March 22--Standing outside the smoky East Side house, Firefighter David Sholl had a nagging feeling that something wasn't right.
Though firefighters had searched inside 5356 Ivyhurst Dr., a little boy was still missing. As Sholl looked at the small house, he wondered if a corner room might have been missed.
He went back inside and, behind a closed door, found a tiny bedroom with a set of bunk beds. The beds were empty, but Sholl kept looking.
Under a blanket on the floor between the closet and dresser was 4-year-old Daxton Townsend-Burton. Sholl scooped the boy up and heard him make a gurgling noise -- what he hoped wasn't a last breath.
"I just raced to the front of the house and was yelling for the medic," Sholl said yesterday of the Oct. 14 fire. "My mask was covered with dirt and smoke. The first firefighter I came to, I just handed him off."
Back at Station 23, Sholl hoped the boy would survive. He'd been part of a similar rescue a couple of years earlier, and that victim, an elderly woman, didn't make it.
"That's always nagging in the back of your head," he said. "Until you get word that things are all OK, you aren't certain that what you did was accomplishing anything other than getting them out of there."
But when the medics returned to the station, they said the boy's prognosis was good. He would spend two more weeks on a ventilator at Nationwide Children's Hospital before going home.
Yesterday, Sholl was honored for his actions by the Benjamin Franklin Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution.
"If not for the quick thinking, perseverance and professionalism displayed by Firefighter Sholl and the crews from Station 23, Daxton Townsend-Burton would probably not be with us today," Battalion Chief David Bernzweig wrote in his commendation letter.
Also honored yesterday was Firefighter Virgil A. Moore, who died last month after a 27-year career in the Fire Division. Known for his expertise with underground storage tanks, he spent most of his career in the Fire Prevention Bureau, where he was a pyrotechnics inspector and OK'd the city's Red, White and Boom fireworks every year.
Lt. Theresa Francis, a nearly 30-year veteran of the Police Division, received the law-enforcement award. After stints in patrol, homicide, internal affairs and fraud and forgery, she now oversees the sexual-assault section. She helped establish a multidisciplinary team approach to investigating child sex abuse.
Daxton is doing fine. He and his siblings moved with their mom and grandmother to a house not far from their old one. His grandmother, Jacqueline Smith, said yesterday that the family didn't want to talk about their ordeal.
Sholl hopes he'll get to check up on Daxton again. After the boy got out of the hospital, he and his mom went to the station to say thanks. Daxton was quiet and clutched a toy fire engine during his visit with the crew that helped save his life.
"It's a good feeling to actually have a save," Sholl said.
@allymanning
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