Aug. 02--The act of saving lives doesn't stop when emergency responders take time to grieve the loss of two of their own.
And sometimes, they break their own rules.
A Perry-Clear Creek Volunteer Fire Department lieutenant, a Bloomington city firefighter and a Monroe County dispatcher saved a man's life last week. He was trapped in a kitchen, the stove on fire. Guided by the dispatcher who was on the phone with the man, firefighters entered the smoke-filled house and pulled the man to safety -- without wearing their own air-packs and face masks.
The two firefighters were filling in at Perry-Clear Creek's Station 24 the evening of July 25 while other members of the department attended the funeral visitation for Randy Roudebush, a fire captain who apparently shot and killed his girlfriend, paramedic supervisor Kelly Emerick, and then turned the gun on himself July 22.
Lt. J.J. McWhorter and fire engineer Chris Welch had just left the station on South Strain Ridge Road and were heading to another station on South Kennedy Drive when they heard the call: kitchen fire at 2875 Carowinds Court, with a man trapped inside the house.
McWhorter and Welch, in a support utility vehicle, were three minutes away. They had gear -- helmets, coats and pants -- but no self-contained breathing apparatus equipment, commonly known as air-packs.
At the burning house, McWhorter tried kicking in the locked door, then broke a window with a rock.
Smoke had filled the two-story home to the level of the firefighters' knees and ankles.
"And we just held our breath, went in and got him," Welch said.
They found him, phone in hand, lying on the kitchen floor.
"She was very precise and told us exactly where he was at," Welch said of Monroe County dispatcher Emily Hodge. "He wouldn't be here today if that dispatcher wasn't so specific."
Hodge, a dispatcher since November, briefly lost contact with the man when he started coughing. But he kept saying "kitchen, kitchen."
Once she heard the sound of wind chimes, Hodge knew the firefighters had pulled the man outside to safety.
The firefighters called for an ambulance, then went back inside the house to fight the fire. They filled pots and pans from the kitchen sink with water to douse the flames, then used a garden hose, as fire engines started to arrive.
McWhorter also saved the man's dog from the house, putting it into a kennel outside and giving it fresh water.
"We did everything we're told not to do to save that guy," Welch said. He admitted he hadn't even spoken about the save to his father, Chuck Welch, a retired battalion chief of training for the city fire department.
Welch said it's the first time he's ever entered a structure fire without wearing an air-pack. "But we're here to help people," he said.
"Every fireman makes that call at that moment. 'Do I do this, or do I not do this?' And them two boys decided to save that guy," Perry-Clear Creek fire Chief Joey McWhorter Jr. said of his younger brother and Welch.
Copyright 2013 - Herald-Times, Bloomington, Ind.
