Three days after a horrific fire swept through her Greenport home, Karen Pollack stood outside the charred remains on Saturday, desperately searching for her cat, who was lost since the blaze. Thankfully, she found him later that day.
The cat was found, according to family members, in a neighbor’s shed, and was brought home ravenously hungry, but safe and sound.
According to Southold Town police, a fire broke out at 6:43 p.m. at 630 First Street in Greenport, killing Jack Pollack, 61.
Pollack and his wife Karen, 58, were at home at the time the fire broke out, police said.
Pollack was physically handicapped and wheelchair bound, police said. His wife was able to get out of the home, suffering minor injuries. She was transported to Eastern Long Island Hospital by fire department ambulance, where she was treated for her injuries and released.
On Saturday, she stood in her yard, shaking a box of cat food, searching for Sylvio, an elderly, solid gray, long-haired, toothless feline feline that escaped during the fire. A shelter with a cat carrier had been set up outside, with food, for the cat.
Pollack said she wanted the world to know what a wonderful man her husband had been.
“My husband was disabled since 1974. He was legally blind, and could barely walk. He had challenges with everything,” she said. In 2009, her husband underwent extensive heart surgery that left him even more severely disabled, she said.
Then last April, he was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer.
But despite physical obstacles, Pollack said her husband Jack had an indomitable spirit. “Nothing defeated him,” she said. “He did not have a bitter bone in his body toward life, toward humanity, toward the world.”
Her husband, she said, loved sports, pets, good food, and “The Big Bang Theory.”
And, she said, her eyes welling, “He loved me.”
The couple married in 1998 and lived a love story during their 15 years together. Pollack, an RN, cared for her husband. It wasn’t always easy, she acknowledged. “He was disabled when we got married — and I didn’t plan on having his heart rebuilt. I cursed God for the cancer.”
But their hope and love, optimism and strength carried them through even the most tumultuous storms. “His love of life, his resilience, and his courage made this possible. He was doing extraordinarily well with his cancer treatments, better than 90 percent of patients, according to his doctor,” Pollack said. “He had chemotherapy the day before he died. We were going to beat cancer.”
Looking upward, her eyes filled with tears, Pollack said, “I don’t know why he had to be taken from me. He had so much to bring to the world. A bright light in the world went out Wednesday night. The best part of me went out, too, because he brought out the best in me. He was my life.”
Still, Pollack has the strength to find blessings in the worst of times. “I could have died in that fire,” she said. “I knew if I took one more step, I would have perished.”
Describing the horror, Pollack said she’d begun to prepare supper around 6:30, as was the couple’s ritual. The pair ate dinner in the living room, with her husband Jack on the couch, she said.
Pollack had gone downstairs into the basement and wasn’t there 10 minutes, and when she came up the stairs, she said, “I didn’t know where I was. The heat was like a blast; it staggered me. I couldn’t see. It was utterly dark. The heat was unbelievable.”
Calling frantically for her husband, Pollack said her hair began to burn. “I called for Jack, there was no answer. I tried to make my way to the living room and I knew I was outmatched. I knew I needed help. I saw the living room in flames, and I heard the windows exploding. I knew my phone had melted.”
Reaching the back door, Pollack saw her dog die, in front of her eyes. “I staggered to the front yard and I was yelling for help, but my windpipe was singed, and I wondered why no one was coming, why no one heard me.”
Her neighbors Charlie and Andy Corwin dialed 911, she said. “I knew my husband was gone,” she said, her voice breaking. “No one could survive that.”
What people who read her story should take from her tragedy, Pollack said, is the realization that life is precious. “They should wake up and say, ‘I’ve been granted the glory of another day.’ That’s what Jack said, even after he was diagnosed with cancer. He never complained. He’d say, ‘I’m not dead yet.’ If you can see, rejoice. If you can walk, rejoice.”
Thinking back on their life together, Pollack said their house was always filled with music, jazz blues, classic Rock and Frank Sinatra. “We laughed all the time,” she said. “We had a true love story.”
Members of the Southold Town Police Department., Suffolk County Police Department, Arson Squad, and Crime Scene Investigation Unit, as well as the Suffolk County Medical Examiners Office, responded to investigate the fire and death. Both are considered non-suspicious at this time, with further investigation to continue, police said.
