LEWISTON – A snowstorm prevented Phil Barr from getting to New York for a job interview on Feb. 20, 2003. That left him free to attend a Great White concert at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I.
The club exploded into flames seconds after the band took the stage, “so instantaneously I can’t really describe it,” Barr said in an interview on the Bates College campus, where he is preparing to graduate next week.
One hundred people lost their lives and more than 300, including Barr, were injured. Suffering from massive internal burns from smoke inhalation, Barr was in an induced coma for 21 days. He took a year off from college to recover and regain his strength.
Back at school, he made the Bates swim team, a goal he worked toward tirelessly during his rehabilitation. His strength and courage earned him the Senior Sportsmanship award.
The Massachusetts native will graduate next week with a degree in economics. In June, he will move to New York and begin working at the J.P. Morgan investment firm.
On fire
Looking back on the fire, Barr knows he was lucky to escape with his life. Getting to the club early, around 8, allowed him to get a good sense of the layout, he said.
When chaos struck later that night, instead of heading for the front door like most of the other patrons, Barr remembered a side exit that he saw earlier and headed toward it.
That “opened a hole in the crowd and tons of people started following me,” he said. In the rush, Barr was trampled, he was forced to the ground and passed out from smoke inhalation.
After about four and a half minutes, he came to and realized his back was on fire. Crawling hand-over-hand as firefighters rushed into the nightclub, Barr fell in the snow and the flames were extinguished.
Moments later, his friend, Evan Clabots, found Barr lying in the snow, talking on a cell phone to his parents, attempting to explain the horrible situation around him. Barr still uses the cell phone as a reminder of the night.
“It didn’t work for a while, but I patched it up,” he said with a smile.
Fighting back
At first, his injuries did not look too bad because they were mostly internal. However, after doctors determined the extent of his burns, they put Barr in a medically induced coma for 21 days.
He remembers waking from the coma and “looking around the room trying to figure out why I was there and what had happened.” As the drugs wore off, he began to remember the insanity of the February night.
The recovery process was long and painful. His lung capacity was about 45 percent of a normal person his age and nerve damage had virtually destroyed his balance.
He and his parents found Anthony Diluglio, a trainer who introduced Barr to kettle bells, a strengthening exercise that focuses on total body movement.
By the summer, Barr was able to drive and was getting stronger by the day. In the fall and winter, he took classes at Brown University as he continued to rehabilitate. After interning at J.P. Morgan in the summer of 2004, Barr returned to Bates in the fall with full movement and strength and almost full lung capacity.
Achievement
Barr’s strength and courage throughout the ordeal did not go unnoticed. At the spring sports banquet, he was recognized as the outstanding senior athlete.
“Phil Barr epitomizes sportsmanship and decency in every aspect of his life,” Coach Dana Mullholland said. “Phil is the consummate example of the good’ in college athletics. His teammates and others are always more important to him than he is.”
Eric Bowden, co-captain of the swim team, called Barr an inspiration to other athletes.
“The way he came back to the swim team inspired all of us,” Bowden said. “He would swim until he couldn’t breathe anymore and that was enough for the rest of us to make it through a workout.”
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