DOD honors Grissom firefighters for heroism

Published Feb. 10, 2014
By Tech. Sgt. Mark R. W. Orders-Woempner
434th ARW Public Affairs

GRISSOM AIR RESERVE BASE, Ind. -- With paint boiling off walls and carpet melting beneath, a house engulfed in flames can only be described as hell on earth, and yet some run toward hell's inferno to save lives.

Two such men, Capt. James Jones and Aaron Sundheimer, both Grissom Fire Department firefighters assigned to GFD's Rescue 5, were recently honored for their heroic actions on the night of Aug. 25, 2012, with Department of Defense Emergency Services Heroism awards.

On that night, the GFD received a call for a house fire just outside Grissom's gate with confirmation of two people trapped inside, said Chief John Ireland, GFD fire chief. Rescue 5 rolled out first with an engine and ladder company a few minutes behind.

"When you go into a fire, such as this one, the heat is 700-800 degrees Fahrenheit, and the visibility is zero; I mean, it's the worst conditions that you can imagine," explained Ireland. "In a five minute period you go from being dead asleep (at the firehouse) to the worst environment possible with somebody's life in the balance, and that's what these guys did."

When the midnight call came in, something complicated the situation even further.

"What's unique about this one was that it was late in the evening, and it was confirmed that there were people trapped in the residence," said Ireland as he explained there are different approaches to dealing with fires depending on what's at risk and how intense the fire is.

"We have different modes of command such as offensive and defensive mode, but if we know somebody's trapped inside we actually go into what's called rescue mode," he said.

Defensive mode is where firefighters work to contain a blaze, but aren't able to save property already damaged, and offensive mode is used when firefighters believe they can save property, the chief explained.

"In both of these modes we have a requirement to have two firefighters geared up on the outside with a water source ready to go in case the firefighters get trapped on the inside," Ireland said. "However, in rescue mode there basically are no such rules."

The last, and perhaps the worst, of the modes was needed with this particular fire to save those trapped inside.

"When we got there, the living room was fully engulfed, and the engine company, who has the water source and puts out the fire, was still enroute," recalled Jones, a 25-year veteran firefighter. "The incident commander asked me that even though there wasn't water source on scene yet, could we make the rescue.

"The door was already open, and oxygen was feeding the fire," he continued. "But, flames weren't in the bedroom yet, and I felt we had enough time to reach the patient."

At that moment, the incident commander, Assistant Chief Kleim Tomlinson, GFD assistant chief of operations, made the call to send Rescue 5's Jones and Sundheimer in for the rescue.

"You have to make that decision, are you going to go in and make a rescue, or is this going to be a body recovery, and we went in and made a rescue," said Jones. "I think about it every day if I'd make that decision again because I'm not only taking my life into my hands, I'm taking (Sundheimer) with me."

Sundheimer didn't hesitate to follow his captain into the fire.

"You can't work in a job like this and question orders or wonder 'what if' in a situation like that," he explained.

Part of that lack of hesitation comes from their training, said Ireland.

"We train together, we rely on each other and he knows the engine crews are right behind him and will get there, get a line hooked up and have his back," said the chief.

Armed with that knowledge and their knowledge of the home, which was originally part of Grissom's base housing when it was an active-duty installation, the two firefighters decided to perform a left-handed search pattern toward a bedroom, a task made all the more complicated and dangerous due to heavy smoke choking out all light.

"With the smoke, you couldn't see more than a few inches in front of your mask," said Sundheimer, who stayed closely glued to his partner as they made their way through treacherous maze seeking any sign of life.

"When we go in, he keeps in contact with me; he's always on my ankle and keeps a hold of my bunker gear as I do a pattern," said Jones while explaining how they deal with the lack of sight. "What I mean by a left-handed search pattern is that I'm sweeping from the floor all the way to the ceiling with every part of my body on the left, and he's searching on the right."

"We're trained to this do all the way from the fire academy to our proficiency training here, so from there your training kicks in, and it's muscle memory at that point," added Sundheimer.

Their hunch to head to a bedroom and tenacity of their search paid off as they found a patient in bed, and while the task of finding him was difficult, the task of getting him out of the house proved to be all the more so.

"Once we found the patient, we had fire coming in on us, so we needed to get out, and we couldn't go back the way we came," recalled Sundheimer.

Thankfully, the firefighters saw their opportunity to get both their patient and themselves out of the blaze through a bedroom window.

"When we go in, we carry enough tools that we can break through a wall if we have to," said Jones as he showed off the ax and Halligan tool the two firefighters carried with them that night.

Shortly after Jones and Sundheimer were able to pull out their patient alive from the fire, an engine crew found the other entrapped person who was already dead, explained Ireland. And, despite their heroic efforts in saving their patient's life, the man rescued by Jones and Sundheimer succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.

"Our guys got there and gave him the best chance of survival because we're closer, we're on scene ready to go," continued the fire chief.

"We have a 3 to 5 minute response time quicker than local volunteer fire departments because we are manned 24-hours-a-day," added Jones, explaining that in his business, seconds can separate the fine line between life and death. "As soon as the bells went off, we were probably there a minute to a minute-and-a-half."

While their efforts were heroic, Ireland said this call was not outside the norm for his firefighters.

"We average about 10 to 12 working fires a year, and on about 3 or 4 of those you actually have somebody inside or you don't know if there is somebody inside where you have to go in and do a search," he explained. "Even if we get on scene and they say everybody's out, we still do a primary and secondary search on every fire because you never know, and it's better to err on the side of safety."

And, while safety is paramount for Grissom firefighters, it's still a job that comes with inherent risk.

"In this situation they put someone else's safety over their own safety," said Ireland, saying they never take the job they do lightly.

Despite the risks, the GFD firefighters are all willing to put it all on the line to save someone they don't even know.

"Everyone here wants to be a firefighter," explained Ireland. "Whether they just finished their first years' probation or they're a year out from retirement, they all want to be here doing this."

Sundheimer agreed.

"I'm a second generation firefighter; my father was a firefighter for 35 years, and I've known I've wanted to be a firefighter all my life," he said. "It's something that you have inside of you; it's a passion that burns.

"While I'm honored by this award, and I'm grateful for it, there's not anybody here who wouldn't have done the same thing," Sundheimer continued. "Anybody else in this fire station, any one of my brothers here, would have done the same thing; I just happened to be on the truck that day."

Ireland agreed, saying that Grissom's firefighters are some of the best trained and best equipped firefighting professionals in the area.

"It's not just these guys who won the award, but you have a lot of guys behind the scene who made this happen," he said. "There's the assistant chief at the scene who's running command, there's the engine crew who's protecting these guys and actually fighting the fire, and there's a lot of other things going on as these guys are doing the search.

"I'm real proud of all these guys and they do a great job," concluded Ireland. "They're true professionals, and the base and community are lucky to have them."

Grissom is home to the 434th Air Refueling Wing, the largest KC-135R Stratotanker unit in the Air Force Reserve Command, as well as three Army Reserve units and a Marine Corps communication detachment.

The GFD is primarily tasked with ensuring the safety of the 434th ARW aircraft and Airmen on Grissom, but are sometimes requested to assist off base through mutual-aid agreements.

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Grissom firefighters honored for heroism

Grissom firefighters honored for heroism

DOD honors Grissom firefighters for heroism