Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Floor Collapse in House Fire: FF Falls and Lives To Tell Story

Jim Black, a firefighter from Modesto, California, and other members of his crew reported to a house fire at 3:53 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Black and the team began their work on the first floor of the structure to make certain that the fire had not spread. They proceeded to tear down the ceiling, a routine task, to see if the fire had spread to the attic. The scene quickly turned with one step as Black fell through the floor into the burned out basement, according to a report from KCRA 3 in Sacramento:

"Crews reported heavy smoke and fire from the large basement of the home and had it knocked down within minutes of their arrival, according to the battalion chief. Black and several other firefighters started working on the first floor of the home, pulling down the ceiling to make sure the fire hadn’t spread to the attic. The routine task suddenly turned chaotic when Black fell through the floor and into the burned out basement."


Black recalls how quickly situations can change at an incident:

“I took a step and the floor just gave way. My one leg went through, my other leg stayed up and it twisted me upside down and I went down into the basement,” recounted Black.


The report adds,
“I was laying on my back looking up and I saw someone looking down at me so I knew someone knew I had gone down in and I just immediately got up and cruised out.”


Read the entire report HERE.

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