ATTLEBORO — Lisa Carvalho, the victim of a house fire last month, is being remembered for her feisty spirit and independence despite being deaf. “Lisa was one feisty young lady. She would never let anyone take care of her.
She was always able to fend for herself. She was raised that way,” her older brother Brian Andrews messaged The Sun Chronicle on Friday. Carvalho, who would have turned 43 Sunday, died two weeks ago at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence after suffering critical burn injuries during a fire that broke out in her duplex on Mendon Road July 21.
She was pulled from the burning home by Attleboro police officers Adena Joseph and Shawn Reardon, who carried her out of the fire from her second-floor bedroom. She was unconscious when the police officers found her in the bedroom. They also helped a man, who was also deaf, out of the burning duplex.
Carvalho developed her hearing loss at birth, her brother said, when she was not breathing for four minutes. Her deafness was diagnosed when she was six months old and she was put into schools that focused on deaf and hard of hearing children to learn with peers, Andrews said. Her family battled to get her in to the right schools where she excelled.
Andrews said his sister wrote an essay that won her a four-year scholarship to Framingham State College. She was part of a panel that argued with politicians to keep funding for access to education for deaf, blind, and children with other learning disabilities. She argued her points with then-governor Bill Weld, Andrews said.
“She never struggled to get by. She would sign to people, teach people sign language, and communicate however needed to get her points across,” Andrews said. “She had a group of loyal friends and they did everything, went everywhere, together.
Some were inseparable.” After his sister died, Andrews said he was told so many stories of things she did with friends, places they’d go. “Everyone appreciated her fiery spirit.
You didn’t tell Lisa ‘no.’ She found a way to get it done. I’ll always remember my beautiful, 42 years young, little sister.
Her memory will stay with me until I see her again,” Andrews said. His mother cherished memories of his sister, seeing her as a 6-year-old flower girl and later as bridesmaid in his wedding in 2012, Andrews said. Besides her brother Brian, Carvalho, who was born in Stoughton, is also survived by her father John Andrews and another brother, William Andrews.
The fire was deemed accidental but the exact cause remains under investigation by city and state fire officials, a spokesman for the state Fire Marshal’s office said..
