[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 12]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 17661-17662]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   RECOGNIZING BOB AND BOBBY PETRINI

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JACKIE SPEIER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 16, 2010

  Ms. SPEIER. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor Bob and Bobby Petrini of 
San Bruno, California. The father-son-team saved the lives of five 
senior citizens in the midst of the PG&E natural gasoline explosion on 
September 9, 2010.
  Bob Petrini and his family were enjoying a warm summer evening in 
their Rollingwood neighborhood home, about a quarter mile north of the 
Glenview neighborhood. Bob was

[[Page 17662]]

opening the sliding door of the family room when he heard the 
explosion. His first thought was an earthquake. Then he saw giant 
flames leaping into the sky. He and his 25-year-old son Bobby looked at 
each other without saying a word, grabbed the household fire 
extinguisher, jumped into their Nissan Maxima and headed to the fire.
  When they arrived at Glenview Drive, the entire street was engulfed 
in flames, so they headed to the next block, Vermont Way. They saw an 
elderly woman being rolled out into the street in a wheel chair by a 
very distressed caretaker who was screaming for help. Bob put the 
elderly woman in the back seat of his car. Then he entered the house, 
at this point unaware it was an assisted living facility. He ran down a 
long hallway yelling ``Fire, fire, fire, is anybody here?'' He entered 
a room to the right of the hallway and saw a woman in her nineties on 
oxygen in a recliner, with her back to the window and headphones in her 
ears. Bob pulled the phones out of her ears, lifted her into a wheel 
chair, rolled her out into the street and then loaded her into his car. 
As Bobby saw this, he ran into the building and rescued another elderly 
woman.
  At this point the fire was licking at the homes behind the facility--
the heat was intense. Firefighters and police officers were telling the 
Petrinis to leave, but Bob ran back into the building. In the very back 
he found a 96-year-old, deaf woman on oxygen, with a catheter, in a 
hospital bed. Racing against time, he rolled the hospital bed towards 
the door, only to find that it didn't fit through the frame. He ran 
outside for help. Bob, his son, a firefighter and a stranger who showed 
up out of nowhere lifted the woman from the hospital bed into a wheel 
chair, rolled her out to the street and put her into the car of a 
caretaker.
  With three of the women in his car, Bob raced off to a hospital in 
South San Francisco while his son Bobby drove the caretaker's car with 
two of the seniors and the caretaker.
  Bob delivered his three patients to the hospital and headed home. He 
didn't have a phone to tell his wife he was OK, he didn't know where 
his son was, and for the first time that evening, he was scared. 
``There was a moment when I thought I was going to lose him,'' he said 
referring to his son. But as he pulled into his driveway, he saw his 
son by the caretaker's car.
  The other patients, including the 96-year-old lady, were taken to the 
hospital.
  The San Bruno natural gas explosion was a horrible disaster that 
claimed 8 lives and destroyed 37 homes, but it was also a tragedy that 
brought out the best in members of this community.
  Madam Speaker, Bob and Bobby Petrini risked their own lives to save 
five strangers. I ask that this body join me in commending them for 
their extraordinary act of heroism.

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