Firehouse Magazine Rescue Award Winners for 1997
These winners were recognized in the April, 1998 Issue of Firehouse Magazine.
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| Stuart Jackson | Columbus, OH | Matthew Danaher | Bethesda-Chevy Chase, MD | Brian Pierce | Worcester, MA |
| Keith Sims | Columbus, OH | Jeffrey Hearle | Bethesda-Chevy Chase, MD | William Moriarty | Rochester, NY |
| James Jacobi | Indianapolis, IN | Howard Hilterbrand | Morehead, KY | Michael Nix | Rochester, NY |
| Lawrence Tucker | Indianapolis, IN | Eddie McCleese | Morehead, KY | Eric Britton | James Island, SC |
| Walter Milne | Jersey City, NJ | Timothy Moore | Columbus, OH | Les Colna | James Island, SC |
| Edward Williams, Jr. | Jersey City, NJ | Jeffrey Shaw | Columbus, OH | Jeff Davis | James Island, SC |
| John Carney | Long Island, NY | Paul Cotter | Worcester, MA | ||
| Ryan Tomassone | Long Island, NY | Robert LaRose | Worcester, MA |
| Columbus, OH FD |
| On June 28, 1996, Engine 10 with FF Keith Sims as acting Lieutenant in charge, and Ladder 2 with FF Stuart Jackson, responded to 816 McKinley Ave. where a victim was reported trapped. The victim worked at the cement plant. He had fallen into a large silo of powdered cement and was buried in approximately 25 feet of material. | Sims and Jackson, fully aware of the danger, descended into the silo to dig and reach the victim. They recovered the victim, but unfortunately he did not survive. |
Indianapolis, IN FD |
| Engine 22 arrived at a multi-alarm fire. Crew members
pulled their ground ladder and extended it. Observing two trapped occupants at separate,
adjoining second floor windows, Private James Jacobi chose to move the ladder to the one
with the heaviest amount of smoke.
He climbed the ladder to assist this victim to safety and rolled the ladder to the next. This obese woman had difficulty moving to the ladder and was assisted down by Private Jacobi. As they reached the ground, the woman said the fire had already burned through the door of her apartment and flames were beginning to roll across her ceiling. She also stated she had left her two-year old son somewhere in the room from which she had just been rescued. |
Without hesitation, Engineer Tucker and Private
Jacobi ascended the ladder and entered the apartment into high heat and zero visibility,
without the protection of a hoseline.
Tucker entered the window first and, while securing a search line to the ladder, Jacobi entered and began a right-handed search. They found nothing in this room. Jacobi stumbled into a hallway to another room and found the child unconscious on the floor. Grasping the child, Jacobi yelled to Tucker for help in leaving the apartment. Tucker found Jacobi and the two followed the search line back to the ladder. Finding the child in cardiac arrest, they began chest compressions and |
mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing while moving to the
ladder.As Tucker moved down the ladder, he advised Private Jacobi of fire directly behind
him.
Private Jacobi then jumped head first down the ladder as flames began blowing out the window behind him. Upon reaching the ground Tucker, a paramedic, handed the child to Jacobi, who continued CPR. Tucker ran to Squad 7 and returned with his advanced life support equipment and the two continued resuscitation efforts. The child was resuscitated and survived the fire. |
Jersey City, NJ FD |
| On Feb. 22,
1997 at O440 Rescue 1 responded to a working fire in a three story wood dwelling with
reports of people trapped. Firefighters Williams and Milne were ordered to search the fire
floor. They climbed the stairs to the second floor and found the hall engulfed.
They heard the screams of the victims. Not knowing from which apartment the screams were coming, Williams went left and Milne went right. They ran through 6 feet of fire and broke down the doors. Milne found a woman and 7 children huddled in the childrens’ bedroom of Apt. 2R. He radioed the Incident Commander for a ladder to the bedroom window. Williams searched Apt. 2L with negative results. He crossed the hall to Apt. 2R and grabbed 2 girls, one in each arm, and ran out the front door. |
Milne got 4 victims onto Ladder 12’s ground ladder.
Squad 4 rescued 2 other victims via the front door. Williams and Milne continued the
search on the third floor. The stairs were burned out so they straddled the risers, ahead
of the hose line.
Williams broke down the front door to Apt. 3L, searched through to the rear and found a pit bull dog. Out of air, Williams grabbed the dog and left the apartment via the fire escape. Milne’s search of apt 3R was negative. All of the victims survived.Return to Directory for This Page
|
MacArthur Airport, Long Island, NY |
| Ryan Tomassone of
Bayport and John Carney of Brentwood were honored with the Pride of Islip Award, presented
to them by Islip Town Supervisor Pete McGowan at a ceremony in September of 1997. They
were honored for their actions in March at the million-gallon water tank collapse that
trapped four workers at Long Island MacArthur Airport.
The two members of the airport’s fire and rescue team ignored the danger and climbed into the tank to aid the injured workers. |
They remained
with the injured men for 1½ hours, even after the Lakeland Fire Department and Suffolk
County Police arrived at the scene. Carney, a certified emergency medical technician, is
captain of the Brentwood Fire Department’s Hook and Ladder Company and past president
of Brentwood Legion Ambulance.
Tomassone, also an EMT, is a firefighter with Bayport Fire Deparment and Hose Company |
No Photo Available |
No Photo Available |
| Bethesda-Chevy Chase, MD Rescue Squad |
| On the afternoon of January 7, 1997, a fire
broke out in Bethesda. Fire/Rescue units on the scene heard that someone might still be
inside the burning home. Crews entering the house faced blinding smoke.
