Goodridge ... a hero

DESPITE his speech impediment and his inability to use his legs, physically challenged Ashley Goodridge is a hero in his own right. He shouted at the top of his voice on Lower High Street in San Fernando on Tuesday for people to move their vehicles when fire razed through an abandoned building and ignited vehicles parked nearby. Goodridge, 49, of Circular Road, Pleasantville, is an employee of the National Centre for Persons with Disabilities. He has earned the praise of many car owners who were conducting business at RBTT’s High Street branch at the time. “I saw fire and I had to do something,” Goodridge said with a smile, sitting yesterday at his workbench at the centre.

It was around midday Tuesday when the abandoned Government building next to RBTT caught fire. Cars were parked nearby. Goodridge was in his workshop when he suddenly saw thick black smoke billowing from the building. “It was around midday. I was sanding down a bookshelf when I saw the smoke. I looked outside the window and saw the wooden house on fire. I also noticed that the fire was a threat to the cars parked in the car park next to the burning building. I knew that it was my duty to do something to save the vehicles,” Goodridge told Newsday.

Goodridge said he quickly hobbled out of the centre. He almost ran down the hill, he added, then into RBTT bank. “I screamed ‘Fire! Fire! Move yuh cars, fire heading towards them. Do fast!”’ Goodridge said. Goodridge did not move from the spot where he stood shouting, until people had rushed out of the bank. And yesterday he was  saddened by the trauma of seeing two cars razed and two others partially destroyed. “Although the majority of the cars were removed and saved from the fire, I feel sad for the four people whose cars were burnt or scorched. I wish I could have done something more to save them,” Goodridge said.

Goodridge said he desired no praise for what he did. He quietly returned to the centre and continued working. “After the fire out and I saw that everyone was alright, I went back to the centre. I relaxed for a few minutes, ate something, then went back to work.” The centre’s production coordinator, Joanne Baker, said Goodridge was given a hero’s welcome yesterday morning at the centre. His fellow disabled workers clapped and jeered him. What was most touching, Baker said, was the fact that she had asked two of the centre’s trainee employees to alert people at the bank who had their cars parked nearby. “But Goodridge had already arrived on the scene and alerted people,” Baker said.