Training is being credited for saving a volunteer firefighter from South Carolina, seriously burned last week after falling through a ceiling into a burning room.
"She really saved herself by doing everything she had been taught," said Howe Springs Deputy Chief William Dillon. "It could have been much worse, believe me."
Jennifer Huggins, 21, was back in surgery Friday at Augusta Hospital in Georgia, one week after the incident that left her with burns on her scalp, leg, hand and buttocks.
Dillon said he and Huggins were in an attic of an apartment complex where eight apartments had burned. "The apartment below us had been checked not five minutes before, and the fire was out."
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case at all. Huggins fell through the floor into a burning closet, piled with clothes. Her helmet and right glove were knocked off in the fall, but she managed to put them back on. Her flash hood stayed on.
"As she rolled over to kill the flames, she said the fire was coming up in her face. But she remembered her training, to get to a wall."
Dillon, who dropped down to help, said before going into the attic, they had been in the apartment below and remembered the layout. "That walk-through is what saved us."
As the fire in the room grew more intense, Dillon said he didn't think they had time to wait to be rescued. "We made a run for it into the bedroom. Through it all, she kept her composure. I know she was in intense pain but she did what her training told her to do."
Both firefighters were taken to a local trauma center. Dillon, who suffered burns to his throat, leg and neck, was treated and released. Huggins was flown the burn center in Georgia for special treatment. Her condition was upgraded from critical to serious but guarded.
The 21-year-old single mother has a long road to recovery ahead of her, Dillon said, adding that her fellow volunteers are helping in any way they can.
Investigators are trying to determine the cause of the blaze as well as how the fire rekindled in the apartment.
"All everyone down here is saying is that Jennifer saved herself. That's all there is to it..."
