"Why me?" 20 years later, Station nightclub fire survivors talk guilt and how far they've come
WEST WARWICK, R.I. - Paula Marchetti pulled up to The Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island 20 years ago on February 20th to see the band Great White. But she wasn't feeling well that night, so she backed out and went home instead.
"To this day I can't believe it. I could have died that day," she said. To her, it feels like a miracle that she isn't among the 100 people memorialized at a park built in the spot where the club burned down that night.
Gina Russo's fiancé Fred Crisostomi did not make it out. Russo remembers when pyrotechnics shot from the stage, and eventually spread into an inferno.
"I remember trying to get out of a fire exit. A bouncer was blocking the door and he wouldn't let us out, and my last full memory is of my fiancé pushing me in the back and screaming 'Go!' and he literally shoved me to the front entrance," she said. "People started to pile up and I was just kind of stuck. I couldn't turn around 'cause there was nowhere to go, and I just remember the breaths getting shorter and shorter, and in my mind I just kept saying 'please God remember my children.'"
She spent 11 weeks in a coma, and has had more than 70 surgeries over two decades.
"It's mind-blowing that I've lived to 20 more years," she said. In that time, she has struggled with survivor's guilt. "The survivor's guilt was so much worse than the physical pain, the surgeries. Why me?"
Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee stopped by the memorial on the 20th anniversary of the fire Monday. He said if there's anything good that came of it, it's more awareness.
"This is a reason why you have good fire codes and you make sure that the inspections are done," he said.
Aside from the 100 people killed, about 200 were injured. Three people were charged in the fire, and Rhode Island implemented stricter fire codes.
Gina Russo says she knows now it's a blessing she survived.
"I didn't know it then. I had no clue, no clue when I was trying to get back to a new life. . . I had no clue my life would turn into this," she said.
Russo is president of the Station Fire Memorial Foundation, and was instrumental in getting the new park built. A memorial service is planned there for May 21.
