Fire Service Warrior

The other day I added to our "Here's Why We Search" page with some information I got about a rescue that was made in Charlotte, North Carolina.  An 11 year-old boy was rescued from the second floor of his burning home by Charlotte Firefighters; his parents and older brother had escaped.  Kevin Boardman did what many other 11 year-olds would have done: when he realized that the house was on fire he went back in to try and save his animals.

Companies from the CFD arrived on scene and heard that Kevin was inside.  It was just before 5:30 in the morning; a family gathered on the front lawn telling the crews that their younger son was inside; the building was deteriorating rapidly.  The fire was burning up the basement stairs and spreading up the stairwell. The crew of a Rescue Company committed the search the second floor while an Engine Crew dug in the protect the stairwell.  Conditions were bad: visibility was close to zero; heat was banking down to the floor; the signs of rollover were present in the smoke pushing up the stairwell.  The firefighters searching knew that flashover was a real possibility.  The Engine crew knew that if they did not hold the fire in check for the searching members from the Rescue that things would go very badly.  The efforts of these warriors resulted in Kevin being pulled from the building.  He was injured, but alive.  He was rushed to the hospital and then flown to a burn center.

Kevin died from his injuries.  He fought for awhile: from early Thursday morning February 3rd, until the evening of Saturday the 5th Kevin (and a team of Doctors and Nurses) fought for life.  He ultimately succumbed to his injuries. My thoughts are with Kevin's family.

I bring this story up to continue the debate we started back with my post "%$#@ Victim Survivability Profiling... Do Your Primary Search."  Based on the criteria that Captain Marsar published in his Fire Engineering articles those crews should not have committed to the search.  The smoke conditions were such that CO and HCN were present in abundance.  The likelihood of a viable victim being rescued was slight based on the studies he has referenced.  However, the fact remains that the brave men and women of the Charlotte Fire Department committed to a very marginal set of conditions and managed to rescue a victim.  There are those who might say, "But he died," as if that were evidence that the choice to search bordered on reckless.

I will pose this question.  Would you have wanted another thirty hours with your 11 year-old before he died?  That's what those warriors did; they crawled into a hell that easily could have killed or maimed any of them and in doing so they gave those parents, and Kevin's older brother, the chance to see him, to say good bye.  To have a memory of holding his hand one last time, not one of a sudden and surreal loss.  When Kurt Vonnegut spoke of the Fire Engine and a symbol of man's humanity to man it was that kind of Courage and sense of Duty he was speaking of.