Related story: A night of horror and heroism

By Felice J. Freyer
Journal Staff Writer

I worried about all the tears. How many times could I write, ``her tears welled up'' or ``she recalls tearfully''? But everybody was crying, or talking about having cried, or about the need to cry.

My purpose was not to write about tears, nor to elicit them, but to tell the story of the extraordinary effort put forth at Rhode Island Hospital to save victims of The Station nightclub fire. The blaze - the worst in the state's history - eventually claimed 100 lives and injured about 200.

I wanted to know how the staff did it, and how the work had affected them. I didn't foresee that more than half of them would break down trying to explain it.

I had to rely on the hospital to connect me with staff members who were willing to talk, and despite my pleas for individual meetings, the hospital flack insisted on setting up group interviews.

I interviewed nearly 20 people, most herded together in barren conference rooms or cramped offices. Despite these obstacles, people were so eager to talk that they gave me a lot to work with. I called a few of them back to clarify points or get more details.

Then, I had to figure out how to put it all together. This was not, alas, a story that would write itself. There were so many people involved, and so many different aspects to the jobs they did.

Whenever I don't know how to start a story, I try beginning at the beginning. In this case, I described what the key players were doing at the moment when they received word of the late-night fire on Feb. 20. I was stirred by the image of people scattered around the state simultaneously springing into action.

That concept had the virtue of getting me started, but it turned out to be the wrong idea.