Firehouse Magazine Rescue Award Winners for 1998
These winners were recognized in the April, 1999 Issue of Firehouse Magazine.
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| Curtis E. Eaby | Prince George County, MD | Derrick Holmes | Detroit, MI | Michael Sorace | Newark, NJ |
| Bernardo Gomez-Kling | Montgomery County, MD | Franklin Hornberg | St. Louis, MO | Robert Werdann | Newark, NJ |
| Steven Miles | Montgomery County, MD | Christopher J. Leicht | Cincinnati, OH | Billy Newsome | Atlanta, GA |
| Rodney E. Heindl | Decatur, GA | Sean P. Kaden | Branden, FL | Gil Pinsonneault | Winter Haven, FL |
| Richard M. Hill | Decatur, GA | Steven Osmansky | Kenosha, WI | Lorenzo Cox | Winter Haven, FL |
| Glen Hartenberger | Austin, TX | Scott B. Schumacher | Kenosha, WI |
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Engine 292, Silver Hill Fire
Station 29, was dispatched to a house fire. Heavy fire vented from the basement windows.
Engine 292 was instructed to advance a backup hoseline to the basement. Captain Curtis
Eaby was preparing to enter the structure when he heard screams from the basement. He told
his crew to advance the backup line when ready. He entered to investigate the sounds. He followed the hose line of Engine 251 to the top of the basement stairs and met firefighters leaving the structure. They said that they were injured and had to escape. He heard more screams as he reached the bottom of the stairs in zero visibility, and met firefighters operating an attack line who said that they were burned and were leaving. Eaby heard frantic calls coming from someone in the basement. He searched and met an injured firefighter who was trying to escape. Concerned about this firefighter’s injuries, Eaby tried to find the stairs, feeling the wall with his pike pole until he found a large window. He broke the window and assisted the injured firefighter, who had first and second degree burns, to escape. He then relocated the hose line and extinguished the fire. |
Curtis E. Eaby , Prince George’s County, MD FD |
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| Montgomery County, MD Fire & Rescue |
| Firefighter/Paramedic Bernardo Gomez-Kling and EMT Kelly Wardzek were assigned to Medic 259 along with Captain Steven Miles for the shift on August 8, 1998. Medic 259 was dispatched to a call for assistance for a man described as ill. As the crew assessed the victim, he rose up and attacked them. He followed them outside to the parking lot, where he grabbed a razor knife from his vehicle. The crew retreated towards the medic unit. The maniac chased them on foot through the parking lot. Miles and Gomez-Kling told Wardzek to get in the unit and lock the vehicle. She did so and also called for assistance. The maniac knocked Miles to the ground and severely cut him with the razor knife. | Gomez-Kling came to the aid of his partner. He knocked the maniac from Miles and wrestled his knife away. Miles, severely cut and bleeding profusely from razor wounds to the neck, throat and armpits, called for assistance by portable radio. He then went to the aid of his partner despite his injuries. After helping Gomez-Kling to subdue the maniac, he collapsed. With the assistance of Station 25 personnel who had come to the scene, Gomez-Kling began to treat his critically injured partner, providing life-saving advanced life care. Miles was flown to a nearby trauma center, where he lay in critical condition for several days. He has since recovered and returned to duty. |
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| Rodney E. Heindl DeKalb Fire and Rescue, Decatur, GA | Richard M. Hill DeKalb Fire and Rescue, Decatur, GA FD |
| On December 22, 1998 Engine 6 responded to a fully involved house fire. Two
family members - -one adult and one child--had failed to get out of the house. Engine 6
quickly made entry. The main body of fire engulfed the kitchen and den area. Armed with one hoseline and operating from their tank water, three members of Engine 6 reached the stairway to the upstairs bedrooms and the victims. The officer-in-charge directed his two firefighters, Rodney Heindl and Richard Hill, to climb to the bedrooms while he remained to fight the fast moving main body of fire to protect their only means of exit. Reaching the bedroom, they crawled along the floor and split up to conduct a right and left hand search. |
Heindl was the first to locate his
victim—an unconscious six year old child lying against the bedroom wall. He gathered
the boy up and fought his way to the front window, where he knew a firefighter was waiting
at the top of a ladder, and passed the child out. At this point Hill located the second victim. The unconscious elderly man was sitting in a chair near the front window. He was too big to be taken out the window, so Hill asked for help from Heindl and his officer, who had just been relieved on the nozzle to join the search. The Engine 6 crew braved the smoky and heat charged stairway once again to carry this victim to the safety of the front yard. Both victims survived the fire. |
