"I'm Down Here," Victim of House Blast Told Bloomfield, CT, Firefighters

Christine Dempsey

The News-Times, Danbury, Conn.

(TNS)

Mar. 16—BLOOMFIELD — Deputy Fire Chief Brendan Riley arrived at the scene of a house explosion last week to find strewn debris, crackling flames, smoke and news that was both good and terrifying at the same time: Someone was under the rubble, talking.

"So my first thought was, 'We have to get to him and get him out as soon as possible,'" the veteran firefighter said.

Getting the man out of the wreckage was an agonizingly difficult and time-consuming task. Fires burned on different parts of the property. Pieces of the house that weren't flung from the split-level's footprint had collapsed into the basement, trapping the resident. Water from their hoses started rising on the basement floor.

By the time firefighters got to Thomas Moore, seven hours had passed and it was too late.

"It's something nobody wants to see," Chief Peter Barnard said, adding that firefighters "made every attempt they could to get to the individual."

"I've been in the department 42 years and I've never seen anything like this," he said.

A 'loud bang' heard from miles away

At 6:10 p.m. on March 9, Riley, a member of the volunteer Bloomfield Center Fire Department for over 20 years, turned on the grill at his house a few miles from the blast. It was his 41st birthday, and his wife was about to make him dinner.

"I was inside my kitchen, and I heard a loud bang," said the father of three. "At first I thought one of the kids knocked something over."

Then he heard the call on his radio.

"I heard the police get dispatched for multiple calls for a house explosion," he said. He got in his truck, where he keeps his firefighting gear, and drove right to the scene.

He was the first firefighter to arrive.

"There was debris everywhere in the street," Riley said.

As for the house, he said, "It was obliterated. There was nothing left to it." The roof had been forced up and over to the side of the house, and "all the walls were blown out," he said.

The wreckage was on fire, whether it was in the spot where the house once stood or at the property line. Part of the house lay against trees at the edge of the yard, aflame. A piece of what appeared to be a wall was stuck up in a tree.

Riley went up to what was left of the house, and he could see into the basement. A police officer told him that someone was under the rubble and able to talk.

"I started calling to the person," he said. And he got an answer: "I'm down here."

"I said, 'Where are you?'"

The man responded, "I'm in the basement."

Riley tried to get him to move closer to a spot that had less wreckage.

"He told me, 'I'm down here. Help me.'"

Riley responded, "We're here, we're going to get you out."

Other firefighters had arrived and someone called the utilities to cut power to the area. A slight natural gas odor lingered in the air, Riley said, so Connecticut Natural Gas was called as well.

He and the chief started giving orders.

"We had multiple hand lines, extinguishing the fire, trying to get to where he was," Riley said.

Firefighters were able to get into the debris-filled basement through an opening in the concrete wall that used to be a basement window, he said. They were able to put a ladder through the opening, and two firefighters went in and tried to climb through the debris.

Crews then decided use chainsaws to cut through the ruins.

"At one point, they were able to cut a hole into the debris," said Barnard, the chief.

Firefighters were able to move some large pieces of debris, and a second team went into the basement, taking a different route through the rubble, Riley said. They, too, couldn't get to the man.

Firefighters were "able to check a decent amount of the basement, but again it was difficult gaining access," Riley said. And searching the entire basement proved impossible.

The decision was made to bring in heavy equipment from Public Works.

That brought a new challenge: The operator had to move debris as delicately as possible so as not to further injure the trapped man, avoiding the spot where he was believed to be trapped.

Riley wasn't looking at his watch, but he became aware of the passage of time when it got dark. Portable lights were brought in to solve that problem, but he realized he had not heard from the man in a while.

"We were not getting any replies back," he said. "But again, we were trying to go as careful as we could so as not to hit him with the machine or have any part of what was left of the residence fall on top of him."

As the heavy equipment moved debris, it kicked up flames that had been smoldering under the wreckage, Riley said. So firefighting continued, but blasting more water into the basement brought another concern.

Firefighters didn't want the man to drown.

"If he was sitting or laying down, we didn't want him to be submerged in 10 feet of water," Riley said.

Submersible pumps were brought in to pump out the water that had started collecting in the bottom of the basement under the debris, he said.

The efforts of firefighters and the backhoe operator finally paid off, but it was too late. The man was found lifeless.

He was removed at 1:20 a.m.

That was tough, Riley said.

"It's very heartbreaking and painful to know that at one point we had contact and doing everything possible to get him out and have the end result be what it was," he said.

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