Natalie Perry, right, poses with her neighbors in her apartment Sunday Dec. 13, 2015. Her neighbors came to her rescue during a kitchen fire on Halloween. From left are: Rocio Mendez, Nick Berbari, and Don Mumma.
Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016 | 2 a.m.
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The flames spread quickly — but so did the goodwill of neighbors.
Tired from working six days a week, Natalie Perry, 54, a personal care attendant and ordained minister, absentmindedly left a burner on after cooking French fries. It was Halloween night.
When Perry turned around a few minutes later, a grease fire had engulfed her pot.
“I was panicking,” said Perry, who lives in an apartment complex near Charleston and Rainbow boulevards.
Smoke began to fill the unit. Perry grabbed a hand towel and swooped it over the stove, trying to smother the fire, but the movement fanned the flames and caused the blaze to roar even higher. Soon, a shelf separating the kitchen and family room caught fire.
Panicking, Perry ran to her porch and yelled, “Somebody call 911!”
What happened next still surprises Perry, who moved to Las Vegas a year ago from California. Her neighbors — all strangers at the time — heeded her call for help.
Perry’s downstairs neighbor, Donald Mumma, 49, rushed outside and coaxed Perry out of her apartment.
“Nothing is worth your life,” he said.
Nick Berbari, 39, grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran inside Perry’s apartment. Neighbors urged Berbari not to enter, but he was worried about the integrity of the building and the safety of all of its residents.
“It’s an old neighborhood,” said Berbari, who moved to Las Vegas as a child from Beirut, Lebanon. “I think the place would go up like a matchbox.”
Berbari doused the fire with flame retardant as he made his way into Perry’s kitchen, burning his hand in the process. Outside, more neighbors — Rocio Mendez and her teenage daughter — consoled Perry, who suffered second-degree burns on her hands, until firefighters arrived.
More than a month later, Perry can’t get over her neighbors’ generosity.
“I thanked them so much for stepping in for someone they didn’t know,” she said. “We’ve become friends now.”
The neighbors know one another’s names and chat outside. Perry has run into Berbari at the post office and Mumma at the grocery store. The fire created a community out of strangers.
“You hear a lot of bad things about Las Vegas, but this was just an excellent experience,” Perry said.
While Perry’s neighbors appreciate her gratitude, they shrug off the notion they acted extraordinarily.
“Karma is a real and prevalent force in the world,” Mumma said. “I believe you pass around common courtesy. You look after each other.”
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