Shenika Chornoby, 17, was taken from a northern First Nation and flown to a hospital in Winnipeg
A 17-year-old girl is still getting better after saving several children from an apartment building on a northern Manitoba First Nation that was on fire a week ago.
Shenika Chornoby was walking to work on the afternoon of February 11 in her hometown of Tataskweyak Cree Nation, which is 700 kilometers north of Winnipeg.
She had a bad feeling, so she stopped near a road to look around. She soon saw a girl and a teenager who were nearby and yelling.
She told CBC on Friday, “Then I saw smoke coming from the apartment building.”
She said, “I went upstairs, went inside, and got two kids.” She took the two kids outside to keep them safe.
Then a firefighter from Tataskweyak showed up, along with a few people from an apartment complex nearby who wanted to help save people. Chornoby was one of the eight people who went back into the apartment.
She said that the fire was spreading quickly, but she saw a 2-year-old boy crying in a closet in one of the suites. Before everyone else got out, the firefighter took the boy through a window.
“I don’t know how long I was in there,” Chornoby said. “When I got out, I passed out.”
Chornoby, who has asthma, passed out from inhaling too much smoke. A bystander gave her CPR, which dislocated her shoulder and hurt her ribcage.
She and the two-year-old boy were flown to the HSC Children’s Hospital in Winnipeg, and she woke up there three days later.
She said, “It’s all a bit of a blur.”
“Because I was the first person in that fire, a lot of people were worried and surprised that I got out alive.”
“Overwhelming” response from the communit
She has been released from the hospital and will soon go back home. She said that going back feels good and that she misses school and her teachers.
“Everyone wants to see me,” they say. “I miss them a little bit.”
Chornoby is now known in her town as a hero.
“I just feel normal, to be honest.” “It’s a bit overwhelming how many people now know who I am,” she told me.
“I didn’t have adrenaline.” I didn’t feel scared or annoyed. “I just felt like myself at that moment.”
Taralee Beardy, the chief of Tataskweyak, told CBC before that the apartment fire could have been stopped if her community had a working fire truck. Because of mechanical problems, they have not been able to use their current truck for more than a month.
In an email to CBC on Tuesday, Nicolas Moquin, a spokesman for Indigenous Services Canada, said that the federal government gives Tataskweyak Cree Nation about $216,000 per year for fire protection and other services.
Chornoby agreed with Beardy and said that many communities in the north don’t have enough fire protection tools.
She wants to thank the nurses who helped her get better after the fire. She also said she would run into another fire to save more people.
“I can’t let anyone get hurt.”