HotmailDeadly blaze fuels firefighter to get healthy
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 The last roll Nov. 27: Parsons, Kansas, is place that still processes Kodachrome color film, but Kodak has stopped making it, leaving this little town pondering a big question. NBC’s Bob Dotson reports. |
Because it was difficult to see, I had no idea who was trapped inside the apartment. Later we discovered it was Fire Captain John Butz. John belonged to the first-arriving ladder company, which was responsible for search and rescue. John had entered the apartment with his crew, but as they had forgotten to bring a fan along to ventilate the room, he’d sent them back to get it and had gone in alone — even though we’re always supposed to bring a partner and a charged hose line (one that holds water at the appropriate pressure).
Before John had had time to exit the room he was investigating, the living room next door flashed (anything reaching 1,000 degrees or higher will burst into flames). If John had been inside, he would have died on the spot. Instead, the explosion threw him to the ground, where he lay paralyzed and could only scream for help. The flames and smoke were so dense that Ax couldn’t find John until he spotted his flashlight at the end of the bed. Ax knelt down and asked, “Can you make it to the window?” John whispered, “I’ll do what I can.”
Ax turned around, trying to orient himself amid the smoke and flames. At that moment I entered through the window, waving my arms — Ax saw my silhouette and headed for it. Later he called me his angel.
The distance from the floor to the bottom edge of the window was four feet, so the two of us began struggling to raise John’s limp 300 pounds up and over the sill. (John weighed about 225 pounds, but was also wearing 75 pounds of equipment.)
Meanwhile, the freezing rain was still falling, and the smoke was impairing our vision. I slipped on the ladder, John’s helmet fell off, and we still couldn’t pull his limp body past the windowsill.
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Finally, we got the front half of his body to dangle over the sill. Ax yelled, “Do you have him?”
“I got him,” I yelled back, yanking John as best I could out and over the window so I could lower him. At this point I wasn’t sure if he was still alive. I bear-hugged the ladder with my left arm, lowering John until my right arm was fully extended, and then let him fall. He dropped eighteen feet to the ground, missing an enormous air-conditioning unit by inches.
Next, I climbed back up the ladder looking for Ax, who, in the confusion, I mistook for my friend Josh Miller — at this point I was so befuddled I didn’t know who was who. But I was not going anywhere without the other firefighter, and because I was convinced he was inside, I was about to reenter the room. Then something inside me said, “Look down and see what’s on the ground.”
I did, and lying eighteen feet below were both John Butz and Ax. Their bodies were smoking.
At this point I had no idea how Ax had landed there. I later learned that he was so hot, and suffering from such severe injuries, that to save his own life he had dived over the ladder and fallen to the ground. I had been so busy wrestling with John’s body that I didn’t see him.
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I made my way down the ladder to Ax and John. Incredibly, both were still conscious. Ax had third-degree burns to his calf, hands, and neck. John was not as lucky; third-degree burns covered close to 70 percent of his body. People seldom live if more than 65 percent of the body is burned.
Finally, the fire was contained. John was taken by ambulance to Brackenridge Hospital, then airlifted to Brooks Army Burn Center in San Antonio, where he spent almost a year in recovery. Shortly afterward, he was promoted from captain to battalion chief. He is lucky to be alive, and he knows it.
Although two later sweeps of the apartment revealed no other victims, the third sweep found a man dead in the bathtub. The shower curtain had melted over his body, which was barely recognizable as human. The apartment had been his, and his little hibachi had caused the deadly blaze.
That fire’s fury spooked me to the core. In the short time all these events took place, I realized how fleeting our time on earth is. Since that night, I’ve appreciated the importance of my job, as well as the other firefighters with whom I work, more than ever before. I never take a single shift for granted — and after twenty-four hours, when we’re relieved by the next crew, I heave a sigh of relief knowing that we’ll all go home safely.
That terrible fire also confirmed my belief that we can’t take anything for granted — especially our health. Obviously, preventing and staying away from fire is one way to stay healthy. But the most basic, profound, and powerful way to take care of your health on a day-to-day basis is to eat a healthy, plant-based diet. This regimen is the best way to fight the dangerous fires raging inside us — fires that create all the chronic Western ailments including heart attack, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes. That’s why I created the Engine 2 Diet, and why I wrote this book.
Excerpted from “The Engine 2 Diet” by Rip Esselstyn. Copyright (c) 2009, reprinted with permission from Hachette Book Group.
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