TX Firefighters on Saving Kids in Fire: It's Why You Do the Job

The pair of firefighters, one a seasoned veteran and one a fresh-faced rookie, knew there were two young boys trapped somewhere inside the back bedroom of the burning home. But all they could see was darkness.

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Joey Gann, who's been with the Fort Worth Fire Department for 17 years, and Morgan Hix, who has five months under his belt, tried to feel their way through the residence on South Jennings Avenue that was quickly filling with thick black smoke on Monday afternoon, they told the Star-Telegram. There was little noise inside of the home, they said — no smoke alarms going off, or children wailing. Gann and Hix stayed close, talking to each other, and found their way to the bedroom. They looked for the children, who had been napping at the time of the fire.

Gann saw the 1-year-old boy in a playpen and scooped him up, as the infant began to move in his arms. Hix picked up the 4-year-old boy who was asleep in the bed.

Their adrenaline took over, as they described on Thursday, and they looked for the quickest way outside, which in this case was back out the front door.

They burst out from the blackness into the light of day.

"No matter if it's five months, 17 years, whatever it is — we all work the same way so we know what each other's doing," Gann said, standing next to Hix inside Fire Station No. 10 on Hemphill Street. "That's what happened on this deal. I knew what he was doing. He knew I was doing."

Hix said it was the toughest call he's faced in his short career, but he leaned on his training and his instincts.

"Finding that child was — it was difficult. The conditions made it difficult," Hix said. "But our training gave us the opportunity to find those children, hopefully in a timely enough fashion to make a meaningful impact on their ability to survive."

The two boys were critically injured in the fire, suffering serious smoke inhalation in their lungs. On Thursday, fire officials said they were at Dallas Children's Medical Center, where they were critical but stable. The officials expressed optimism about their outlook.

The boys' father, who escaped the fire through a second-story window, also suffered traumatic injuries — from smoke inhalation and the fall — but officials couldn't say on Thursday whether or not he remained in a hospital. He was the one who urgently told the firefighters, including Gann and Hix, his boys were trapped in the back bedroom.

Gann and Hix happened to be the two people who were in a position to save the children when they say training kicked in. After they pulled the children outside, Hix, a part of the search and rescue team, stayed with the 4-year-old child all the way to the hospital while Gann returned to fighting the fire.

They know it was a defining moment in both of their careers, one that will forever link them together.

"That's what you do this job for," Gann said. "To save those that you can save."

The Monday rescue was a day on the job Gann will never forget, he said, and he hopes every firefighter thrust into a scenario like that can have the experience of saving someone. He previously rescued one adult who later died, he said.

It was an "incredible experience" for Hix, who emphasized it's the type of thing that happens once in a career — and he hopes that's the case.

"Like he said, it's what we sign up for," Hix said. "You don't sign up for how it's gonna make you feel, because it's definitely a challenging thing to experience, to see someone in a position like that. But you sign up to make a difference, and I feel like this in instance we did."

The two talked about their rescue during a press conference on Thursday, and spoke briefly with the Star-Telegram afterward. The event was intended to highlight the heroic efforts of the rookie and veteran firefighters, and of the dozen or so firefighters who responded first to the scene and put out the fire. They gathered in the fire station.

Chief Jim Davis told the Star-Telegram "there are few things that make a fire chief prouder" than when firefighters put their own health and wellness on the line to rescue someone. That's what Gann and Hix did, he said.

"In a three-minute period, they went from a routine day here at the firehouse — taking a few runs, doing some training — to in a fight for somebody else's life," Davis said. "They maximized that opportunity."

Davis additionally wanted to note the importance of properly installed smoke detectors in giving people valuable seconds to escape a fire. Officials suspect there weren't detectors in the home or they weren't working, since Gann and Hix couldn't hear them.

Investigators have yet to determine a cause of the fire but officials indicated it appears to be accidental in nature.

Many parties played a vital role in the rescue of the two boys, according to Davis, including the MedStar medics and CareFlite crews that transported them, and the staff at Cook Children's Medical Center who first treated them before they were transferred to the Dallas hospital. He also highlighted the public's support for the family.

A GoFundMe set up to assist the family with their expenses raised more than $900 as of Thursday. The mother of the two boys told KXAS-TV she was running errands when the fire occurred, and that her 1-year-old hasn't been able to breathe on his own.

Officials said on Thursday the house isn't in livable condition at this time.

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