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Fire Specialist Hertenberger was
home at about 10 P.M. when he smelled smoke. He saw black smoke issuing from the house
across the street. After calling 9-1-1 from his home, Hertenberger donned his
turnout gear and went to investigate. He found the owner of the residence, an insulin
dependent diabetic, slumped against the wall on the opposite side of the living room. Despite the fire and heat, and without the protection of SCBA or a hoseline, Hertenberger crouched below the smoke and crawled to the victim. He dragged the man to safety shortly before the living room flashed over. The first company now arrived on scene. The victim was severely burned. He was flown to Brook Army Medical Center for extensive treatment and is reported to be recovering from injuries sustained in the incident. |
Glen Hertenberger Austin, TX FD |
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At 2:30 AM on December 18, 1997, Engine 53 arrived at a house fire. Sergeant Derrick Holmes was told by hysterical relatives that there were victims inside the house. He entered, crawled through intense heat, smoke and flames, and found an unconscious woman lying in a bath tub. Holmes and Firefighter David Webster, who had entered through the bathroom window, removed the woman through this same window. Sergeant Holmes continued to search for another victim, who was found unconscious at the base of the front stairs, and aided in her removal. After the fire was under control he was transported to a hospital for treatment of an injured back. |
Derrick Holmes Detroit, MI FD |
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On November 3, 1997 Engine 27 arrived at a house fire
— a one story brick residence with fire showing on the first floor. Bystanders
shouted that a child was still inside. Firefighter Franklin Hornberg donned his SCBA and
entered the house with a 1¾" hoseline. In heavy smoke he groped down a hallway. The
fire was to his front and right, but the child was reported to be in the front bedroom to
his left. Hornberg felt his way to a doorway on his left, passed the fire, and entered the bedroom. He crawled along the floor to a bed, searched around it without success, and made his way to a window, where he found an unconscious child. He crawled back along the hoseline with the child and left the building. The child was not breathing but had a pulse. Hornberg and another firefighter assisted breathing with oxygen until the child re |
Franklin Hornberg St. Louis, MO FD |
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On the morning of October 18, 1998 at 0413 AM, Ladder 17
was dispatched on the first alarm for a fire at 1790 Grand Avenue. A three-story, brick
apartment building was heavily involved, with fire on the first floor, and dense smoke on
all three floors. Ladder 17 began a search of apartments for victims. In the heavy smoke,
tenants from other buildings shouted in panic about the situation. During this time of extreme duress, Firefighter Christopher Leicht, with less than two years experience as a firefighter, climbed the aerial ladder, which the situation forced to be deployed at an awkward angle, to a third floor balcony, where a family of six (parents and four children) were trapped. Leicht carried an infant down on his first trip, then returned to assist the other family members down the aerial ladder to safety. |
Christopher J. Leicht Cincinnati, OH FD |
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On the morning of December 14, 1998, Station 23 was
dispatched to a structure fire. The crew found a single story wood frame house with heavy
fire and smoke in the front portion. Bystanders told crew members that occupants were
still inside. Volunteer Firefighter Sean Kaden, working without the protection of a
charged hoseline, forced entry into the structure through a bedroom window. He encountered
severe heat and zero visibility. He found a child wrapped in a blanket on a bed located in the corner of the room. While securing the child for removal he discovered another child lying next to the first child. As he was removing the children he discovered another victim — a woman lying on the floor. Working alone, Kaden handed the two children and the woman through the window to crew members outside. Exhausted and without air, he left the house. The fire was extinguished and the structure ventilated, and a secondary search initiated. Kaden discovered what appeared to be a leg protruding from beneath a blanket in the room from which the previous three victims had been located. He re-entered and removed an infant. All efforts to resuscitate the victims were unsuccessful. The three children and their mother succumbed to smoke inhalation and burns. |
