"Tony! She's upstairs!"
Those were the first words volunteer firefighter Tony Hess heard when he arrived on the scene of a house fire in Rand.
Hess, 23, put on his oxygen mask (sic) and bolted into the blazing, smoke-filled home. He ran upstairs and began searching for any signs of life.
He couldn't see anything but dense, black smoke.
Hess broke a window in the second-floor bedroom to flush out some of the smoke. Once he could see better, he spotted her - 2-year-old Alyssa Abner. The little girl was lying unresponsive on a bed.
He snatched her up and rushed down the steps and out the front door toward an awaiting ambulance.
It didn't look good for Alyssa. Emergency crews started working to resuscitate her, applying a bag valve mask, a hand-held device used to provide oxygen to patients who aren't breathing adequately. Using the device is often called bagging the patient.
"She was lifeless when I picked her up," he said. "We started bagging her, and her eyes started opening up."
Alyssa was not giving up without a fight.
Hess hopped in the back of the ambulance and rode all the way to Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital with the little girl.
"In the emergency room she started crying," he said. "She was starting to come around."
She was then flown to the burn center at Shriner's Hospital for Children in Cincinnati.
Hess, the rugged firefighter, broke down and started to cry.
A 10-year veteran volunteer for both Malden and Rand fire departments, Hess said the job never gets any easier.
Last Friday morning about 5, he was awakened by the emergency call of a house fire with possible entrapment. Although he doesn't always respond to calls for Rand, something told him to go this time even though he was due at his other job at 8 a.m. at Yeager Airport.
Bill White, Rand's fire chief, is Tony's neighbor. They were both on the first fire engine to arrive at the home on Midland Drive, Hess said.
Michelle Abner, Alyssa's mother, was the person who called out and instructed him to go upstairs. She was one of five people who made it out of the house unscathed.
Michelle knew Tony. They had grown up together and graduated from Riverside High School in 2002.
But as he rushed into the home, he didn't know who had called out. It turns out he saved an old friend's child without even knowing it.
"I didn't find out until I was at the hospital that it was Michelle's," he said. "But there's a reason for everything. You just have to have faith in a higher power."
Alyssa is now in a coma and is listed as in critical condition.
But she is alive and has made it through the most critical stage - the first 24 hours. She received burns on more than half of her body and still has a long road to recovery.
Friday's fire was put out by 7:30 a.m., but the investigation has continued. The state fire marshal determined it started somewhere upstairs.
The home belongs to Gary and Joyce McNeeley, who are Alyssa's grandparents. Alyssa and her mother were staying there when the fire broke out.
U.S. 60 was shut down for about two hours while the firefighters battled the blaze, White said.
Hess said Bill White got him into the firefighting lifestyle when he was younger.
"Now I want to make a career out of it," Hess said.
Hess is in his junior year at West Virginia State University. The business management major said he's been fighting fires so long it's like second nature to him now.
"It's something I enjoy doing," he said. "It has a lot to do with the brotherhood of firefighters. Bill's like a second dad."
Hess is no stranger to loss, either.
He lost both his father and sister in the past five years to sudden, unexpected deaths.
But dealing with loss and tragedy is something he said he would never get used to.
"I have to deal with it when it happens," he said. "The longer you put it off, the more it's going to come back and bite you."
His mother, Katherine, who he now stays with, beams with pride when talking about her son.
"She embarrasses me a little, but after growing up and playing sports, I've gotten used to it," he said.
Katherine said her son doesn't enjoy getting the spotlight for anything he does, but she said he truly deserves it.
"I'm not doing it for the publicity or lights or sirens," he said. "I just want to be a fireman."
Republished with permission from The Charleston Daily Mail