Rescue Squad 18 had a distinct advantage, a revolutionary new device that gives firefighters the ability to see through smoke. Master Fire/Rescuer Jeffrey Hearle’s helmet was equipped with a small thermal imaging camera, which produces a black and white image, similar to the viewfinder in a camcorder, that depicts the area the firefighter is searching. |
Hearle
and Firefighter Danaher entered through the front door. Hearle spotted a closed door that
other firefighters had unknowingly passed by just a few seconds before.
He opened the door and peered into the room. Using the IRIS as his source of vision, Hearle immediately spotted the outline of a body across the room. He guided Danaher, who was not equipped with the device, to the unconscious man hidden in the dense smoke. |
The
two rescuers picked up the man’s lifeless body and carried him outside to a waiting
ambulance crew. The victim was transported to the burn unit at Washington Hospital Center by helicopter. He recovered fully. This incident marks the first time that a thermal imaging camera, such as the IRIS, has been used by firefighters to successfully rescue a victim trapped in a structural fire |
Morehead, KY VFD |
| On January 23,1997 At 6:02 am. the
department’s tones dropped for a motor vehicle accident. Captain Eddie McCleese and
Firefighter Howard Hilterbrand responded from their homes. They found a three vehicle
accident.
This included a two vehicle head-on collision and a third vehicle which was off the roadway. A 1988 GMC truck was engulfed in flames, resting against the driver’s side of a 1990 Buick. While the driver of the truck was safe, Kathy Kidd was trapped in her car. Her legs were entangled within the wreckage. |
Hilterbrand
and McCleese entered the car without protective gear in an unsuccessful attempt to free
her from the wreck. Heavy smoke and fire grew.
While attempting to unpin Kidd’s legs Hilterbrand received injuries to his right hand. Kidd advised them to get out of the car while they could. She felt that she was going to die They reassured her and began packing coats belonging to bystanders to shield her from the heat. The truck continued burning. Engine C-7 arrived after being delayed by ice and fog. |
While
HiIterbrand stayed in the vehicle with Mrs. Kidd,McCleese ran to the engine and removed a
dry chemical extinguisher. He attacked the blazing truck, but was pushed back by the heat
and flames.
Engine C-7’s crew used a 1 ½" attack line to push the fire away from Mrs. Kidd. The fire was extinguished and the truck was pushed off the driver’s side door. Forty minutes later she was freed with the jaws of life and rams. Mrs. Kidd fully recovered after an extensive hospital stay. |
Columbus, OH Division of Fire |
| On February 4th 1997 at 1225 hours. Firefighters Jeff Shaw and Tim Moore responded to 693 Kelton on the report of a dog bite. They found a small child and an a woman in the process of being mauled by a very large Rottweiler. With the assistance of a family member, Firefighter Shaw | subdued the animal at great risk to himself while Moore removed the woman from the grasp of the dog. Shaw and the civilian subdued the dog until the arrival of the police. Both Shaw and Moore displayed courage and dedication in the face of great danger. Return to Directory for This Page |
Worcester, MA FD |
| Arriving
companies found the second and third floors of a three story dwelling fully involved with
fire. Firefighters were notified of the possibility that the third floor occupant was
still inside his apartment. Access via the front was impossible due to the heavy volume of
the fire.
Firefighters immediately ascended the rear stairway to the third floor, where entry was forced through two locked doors. Entering the apartment, Cotter encountered high heat, dense smoke and heavy fire from the front half of the apartment. |
He entered a
bedroom. The fire had complete control of the attic space and was dropping through the
ceiling from above. He searched along the bed and found the unconscious victim on the
floor at its foot.
Cotter immediately called for assistance in removing the victim from Firefighters Larose and Pierce, who were searching other areas of the apartment. The three firefighters carried the victim down to the street. This rescue was successfully completed without the benefit of a charged hoseline or ventilation. Return to Directory for This Page |
Rochester, NY FD |
| Firefighters
Moriarty and Nix risked their lives to rescue a distraught man from the Genesee River
gorge. Fire companies were called to a pedestrian bridge over the river for a report of a
man on the railing. As firefighters approached him, he left the bridge and ran along a
sidewalk that overlooks the river. He clambered down the steep bank toward the bottom of
the gorge.
Nix followed, but he continued to evade Nix until both men were at the edge of a cliff that drops 50 feet straight into the river. |
At this point, Firefighter Moriarty was lowered to assist in the
rescue. The man twice slipped off the harness that the firefighters managed to put on him.
He had to be held by both firefighters until the harness was securely attached. Firefighters at the top of the gorge then raised all three men to safety. |
James Island, SC FD |
| When this house fire was announced the dispatcher
gave a "possible victim still inside." When Car 102 (Battalion Chief Davis)
arrived, he signaled a working fire, and confirmed that there was a victim still in the
house. No engine company was yet on the scene.
The victim was an invalid who was confined to a wheelchair. Residents had tried but could not enter the house due to heat and smoke. Chief Davis and Battalion Chief Colna attempted a recue. They entered the structure without a rescue or attack line. Off-duty Captain Britton now arrived, and he too entered the structure to assist in the rescue. |
The rescuers stated at a later time that they could hear the
victim screaming for help. The three were able to get the victim to the floor, and started
pulling him through a maze of furniture and other debris as they tried to locate the front
door.
They had no hose or safety line to follow out, and conditions were getting worse. As the first-in crew got to the doorway with an attack line, the three rescuers were coming out with the victim. They moved him to a safe area where they collapsed with the victim lying on top of them. All three were treated and released that evening, and the victim was released several weeks later. |
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