Al thanks for joining my group and sharing your story.I will share mine.
It was an early morning fire on a very,very cold January day and the pager went off saying that there was a fire in one of the stores on our main street,Which right away is a bad thing cause like most downtowns all the buildings are ajoined and each one has apartments above them and considering the day and time chances are therecould be people at home in these apartments so this could turn out real bad in a hurry.
We get there and I suited up and grabbed my partner and the cheif tells us that we have to go upstairs cause bystanders believe that Bob the occupent above the store that is on fire is home.
The store is a textiles ad seamstress store and the flames had already breached the front window and was pretty much fully involved on the first floor.My partner and I headed up the staircase that led to the upstairs and it was steep and narrow and you couldn't see your hand in front of your mask the smoke was so black from the burning textiles.
We got to the top and located the door which was locked so we booted that in and we were just getting down on our hands and knees to start entry.About two feet inside the door my partner puts his hand ontop of an arm and he hollared I found somebody.I radioed down to IC and told them we found a victim and we were coming down.
The trip down the stairs took forever it seemed because my buddy was walking backwards dragging he guy and he was leaning on me cause it was so steep and dark.When we got to the bottom we were met by some FF's and EMS guys and hey started CPR.We went back up and when we came back out we were old that he was alive now but in critical condition.They had revived him on the street and ya know at the time of all the adreniline and confusion I didn't even realize what we had done until after things were settled down everyone kept coming up to us and saying you saved Bobs life and then it sunk in.
By no means should I have recieved a medal for this because we were only two guys and that's what we do and a fire scene is made up of several of your fellow FF's which kept the fire at bay while we were up there and the EMS that revived him at the bottom of the stairs and doctors at the hospital.We just did the first part.But I remember to this day the overwelming feeling of hapiness that I was able to pull a man from a building and be part of saving his life for him to be able to live to see the next day.I will never forget it I picture it like it just happened yesterday.
We went to Queen's Park in Toronto for our ceremony.It was quite the experience and met alot of people.I will never forget this moment in my life.

The picture is my medal I was awrded and I have some of the other pictures on my profile if you want to take a look at them

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