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Dec. 14--Officer Brian R. Dilliplaine had just left the East Cocalico Township police station early Monday when he overheard Lancaster County 9-1-1 dispatching another township officer to a house fire.
Dilliplaine, who also is a volunteer firefighter with the Western Berks Fire Department but was on duty with the police department, raced to the scene.
On the way, he passed the Stevens Fire Company before the siren at the station began sounding the 12:27 a.m. alarm.
Dilliplaine arrived before firefighters and the police officer who patrols that area and radioed dispatchers that he was there.
He was told four people were trapped inside the house and one of them, a daughter of the homeowners, was on the second floor and still on the phone with dispatchers.
Three members of the family would die in the fire at 45 S. Line Road in the village of Stevens.
"As I pulled up past the building I saw the whole right side of the building was on fire," Dilliplaine recalled Tuesday. "There was a lot of smoke and fire coming from that side."
He figured that anyone trapped on that side likely would not have survived, so he jogged over to the other side.
"I was talking on the radio to dispatcher to find out where the person was," he said. "At that point I heard someone yelling for help on the side of the building where all the fire and smoke was."
The girl was at a second-floor window, but Dilliplaine couldn't see her through the dense smoke.
Only one way out
Dilliplaine, 34, who has been a firefighter for 20 years and is a former chief of the Fritztown Fire Company, tapped into his fire experience and quickly assessed the situation.
He scanned the area for a ladder but didn't see any nearby. He knew he didn't have time to waste to look for one. He yelled up to 17-year-old Heather Rissler that she had to jump.
"I knew in my mind what I needed to do to save her life as quickly as I could," he said. "I knew there was no way she would survive without jumping out the window."
She said she was afraid to jump, but Dilliplaine told her he would try to break her fall and asked the dispatcher to join him in encouraging her to jump.
"I knew she wasn't going to be able to stay a lot longer where she was," he said. "It seemed like an eternity."
In all his years of responding to fires, Dilliplaine said he never was in a position to try to rescue someone who had to jump from a window.
Dilliplaine caught his first glimpse of the girl soon after she jumped.
"The first place I saw her was about 2 feet out of the window," he said. "I heard, 'Here I come' and I'm thinking, 'What should I do? Should I try to catch her? How big is she?' All you do is go by instinct."
Dilliplaine tried to break Heather's fall. She glanced off his side, forcing him down to one knee, which hit the ground hard.
She landed hard as she hit the ground, but appeared only to have the wind knocked out of her, he said. She was on the ground for a moment, stunned. She got up and turned toward the house and began yelling for her mother, whom she said had been with her at the window.
"But at that point the fire was consuming that room," Dilliplaine said. "It was that quick."
Heather told Dilliplaine that her 24-year-old sister had gone downstairs.
Sole survivor
Dilliplaine went to the back and kicked in the door. There was heat and smoke, but he couldn't tell if it was on fire. He crawled in on his hands and knees. Just inside the door he saw the feet of Heather's sister, Rachel, who was unresponsive on the floor.
He started dragging her out and was nearly overcome by smoke. Officer Joshua Sola helped him pull Rachel from the house.
Sola performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on her, but she died at the scene.
Firefighters later found the bodies of Rachel and Heather's parents, Melvin, 83, and Patti, 54.
Heather Rissler and Dilliplaine were taken by ambulance for treatment of smoke inhalation. Dilliplaine also suffered a bruised knee.
"It would have been nice if the other girl survived, but I knew the fire conditions inside were really bad," he said.
Dilliplaine has been an East Cocalico police officer for eight years and lives in the township near the Berks County line.
He said his fire training help keep him from panicking, so he had clarity of thought to make correct decisions. The whole ordeal lasted less than three minutes.
A state police fire marshal is investigating the cause of the fire, which is not considered suspicious.
Information on the cause was unavailable Tuesday.
Contact Steven Henshaw: 610-371-5028 or [email protected].
