‘My heart breaks every time I’m called a hero’

William Lee has endured the “hero” label ever since he helped his neighbors escape a fire that swept through the Hong Kong apartment building he has called home since birth.

Instead, he is haunted by guilt that he could have saved more people from the fire at Wang Fook Court, which left at least 159 people dead.

“My heart breaks every time someone calls me a hero,” the 40-year-old said as he broke down in tears.

A week after the disaster, firefighters are still combing the complex Seven high-rise buildings burned to the remains of 30 of Mr Lee’s neighbors – people who, like him, had the misfortune of being in their homes when the deadly fire broke out.

What caused the fire, and why more people did not flee, is now the subject of an investigation by an independent commission ordered by Hong Kong’s chief executive.

It has already been revealed that non-fireproof grilles were installed around the building, and that fire alarms were not working properly.

The fact that the alarms did not go off was the reason why Mr. Lee was not worried when his wife called him to tell him that a fire had broken out in their building, Wang Cheung’s house.

Instead of rushing, he spent about 10 minutes packing his luggage.

But the moment he opened the door, the scale of the disaster was abundantly clear: he was engulfed in billowing smoke and forced to retreat inside his apartment.

On the other end of the phone, his wife became hysterical, but Mr. Lee did not have time to panic.

He had to put wet towels under the door to keep the smoke out, and tried to figure out what to do next.

Then he heard voices in the corridor, where the air was now so thick with smoke that he could not see who was calling. He covered his face with a wet towel, found two of his neighbors by touch, and they pulled the pair inside to the relative safety of his apartment.

In a nearby building, Bai Shui Lin was also trying to help her neighbors.

The 66-year-old is believed to have saved at least three families by knocking on their doors to warn them of the fire.

But Mrs. Bai did not survive. Her sons identified her body over the weekend.

“If I had asked her to leave a minute earlier, I think she would have survived,” Yip Ka Kwee told the BBC’s US partner CBS. “But we know her. She wouldn’t have left without warning the others.”

Back at Mr. Lee’s apartment, the middle-aged couple reveal that they heard another voice in the corridor: a domestic helper calling for an elderly woman. But now, the voice became quiet.

This time, Mr. Li couldn’t help.

“I feel very guilty,” he said. “Some people weren’t saved and I didn’t open my door again and try to find them.”

Mr. Lee does not yet know what happened to the sound in the corridor. Nine Indonesian domestic workers and one Filipina were reported to be among the dead, but others survived – including Rhodora Alcaraz, 28, who was trapped in another apartment caring for her employer’s three-month-old child and her elderly mother. She’s also been hailed as a hero for staying by their side.

The three were eventually rescued by firefighters, but not before Ms Alcaraz sent a series of voice messages to her sister.

“I feel very weak. I can’t breathe,” she said in one clip.

Lee and the couple, called Chows in local media, realized they also needed to escape. Several hours had passed, and they were running out of options.

One fire exit was blocked by the fire, while Mr Lee’s neighbor believed the other was closed. They decided not to jump from the second floor window due to the intensity of the fire and continuous explosions.

A subsidiary of Danish company ISS, the property manager at Wang Fuk Court, did not respond to a BBC inquiry about reports that the emergency exit was closed.

“This was the first time I felt like death had anything to do with me,” Mr. Lee says.

That’s why he started saying goodbye to friends one by one via WhatsApp: “I can’t escape,” he told them. “If something happens to me, take care of my children. Take care of yourselves.”

About two and a half hours after the fire started, firefighters finally reached them on an aerial ladder. Ms. Chow told HK01, a Hong Kong-based news outlet, that Mr. Lee insisted that firefighters extricate them first. “We are older and we told him he had to leave first. But he refused and said he was young and could handle this.”

When the firefighters returned for him, Mr. Lee felt reluctant to leave his home, which was filled with fond memories and treasured collections of photography equipment and toys.

“The fire was telling me that I couldn’t take anything, that I had no right or power to stop it from devouring everything.”

Mr. Lee gathered with his family at a nearby fast food restaurant.

But after arriving at hospital, it took until the early hours of the morning for him to feel the true extent of his horror.

“I no longer had any strength, and when I got to the emergency room, my knees gave out. A burning smell remained in my nose,” he says. “I really wanted to wash away the smell.”

After being admitted to the ward at 03:00, Mr Lee finally had the space to cry and begin to try to process the ordeal he had been through.

“When I went to the hospital before, I wanted to go home as quickly as possible,” he says. “But this time when the nurse asked me [if I wanted to go home]I wasn’t ready to leave. “I felt like I was avoiding what I would face in the future.”

However, he decided to confront the shock in advance – by conducting as many interviews as possible.

“I hope a lot of people will come forward to help find the truth,” he says. “I hope the residents of Wang Fook Court get answers and justice.”

Additional reporting by Phoebe Kong and Grace Tsui