Smith: Man who collapsed at the gym a Tubbs fire hero

Ralph Casale was the fellow who collapsed last week at a gym and died despite the efforts by 18-year-old Allison Aver and paramedics to bring him around.

Casale leaves his wife, Esther, and three children, and also the handwritten notes of gratitude from Fountaingrove residents certain that they owe the independent building contractor their lives.

It buoyed Casale to know that his actions the first night of the Tubbs fire - he evacuated with his family but drove back to Parker Hill Road to bang on neighbors’ doors - prevented the deaths of several people.

Though he lost nearly everything he owned to the flames, he told the Marin Independent-?Journal a short while after the inferno, “All the material things - it’s irrelevant.”

To have awakened and helped some people to escape, he said, “gives me all I need.”

But the aftermath of the disaster, the obstacles to navigating the financial maze and commencing a rebuild, wore heavily on Casale. He drove to the Airport Health Club in north Santa Rosa the afternoon of Aug. 8 to relax and shoot some hoops.

Allison Aver, the new Windsor High grad who’s intent on becoming a nurse and is about to move to Reno and commence classes at the University of Nevada, saw he’d collapsed on the gym floor and ran to him.

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A STORYTELLER, Casale grew up in Terra Linda and moved with his family to Santa Rosa about 13 years ago.

Late the night of Oct. 8, a wind-snapped tree branch fell loudly onto the deck of the Casale home well up Parker Hill Road. The family became aware the Tubbs fire was coming at them.

They piled into two cars and a pickup, and headed down the hill. Then it occurred to Ralph Casale that there might be neighbors still asleep and entirely unaware.

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HE TOLD HIS FAMILY to find safe shelter, and he drove back up the hill. He would tell the IJ that he guessed he knocked on more than 20 doors.

Determined to see proof that an older couple were awake and headed out, Casale banged on the garage door, shouting “It’s a fire!” until the garage door opened and the woman of the house appeared.

He would learn the couple had three grandkids over for the night, and they credited him with saving them all.

When the Casales returned to the remains of their home, they found that neighbors had left notes where the door had been. One, similar to the others, read, “Thank you, Ralph, you did a noble thing that night, waking everyone up. Seriously, Ralph, you saved us.”

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EVER SINCE THE FIRES, he’d treasured those notes. But people close to Casale have said he was terribly stressed by the barriers to the reconstruction of his house.

Friend Dave Lundquist told the IJ the 52-year-old Casale “just could not deal with all of the stress and complications with the mortgage company to rebuild his home.”

An apparent heart attack struck as he was unwinding on the basketball court. Aver performed chest compressions on him until first responders arrived and did all they could, too, to attempt to revive him.

There’s a memorial service for Casale at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses on Millbrae Avenue.

You can reach columnist Chris Smith at 707 521-5211 and at chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.