Aug. 31--ST. LOUIS COUNTY --Mehlville firefighter Mike Gapsch was asleep in the firehouse about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday when the blaring tones from Central County dispatch called him and his crew to a house fire a mile away.
Only after Gapsch, 55, suited up and got behind the wheel of the firetruck did he hear the intercom in the garage announce the address: 10005 St. Simon Court.
"That's my mom's house," he said, turning to a crew member behind him. "Let's go."
Gapsch was on the second truck to arrive and saw thick smoke pouring out of his mother's small brick home just off Tesson Ferry Road. He saw one great-niece, 13-year-old Mia, safely outside. Three people were trapped inside. Smoke had already forced back a police officer who tried to get in.
On his way in the front door, Gapsch saw the red helmet of a colleague carrying out his other great-niece, 11-year-old Maci Gapsch. It was as if Gapsch was on auto pilot from his 30 years as a firefighter. He said he kept his emotions in check and went inside to get his mother, Georgetta Gapsch, 79.
"Once I saw it, I didn't have time to think," Gapsch said Friday as he stood outside the home and recalled his actions the night of the fatal fire. "Just act, get to work."
Gapsch's visits to his mother's house over the last 10 years helped him navigate the layout of the house through the darkness. Through the front door, he dropped to his knees and crawled with his air mask on. Down a short hallway he came upon two firefighters who had stopped near a door to a bathroom.
He pointed them toward the bedroom at the end of the hall and searched the bathroom himself. He pushed the door open and groped around in the dark until he felt an arm.
"I grabbed her arms and drug her down the hall," he said of his mother on Friday, as he showed a reporter the hallway where it happened. Gapsch still can't comprehend why she was in the bathroom with the door shut. Maybe she was disoriented, he says, or thought it was a safe place.
"People don't realize, you can't stand up and take a breath in a fire or you're dead," he said. "The heated gases will scorch your lungs. The hydrogen cyanide from the plastics, and the heat can be 1200 to 2000 degrees."
Gapsch showed a reporter the exhaust fan in the bathroom and the smoke detector in the hallway that were melted. Gapsch said he couldn't recall if he heard the smoke detector sounding when he went into his mother's house; he said he assumed they were working because she was very particular about changing batteries whenever they were low.
After Gapsch grabbed his mother's arm Tuesday morning, another firefighter grabbed her other arm and someone carried her legs. They took her out front and Gapsch gave his mother mouth-to-mouth. That was the only thing he did differently than if it had been anyone else. He is trained not to do that without a barrier in place to protect the rescuer.
Georgetta Gapsch's grandson, Terry "T.J." Gapsch, 38, was still inside. He was pronounced dead within the hour at a hospital. His daughter Maci died Wednesday evening at Mercy Hospital St. Louis. Georgetta Gapsch died early Wednesday morning.
Fire and police are still investigating what caused the fire, but preliminary results say it started in the basement and does not appear suspicious. Mike Gapsch said it apparently started near a wall where T.J.'s bed and stereo and television were in the basement.
Mike Gapsch believes that T.J. Gapsch was awakened by the fire in the basement but that flames near the stairwell blocked his only path upstairs. So he broke a window, crawled through it and ran back into the house from the side door to guide his daughter Mia to safety. He then went back inside, and Mia heard him shouting for the others. "Then it was quiet," Mia told relatives. She ran to a neighbor's house for help.
'TAKING IT HOUR BY HOUR'
Mike Gapsch, his wife, their daughter and other relatives were back at the house on St. Simon Court on Friday morning. They wore filter masks and used a flashlight to go through belongings in the home. They gathered photographs to take to the church where Georgetta and T.J.'s funerals will be held today.
Mike Gapsch, his hands covered with soot, retold the story of the fire without choking up, but he said he went back and forth with emotion. He said he didn't cry until more than 24 hours after the fire -- and only after he had left the hospital and returned to the privacy of his own home Wednesday morning.
"You've got to support everybody else," he said. "I'm taking it hour by hour. I have a lot of faith in God."
Mike Gapsch is a firefighter and paramedic and has spent 20 years with Mehlville. Before that, he spent 10 years in High Ridge. His father was a firefighter, too.
He said he always planned to retire at 65, or when he couldn't work anymore, and he said this experience hadn't changed that.
"This is his passion," his wife, Sherrell Gapsch, said. "He would never give this up."
He said there was a reason he was on duty that morning and was one of the first to arrive on the scene.
"I'm glad I was on duty," he said. "Otherwise I'd have a thousand questions of what could have been done better. But being here, I know it was done textbook. I would put these guys (firefighters) up against anybody. In four minutes, we rescued three people."
Gapsch said his main goal now is to see that the surviving child, Mia, gets what she needs. Mia and Maci's mother died three years ago of cancer. That sadness plus this new tragedy has left the young girl struggling, he said.
"She's not showing a lot of emotion; she's locked up," he said.
Mia has been released from the hospital, where she was treated for minor injuries. She is now staying with a godmother.
"She's going to need time and space," Gapsch said. "She's going to depend on family and counselors to get her through this. Whatever she wants to do with her life, whatever she wants to become, we'll make sure she does."
The Lindbergh School District has set up a fund to help the family. Contributions may be made to: Lindbergh Schools, c/o Gapsch Family Fund at 4900 South Lindbergh Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63126. Write "Gapsch Family Fund" in the memo line.
Copyright 2013 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
