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Firefighter recalls rescue of teen hooked up to breathing equipment
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Fire quickly spread through a home in Fort Washington on July 10. Lt. Brooks Howard has been fighting fires for 26 years and was first to arrive at the scene.
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - A fire was sweeping through a two-story home on the 13200 block of Park Lane in Fort Washington and callers to 911 were frantically describing how a teenage boy on a respirator was trapped inside.
It was July 10 and Lt. Brooks Howard, 42, who’s been fighting fires for 26 years, was working an overtime shift at nearby Station 47. Howard, a firefighter and medic, was the first to arrive, and he described the daring rescue to The Examiner as follows:
“Everyone was out on other calls, and the dispatcher was reporting that people were trapped inside. ... We pulled up in an ambulance, the first to arrive, and saw a fire on the second floor.
I then ran into the house and started up the stairs — people are usually trapped on the second floor — but the conditions were no good; I had no firefighter uniform on, and it was very smoky.
I yelled. Kids answered in the backyard. A 15-year-old boy came into the house and said his brother was in the basement. I told him to get out and went down the stairs where I found a big open room, but I couldn’t find the bedroom — there was smoke down to about my waist.
The 15-year-old followed me down, pointed out the room and I found a 14-year-old on breathing equipment. He had been injured in a motor-vehicle accident seven years ago.
I gathered blankets, getting ready and knowing that he wouldn’t be able to breathe as soon as I took him off [the respirator]. I scooped him up, and my partner came down and we carried him up. ... Outside we put him in the ambulance and [put him on a portable respirator] and we breathed for him.”
When asked if he was a hero for what he had done, Howard resisted the traditional meaning of the word.
“It’s my job, that’s the way I look at it. I’ve been involved in rescues before. In 2001 I was on a search and rescue team and pulled three kids from a fire on Marcy Avenue. They were all unconscious, not breathing, and I resuscitated them on the front lawn. Around the station, we tease each other about the hero stuff. It’s heroic that I get up and go to work every day.”
