Remembering soccer/hockey dad who died in Plum explosion: Paul Oravitz's heart 'was always in the right place'

Paul Oravitz insisted his friend should come.

He had called Andy Zarroli, a neighbor and friend, the night before a St. Patrick’s Day beer crawl that Oravitz and others in their Rustic Ridge neighborhood were attending.

Oravitz asked Zarroli if he was coming.

“I said, ‘No, I don’t want to go,’ ” Zarroli said Thursday. “Paul said to me, ‘You’re coming. I’m coming to get you. I’m picking you up. You’re coming.’ ”

Because of Oravitz’s insistence, Zarroli has a picture that he’ll cherish forever.

Among the 11 people in the photo taken at a bar in Blawnox are: Oravitz, 56, and his wife, Heather, 51; Michael Thomas, 57; and Kevin Sebunia, 55.

They are four of the six people who died in an explosion Saturday at the Oravitz home in Plum.

“I’m so happy that he came and got me. It was such a wonderful time,” Zarroli said. “Unfortunately, that’s the last time we’re ever going to be able to do that.”

All four were in the Oravitz home at the time of the explosion. Casey Clontz, 38, and his son, Keegan, 12, also were in the home and died.

The cause of the explosion remains under investigation.

Paul Oravitz was pulled from the rubble but suffered severe burns. He was being treated at UPMC Mercy hospital in Pittsburgh when he died Wednesday.

Zarroli said he saw Oravitz at the hospital Monday. He wasn’t able to talk to him, but he said a prayer.

The Oravitzes had two children: daughter Taylor, 23, and son Cole, 21.

“Paul was very well liked in the neighborhood. He was generally a good person, he really was,” said Rick Napoleon, who lives across the street and whose home was severely damaged by the blast. “You could just tell they were loving parents just by how well their kids turned out.”

Melissa Campbell got to know the Oravitz family through their sons: Cole and her son, Aidan, played with the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite triple-A hockey organization.

“We spent so many weekends on the road together,” said Campbell, who lives in Cranberry. “When your children play high-level sports, you travel. There were some months we were on the road three weekends out of four, and holidays together.”

She described Paul Oravitz as welcoming and warm-natured.

“He always made you feel welcome,” she said. “He’d have a shoulder for you to cry on or a hug to encourage you.”

Campbell also described him as a delegator.

“If this was somebody else’s family, one of the other hockey families or one of his neighbors, Paul would be the person out there delegating: ‘You make sure they’re fed. You give them a water bottle. You make sure the firemen are taken care of,’ ” she said.

Campbell started a GoFundMe to help Cole and Taylor. As of Thursday afternoon, it has raised more than $56,000 from nearly 700 donations toward a $75,000 goal.

She has been astounded by the generosity.

“Taylor and Cole have a long road. That road is very unknown,” she said. “There are expenses that we don’t even know will arise. They literally lost everything down to the most personal of items.

“This fund is meant to focus on helping them through the unknown and what expenses are down the road and what we can do as individuals to come together and just ensure the future is a little smoother for them.”

Napoleon and his family lived across from the Oravitzes for 18 years. The Napoleons were there first; the Oravitz home was the last to be built in that section of Rustic Ridge.

“Paul’s a really good guy, and I’m truly going to miss him,” Napoleon said. “My heart is just thinking of nothing more than Cole and Taylor. I can’t even express the amount of sorrow I feel for those two. They’re really good kids.”

Zarroli knew Paul Oravitz for 22 years. They each owned homes in an older part of Rustic Ridge before moving to the current locations across the street from each other. The group included the Sebunia and Thomas families.

Zarroli said his friendship with Oravitz started over poker.

“We got to know each other that way,” said Zarroli, who on Thursday was driving his youngest, Mia, 18, to Ohio State. “We all started having children around the same time. We would invite one another to children’s events, and our kids started playing sports. We all became very close friends.”

Oravitz was a big part of Plum Area Youth Soccer, said Fred Lucas, president of the organization since 1995. Lucas had known him for 15 years, and they were good friends.

“Paul’s the kind of guy everyone would want as a best friend,” Lucas said.

Lucas said his mother recently had a partial hip replacement. Oravitz would ask how she was doing.

“It wasn’t just I knew him from soccer,” he said. “His heart was always in the right place.”

Zarroli said Oravitz was a foodie who liked to cook. He was a hunter and cherished being with his family.

They would go to each other’s homes to watch Steelers games.

“He was the closest friend to me. He knew so much about me, and I knew so much about him,” Zarroli said. “I trusted him. I loved him, I really did. I loved him like a brother.”