her friend, Tina Ayer, 32.
When the fire started, she grabbed Ayer’s hand and started pulling her through the crowd.
“Everybody was pushing and running for their lives. I dragged Tina by the coat all the way to the middle of the dance floor, then had to let go,” she said. “The fire was coming up too quickly. I don’t know how I got out. It was a miracle.”
Outside, she said, “They were putting snow on people’s heads [for the burns]. It was so sad. Their skin was hanging.”
Ayer didn’t make it out alive. “I feel bad I had to let her go for me to get out,” said Bernard.
Ayer was among the scores of fans who stumbled and fell, and were trampled on.
ERIN Whalen said she had “given up.”
“Honestly, I thought I was dead,” said the 22-year-old Denny’s waittress, who had fallen down and was being kicked and tripped over by the stampeding crowd.
“Then someone – my guardian angel – picked me up and pushed me through a window to someone else,” Whalen said in a bedside interview at Kent Hospital. “I keep asking myself, ‘Why am I here?’ “
Mario Cardillo clambered out a window, then turned back for his wife, Kathy – but she was gone.
He shouted her name and finally found her.
She had reached another window, but was knocked down. Someone stepped on her forehead and her back, but she managed to get up and escape.
“She can’t close her eyes because that’s all she sees – the smoke and being trampled,” said her father, Lloyd Powell.
Few made it out without injury – burns, gashes, bruises, smoke inhalation.
Many “were completely burned. They had pieces of flesh falling off them,” said Michelle Craine of West Warwick. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
Robin Petrarca, 44, was within a few feet of the front door when the fire erupted – but she couldn’t see the exit because of thick smoke.
In her rush to escape, she fell and was trampled on, but finally made it out.
“It was like a pig pile, and people were just driving over them,” said Dimeo, of Warwick. “People were screaming and shouting profanities,” he said.
“People’s hair was on fire. People’s coats were on fire. People were at the doorway getting trampled on.”
“People were trying to get air, and they were all black and burned, ” he said. “They were breaking windows, cutting their arms, trying to get out.”
Dimeo said he’s haunted by the sight and smell of burning hair and flesh and the shrieks of the people trapped inside the club.
“It’s a sound you never want to hear,” he said. “They were dying and you couldn’t do anything about it.”
NIGHTCLUB INFERNO TIMELINE
11:00 p.m. Thursday: Great White launches into “Desert Moon,” the first song in its set at the Station, accompanied by a pyrotechnics display in the rear of the stage.
11:00:10: As the band rocks on, the pyrotechnic sparklers start shooting up to the ceiling as some fans sensing the danger begin pointing to the growing fire.
11:02: Panic takes over the crowded club and people make a break for the exits where dozens end up piled near the entrance, unable to escape the raging inferno.
11:03: Witnesses look on in horror after flames and billowing smoke engulf the entire club, killing at least 95 people and injuring another 180.