What it’s like to save a life

As told to Megan Messerly

Monday, Oct. 19, 2015 | 2 a.m.

A true rescue is when a person is unconscious and can’t get out if you don’t go in. That doesn’t happen very often, but it happened to me.

It was summertime in Georgia, and I was fire chief of the community. We got a 911 call about a house on fire, but nobody knew the address. The dispatchers only had a street name.

I jumped in my car and drove there with lights and sirens. As soon as I turned down the street, I saw smoke coming out the front door. There was a big crowd of people standing in the street.

Usually my job was to tell the crews what to do, but people were screaming that a woman was inside. Generally, we try to go in as a team of two, so if something happens to one of us, we can help the other out. But there was nobody there.

I could see the back of the house was on fire, and the flames were coming up over the rear of the house. There was a lot of thick, black smoke.

The thing that drove me inside alone, against protocol, was the family. They kept screaming, “Do something, just don’t stand there.” So I threw my gear on as I was walking toward the front door. I said, “I’m just going to go in a couple of feet.” Then a couple of feet led to another couple of feet.

Going inside a burning building is not what people think. The visibility is absolutely zero. You can’t even see your hand in front of your face because it’s completely black from smoke. When you go in, you’re supposed to take a fire hose so if you come up on the fire, it’s like a shield and you can use it to defend yourself.

But I didn’t have any tools. I didn’t have anything, so I crawled around inside and I bumped into something on the floor. I remember picking it up and putting it up against my face piece on my mask, and I could barely make out a little bit of blue and white. I thought, this looks like pajamas. I kept feeling around, and I could feel there was a person’s head.

I started dragging this person out to what I thought was the front door. You don’t pick up the person like you see on TV. Just a few inches off the ground, the temperature is lethal enough that if that person is still breathing, if they take one breath, they’ll singe the inside of their lungs. They should be as close to the floor as possible.

By that time, the engine had arrived, and the lieutenant came through the front door. He could barely make me out, but he grabbed my foot and I knew I was headed in the right direction. I said, “Help me pull this person. I’m spent.”

We took the person out, and the ambulance was there, waiting. We loaded the lady up. I thought there’s no way she’d make it, but she did.

I’ll always remember that it did make a difference going in. If I had waited for the engine, she probably wouldn’t have made it. It was a risk. We’re not supposed to do that. I broke all the rules we establish for safety. Then again, there are some assumed risks when you’re a firefighter. You took the oath, and you said you would protect the community. Fortunately, we both got out alive.