Sean P. Kaden Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, Branden, FL |
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| Kenosha, WI FD | |
| Firefighters found
heavy black smoke billowing from the entrance to a ranch style house. First-in units were
initially advised that all occupants were out of the building. An attack team, consisting
of Apparatus Operator Osmanski and Firefighter/Paramedic Schumacher, had pulled a
1¾" hoseline and were ready to enter the house. At this point a frantic woman approached and cried that her two year old baby was still in the house. Acting Assistant Chief (Captain) Martin immediately ordered Osmanski and Schumacher to enter the building to search the first floor for the victim. |
A
second crew then took up the hoseline and proceeded to attack the fire in the basement. As
Osmanski and Schumacher executed a left-hand search pattern in zero visibility, they
encountered numerous obstacles in the cluttered house. Making their way toward the bedroom where the tot was last reported to be, they found the her face down in the hallway amid the clutter. They carried her from the house to Med 5, where she was initially found to be in respiratory arrest, but she responded quickly to treatment and was soon crying for her mother. |
Newark, NJ FD |
| On the morning of
March 23, 1998, a working fire occurred at 645 15th Ave., a two story house.
Fire in the living room blocked access to the bedrooms, kitchen and rear stairs, and was
extending to the other rooms. There were reports of people trapped on the second floor.
Engine 6 met heavy fire as the crew entered the second floor apartment. While advancing the hoseline with the other members of Engine 6, Firefighter Michael Sorace began searching for the trapped victims. He edged past the fire into the next room, where he found the lifeless body of a five year old boy. Sorace picked up the child and carried him past the fire to safety. The child received CPR and was transported to a hospital. |
Meanwhile
Engine 11 stretched a second hoseline to the second floor apartment’s kitchen.
Firefighter Robert Werdann crawled past the fire to search for victims and found a middle
aged woman in a room next to that in which the child was found. Werdann called out for help and was assisted by Firefighter William Snyder, Truck 9 and Firefighter Sorace, who were searching for more victims. They removed her to safety, and she was transported to a nearby hospital. Both victims made full recoveries
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Engine 6 arrived at a house fire with a victim (confined to
a wheelchair) trapped inside. The two story house was fully involved. A 1 ¾" hose
was pulled from the engine, and the crew entered through the front door. The nozzle was
opened to push the heavy fire back to allow access to the bedrooms. They advanced the hose to the bedroom hallway and directed it at the seat of the fire in the den and kitchen. Firefighter Billy Newsome left the protection of the hose to search for the victim. He found him and dragged him to the front door, where he was handed to other firefighters outside. Within a few seconds of reaching safety the victim went into full cardiac arrest. Newsome, a paramedic, initiated CPR and other emergency care while still in turn-out gear, exhausted from the rescue. He rode to the hospital in the ambulance, unwilling to give up his patient’s care. The victim was severely burned and had inhaled a lot of smoke. He did not survive his ordeal. |
Cobb County Fire, Atlanta, GA |
| Winter Haven, FL FD |
| On September 7, 1997, at 12:30 a.m., the Winter Haven Fire
Department responded to a residence fire. The first due engine discovered a two story
house engulfed in flames on one side; smoke was venting from the remainder. Firefighters
were told that someone was trapped inside. Firefighters Lorenzo Cox and Gil Pinsonneault charged into the structure and began searching for the occupant. Visibility was zero. A few minutes later the fire’s volume increased, with flashovers in many parts of the structure. The incident commander became very concerned as portions of the roof on the west side collapsed. |
He ordered an
evacuation, with the sounding of the truck’s air horns. Cox and Pinsonneault heard
the air horns and knew that things were deteriorating, with only a short time remaining.
They suddenly heard the victim coughing and screaming. Crawling past fire, they made their way to the victim. The incident commander grew more concerned as the two men did not immediately evacuate at the sound of the air horns. Minutes later the firefighters emerged with the occupant. His injuries were minor and he made a full recovery because of the efforts of Cox and Pinsonneault. |
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