On March 6, 1992, Mildred McCarter became known around the nation as the frail 70-year-old who hung halfway outside the small window of her burning 25th-story Honolulu apartment for 20 minutes, trying desperately to keep her hold as she waited for firefighters.

McCarter was also the bright, quiet chemist who in 1982 discovered the pesticide heptachlor in Hawai'i's milk, averting a potentially massive public health crisis.

In interviews over the years, McCarter often said she preferred privacy to the publicity she endured twice in her life — and a decade apart. "I wasn't brave," she told a newspaper reporter after the dramatic fire rescue in 1992, which made her and her rescuers heroes. "I'm the darned fool."

McCarter, a native of New Jersey, died on Christmas Eve in Honolulu. She was 85.

"If there ever was a model of strength in the face of adversity, it was Mildred McCarter," said retired Deputy Fire Chief John Clark, one of four firefighters who ran into McCarter's burning, smoke-filled Harbor Square apartment to save her.

Yesterday, he said he still remembers every moment of that fire.

"It was noontime Downtown. Everybody was out going to lunch and doing things on the street," Clark said. "When we made our turn onto Queen Street, we could see the smoke and the flames coming out of her living room. And we saw her, perched on the sill of her bedroom window."

CRITICAL BURNS

When Clark and his crew got to the 25th floor, the hallway was pitch black with smoke. Clark and another firefighter worked to douse the flames, and two others made their way to McCarter. Firefighter Wendell Soo grabbed the tiny woman and helped drag her to safety.

"She was on the brink," Soo told The Advertiser after the rescue.

McCarter suffered burns to 21 percent of her body. She drifted between serious and critical condition at Straub Clinic & Hospital for months. More than once, her family feared she would die.

But by October 1992, she was well enough to speak to reporters for the first time. She admitted to hating the attention, but said she understood the value of talking about her ordeal. She also wanted to publicly thank her heroes: the four firefighters who had saved her life and the faceless people on the street who yelled words of encouragement as she clung to her window 250 feet above.

It was those words, McCarter said, that had given her the strength to hold on.

Fire investigators determined the blaze was caused by a match. McCarter was a heavy smoker and she'd thrown the contents of her ashtray into her waste basket.

After the fire, Clark said, she quit smoking.

Clark got to know McCarter after visiting her at the hospital after the rescue. He reconnected with her every so often over the years whenever a Mainland television show wanted to include a spot on the rescue. "She was a wonderful person," Clark said. "She was just a genuinely good person."

DISASTER AVERTED

Richard Scudder, the administrator at the Hawai'i Heptachlor Research and Education Foundation, would agree. He never met McCarter but credits her with helping avert a public health disaster in the Islands.

"Without her diligence to her job, the whole thing would not have been known," said Scudder, who helped establish the foundation with other concerned advocates shortly after McCarter ran tests on Hawai'i milk and found unacceptably high levels of heptachlor.

"Mildred is the one that was smart enough to bring it to the attention of the higher-ups."

McCarter was a chemist at the state Health Department when she made the discovery.

Milk was pulled from supermarkets and schools in March 1982, and officials started an exhaustive analysis to determine how the pesticide had entered the food system.

It turned out cattle were getting heptachlor in their feed, which included pineapple leaves, Scudder said. Though heptachlor had been banned in the United States by the early 1980s, pineapple companies had gotten a temporary exemption to use the pesticide on their fields.

Heptachlor can damage the liver and kidneys, and high amounts can cause cancer.

"We came close to it being a bad chronic health effect," Scudder said. "Without Mildred raising the flag, who knows how many more years it would have gone on?"

Services for McCarter are set for Thursday at Mililani Downtown Mortuary.

McCarter is survived by a sister, Eleanor Mazzoleni of Kentucky; brothers Lester Lichtler of Texas and Bill Lichtler of Florida; and nieces and nephews.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.