Surprise

At 1:30 AM the other night at the fire house, our engine was dispatched on what is called a service run. Basically, that means we have a call that isn't an emergency, but the person who called 911 didn't know how to handle whatever fix he found himself in. This call, we soon learned, was a water problem. And by water problem, I mean water was pouring through the ceiling into this guy's apartment from the apartment above.

Yes, people call 911 for everything.

Anyway, we told the guy to call his landlord and he said his landlord didn't answer. He also said that the upstairs resident didn't answer when he pounded on her door.

Although we aren't plumbers and this was anything but a life-or-death emergency, we figured we'd try and help. We went into the basement and turned off the water to the offending apartment which after a couple of minutes stopped the heavy flow of water into the caller's apartment.

But that wasn't the end of the call. What if the water was from an overflowing bathtub and someone was injured or worse?

We needed to check.

Before we bashed down the door, we tried knocking and yelling with no response. Our last attempt before smashing in the door was to check for an open window. Luckily, one of the windows was cracked open and, since we are the fire department, we happened to have a ladder.

I sent the new guy up the ladder so he could open the door for the rest of us. He shouted into the room before he climbed through the window which was a good thing. We wouldn't want him to have a run-in with a dog, or a gun, or both. He found his way through the dark apartment to the front door and let us in for our search.

The old, weathered hardwood floors were flooded with at least two inches of water. I felt a little on edge walking into her hallway with a flashlight. I have to tell you, I had a little hesitation as I walked through the hallway in anticipation of what I might find in the next room.

That's because a few years ago, I was doing the exact same thing after a woman called and asked us to check on her family member since she hadn't talked to him and was worried that he had been depressed. When I went into this guy's basement, I turned the corner from the stairs and almost walked face-first into his body. hanging from the rafters. It didn't take much experience to realize he had been dead for quite awhile. The only way I can explain walking into something like that is comparing it to seeing a ghost. Not in a spiritual way, but in a surreal, somewhat creepy and unexpected way.

But back to the other night. As three of us sloshed through the apartment and rounded the hall to the bedroom, we found a young lady lying unconscious on the bed. She was as naked as the day she was born, but that didn't seem too out of the ordinary since it was very hot and humid outside and the apartment didn't have air conditioning.

My first reaction was that she was dead, or had OD'd or something of that nature since we had made a ton of noise getting into the apartment. One of the other two firefighters shouted, "Hey," with no reply. I dug through my bunker pants for a pair of gloves so I could check her pulse and sent someone for our EMS kits. The other firefighter shouted, "Hey" again and this time the lady nearly jumped through the ceiling with a screech that startled the hell outta me. She screamed over and over, "What are you doing in here?" like a vinyl on permanent skip.

We turned away as she wrapped herself in a blanket. I tried to explain why we were in her apartment, but her panicked shouting drowned out my voice. Calmly and repeatedly, we told her to relax and that we were the fire department. Slowly, she settled down. With her mood changing from panic to embarrassment and ultimately to understanding, I explained, "You've left water running somewhere and you're flooding your downstairs neighbor." I told her we would step out of the apartment to give her some privacy while she gathered herself and that she could come out and talk to me when she was ready.

When she eventually came out, she was obviously embarrassed, as anyone would be. We talked for a few minutes and I apologized for scaring her.

That wasn't our last call of the night, but definitely the strangest. To make our night even more odd, we were called for another service run where a young lady had taken out her trash and locked herself out of her apartment. Making things worse, she had two young babies still inside. Luckily, she too had a slightly opened upstairs window for us to climb through.

That's the way the fire department works sometimes. In the last year I haven't had a single call where we needed to climb into someone's window (other than if their house was on fire, that is), yet last shift we did it twice during one night. All in all, it was an interesting evening, with no fires and no injuries—just a lot of ladder climbing, a naked lady and 2 babies oblivious of the goings on in their homes.

5AM

This is a very difficult blog for me to write and probably hard for a lot of people to read so this is your fair warning. You can turn back now, it's not too late.

I'm a firefighter/paramedic and I began writing five years ago as a way to deal with a terrible emergency call. Read my previous post about that call here. The reason for writing this blog today is no different.

On the Saturday before Christmas last December, I was working at Fire Station 15 in Columbus, Ohio. I had been asleep for a couple of hours when the fire tones startled me awake at around 5AM. Within seconds I had my bunker pants on and was climbing into the ladder truck. Before I was in the truck, the fire tones sounded again, which wasn't a typical occurrence. The dispatcher reported that the police were already on the scene and had confirmed a working fire, explaining the quick second tone.

I knew from the address and the time of night that Ladder15 would likely be the first ladder on the scene and that my job (among other jobs) would be to search whatever was on fire for victims who might be trapped.

Remember, I'm still trying to get my bearings after going from a deep sleep (actually firefighters never sleep soundly at the fire house, but you get the jest) to full adrenaline rush within an instant. Ever wonder why firefighters routinely die of heart attacks within a few hours of fire calls? Or shortly after retirement? Well, that stress on a person's heart is part of the reason. There's another reason, and I'm getting to that now.

Before we pulled out of the station, our dispatcher announced that two children were still in the burning apartment (probably confirmed by the police on the scene). I get chills just writing that line and not the good kind of chills either. So now, as I was getting my gear on, slinging my air tank onto my back, and strapping my TIC (Thermal Imaging Camera) to my coat, I was also game-planning how my crew and I were going to get to those kids.

Every second seemed like forever and the ladder couldn't move fast enough. Engine 4 marked on the scene and further confirmed every firefighters' biggest fear: yes, there were kids inside. Before we turned onto the street of the fire, we saw the bright orange glow above the surrounding apartment buildings. We turned onto the court where the unit on fire sat. Flames were blowing from every upstairs window.

I mentally sized up the structure in hopes of finding a possible way for my crew and I to get to where the kids would most likely be found at that time of night (upstairs). A part of me knew no one could survive in those conditions, but another part hoped beyond hope that the kids had made it downstairs and could still be rescued.

As we jumped from the ladder and started toward the inferno, our chief called me to the command post. He told me to get onto the roof of the attached unit and get a ventilation hole cut. I can't remember the exact timing, but I believe it was around this same time that Engine 4 knocked down the fire a bit and reported two fatalities inside. A fire that had gotten that intense and large before the first fire truck even arrived meant conditions inside weren't likely to be survivable.

My crew and I slung ladders to the roof, gathered chainsaws and other tools, and did what we were told to do. My heart hurt while we cut that hole, but we had a job to do. Even as I worked, I knew my crew, along with every firefighter on the scene, had just been kicked in the gut. We put out the fire like we always do, but this fire was something more--something far worse--than the others. The remainder of our job (as Ladder 15) after ventilating the roof consisted of various tasks that forced us to work where the two children lay.

I'm not going to go into details here, I see no reason, but I will say that such a horrible morning changes a person. I deal with these things better nowadays as I gain years and experience, but nothing prepares a person for what I saw. I live with those memories and the thought of what could have been if the fire was only discovered a few minutes sooner and we were called in time. Damnit, we would have found those kids, I know it. You wanna know why I'm so confident? Because Columbus firefighters, like firefighters around the world, are very skilled and dedicated to walking through literal Hell in order to find you and your family if you need us. We do it often and sometimes we win. Other times, like that Saturday morning, we lose, and that loss takes something from all of us. Fire is a merciless, unforgiving beast. Those kids didn't stand a chance and my heart is still heavy for them. I'll never forget what I saw that day but I will work as hard as I can to not have to see it again. Unfortunately, as was the case that morning, it isn't always up to me.



Update: This report was on local news today following up on this story.