Criticism, Whispering Out Of Place In This Case

Published on 7/13/2007 in TheDay.com
By Joe Wojtas

Imagine training for years for that one minute when it's your job to save someone from a burning home. Imagine seeing the whites of a man's eyes through the pitch-black smoke but, despite using every ounce of strength you have, you can't pull down a window so he can escape.

Then imagine blindly clawing through the clutter and overturned furniture in the burning room trying to locate the man who you know is only a few feet away. You know the man will die in less than a minute, but the searing heat forces you to retreat. And, finally, imagine having to end the rescue effort because you don't want to get any of your men killed.

That's exactly what Pawcatuck firefighters Kevin Burns and Kevin Riley and their chief, Tom Long, experienced July 3, when fire destroyed a three-family home on Cherry Street, killing 62-year-old John Hanson. Since then they've heard the whispers: Why couldn't they save Hanson when they were so close?

But with the smoke blinding firefighters, the clutter and overturned furniture and the rapid progress of the fire, saving him would have been a miracle.

Still, as he sat in the firehouse this week, Riley said he feels like he failed.

“You spend a lot of time replaying it in your head,” he said. “You second guess yourself, wondering if you did enough.”

Burns, the department's fire marshal, lives just around the corner from the house and was the first firefighter to arrive. By then, the house was almost entirely engulfed in flames. One of the tenants spotted Hanson, and Burns, who was not yet in his gear, could see Hanson sticking his hands out a window that he had pulled down from the top because a large bureau blocked the bottom. Thick black smoke poured from the window. Burns hung on a 12-foot-long pole to try to pull down the new replacement window and then tried to break it. He told Hanson to get below the smoke. Then Hanson disappeared.

“If I could have got the window open I knew he had a chance,” Burns said.

Riley, the assistant chief, used an axe to break the window, pushed aside the bureau and climbed inside. He tried to move the dresser but was blocked by the clutter. He tried to clear an area to search. He could see absolutely nothing because of the smoke.

Several more firefighters would search for Hanson, who would later be found under a piece of furniture. Finally with the roof collapsing, Long ordered everyone out of the house. He knew that the superheated air would have already killed Hanson. Not far from his thoughts was the 1994 fire that killed Pawcatuck firefighter Mark Mitchell, who mistakenly believed a man was trapped inside a house.

“You're so concerned about the firefighters, but their job is to save the person in the building. It's a tough call,” Long said.

Burns too is frustrated.

“I know the training we've done and how I pushed everyone. But we couldn't do it. The fire had too much of a head start,” he said.

These guys did their best.

They deserve our thanks. Not our questions.

j.wojtas@theday.com