At the Station

Peter Ginaitt ’83 was among the first responders to the nightclub fire, and he had the grim task that night of setting up an emergency triage center.

By Meaghan Wims ’02Photo(s) By Rick Friedman

Peter Ginaitt knew immediately that the call to the Warwick Fire Department on the night of February 20 was a serious one.

He could hear it in the voice of the department’s dispatcher. Normally unshaken by even the worst fires, the dispatcher sounded tense as he described a commercial building fire with people trapped inside. “His voice was two octaves louder than usual,” Ginaitt said.

The call was to the fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick that claimed 100 lives and hospitalized hundreds more. A pyrotechnic display in the small club during heavy metal band Great White’s act is thought to have caused the blaze, the fourth-worst nightclub fire in the country’s history.

What has followed has been a whirlwind for Ginaitt ’83, a 20-year veteran of the Warwick Fire Department, a registered nurse, and a state representative.

In an interview in his second-floor State House office nearly a month after the deadly fire, it’s clear Ginaitt, 42, can’t escape the images of that long, terrible night. Ginaitt, a rescue captain, said his rescue truck only needed to get within two miles of the club before he could see heavy smoke climbing into the air.

“The fire was just cranking,” Ginaitt recalled. “I said to my driver, ‘Get ready. This is going to be bad.’ I thought we’d get a couple of badly burned people. I never thought it would be as bad as it was.” Immediately upon arriving at the scene, Ginaitt was swarmed with badly burned concert goers needing help. He found one woman lying in a snow bank trying to cool her charred skin.

Ginaitt was among the first responders to the fire, and he had the grim task that night of setting up an emergency triage center across the street from the club at the Cowesett Inn. The injuries were the worst he’s ever seen, and his challenge was to determine who needed help first. “I’d walk to one person whose burns were so severe that I’d think that was as bad as it could get,” Ginaitt said. “And then I’d find one worse.”

In the scant minutes Ginaitt had to talk to each of the burn victims, he tried to gain their trust. “These people were all hurt, and they all knew I was there to help them,” he said. “You end up talking for a millisecond. You tell them, ‘I won’t forget you.’ And they were remarkable. They said, ‘I know there’s people worse than me. Just don’t forget me.’”

Other offices coordinated traffic logistics to make sure rescues and fire trucks could make it to the rolling fire and evacuate the injured to area hospitals as swiftly as possible. In the end, 34 rescues and 23 ambulances from around the state and nearby New England responded. In an hour-and-a-half, the crews transported 140 people to the hospital. “It felt like an eternity,” Ginaitt said. “I had no concept of time.”

He worked through the night until 5:30 the next morning, returning to the Fire House for the final two hours of his shift. At 5 p.m. Ginaitt returned for his next tour of duty at the rubble of The Station. Emotionally, it was draining for all the rescuers. “Firefighters are expected to just go home and flip the switch,” he said. “But it really hurts.”

Since the fire, Ginaitt’s role has only expanded. He is co-chair of a 17-member special legislative committee, appointed by the Rhode Island House and Senate with the support of Governor Donald Carcieri, that is reviewing fire codes in order to recommend new laws. Ginaitt estimates he’s done 50 media interviews about the fire and has refused many more.

While his workload may be at an all-time high, Ginaitt is used to being busy. He regularly works more than 40 hours a week as a fire-fighter and another 30 at the State House.

Ginaitt has lived in Warwick all his life, now residing with his wife, Sharon, and two children, Bradford, 15, and Taylor, 12, a block away from where he grew up.

Ginaitt said he has good memories of his days at URI, where he earned a degree in resource development and landscape architecture. “I had my best experiences as a young man at the University,” he said. He fondly remembers taking classes in Woodward Hall, living in Bonnet Shores, grabbing snacks at Iggy’s and being a member of Chi Phi fraternity.

“URI is excellent,” he said. “We have the best school right in our backyard. People underestimate that school.” He said he misses URI and would love to go back to school for another degree. He also has fire science and nursing degrees from the Community College of Rhode Island and spent 15 years running a landscaping business. “The sad part about being so busy is that I don’t have a lot of free time,” he said. “And when I do, I spend it with my family.”

In 1992, Ginaitt, a Democrat, won a seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives in a special election. While he only won that election by 17 votes, Ginaitt has moved up in the ranks in his time on Smith Hill and is now chair of the Environment Committee and secretary of the Health Committee.

As much as The Station fire has made Ginaitt reflect on his life, he said his biggest test was in 1994, when he developed testicular cancer and underwent treatments for a year. “I started analyzing my life then,” Ginaitt said. “It’s sounds strange, but in a way, I’m lucky I had cancer.”

What the fire did, he said, was make him even more proud to be a firefighter. Despite all the attention Ginaitt has received in the last month, he said it’s his fellow firefighters who deserve the limelight. “Some of them are disturbed that they couldn’t have saved more people,” Ginaitt said. “I remind them that they saved dozens of people. They went in there long after it was considered safe.”

“It was crisis management,” he said. “Not one thing went wrong. It was 100-percent stellar performances by the rescue workers, the firefighters, the hospitals. Was it textbook? Not even close. But when it comes right down to it, the Twin Towers had 18 burn victims. We had 164. It just blows your mind.”u

Meaghan Wims graduated in May 2002 with a B.A. in Journalism and Political Science. She is a reporter for The Providence Journal in the West Bay Bureau.

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