“”Firefighter Kevin Anderson yelled that a guy was hanging out a window on the top floor and was going to jump,” said Dunn. “I brought the bucket to the top floor and got him. He said, ‘My wife! My wife!’ so I put my mask on and went in the apartment and found a mother, an 11-year-old boy and a 7-year-old boy on the bed unconscious.”

Dunn carried each victim to the bucket and took the family to the ground.”

In the early morning hours of March 19th, FDNY firefighters faced an incredible challenge as they fought a 3 alarm arson fire in an occupied multiple dwelling. If you watch this video, 510 61st Street you can see the conditions they faced, and hear the radio traffic including two separate MAYDAYs. The “Tally Ho Truck”, Ladder 114 lived up to its reputation as Firemen Kevin Hogan and Joseph Dunn rescued 11 civilians from the building.

Last week on “Taking it to the Streets” on Firefighter Netcast, Christopher Naum interviewed Captain Stephen Marsar of the FDNY regarding his Nation Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer research paper entitled “Can They Be Saved? Utilizing Civilian Survivability Profiling to En... “. The discussion with Captain Marsar centered around this controversial research on trying to reduce firefighter fatalities by adding additional factors to our size up to determine if victims are likely to survive the conditions they are found it. Many will argue that our job is to go in and get the victims whenever conditions will allow us to do so, and while no one is advocating entering a fully involved building, there are times when we must risk severe conditions to search for and rescue occupants.

Captain Marsar’s research indicates that many victims are long dead from CO poisoning before we can get to them and therefore we must carefully evaluate how much risk we place ourselves in. By all accounts, conditions at 510 61st Street were as bad as they get. Heavy smoke is visible from the building and heavy fire appears to have possession of the stairwell and up through the roof. Yet Fireman Hogan and Dunn were able to pull 11 victims from this building and every one of them lived. At one point in the video, you can hear Squad 1 calling a MAYDAY for a collapse of the stairwell between the 2nd and 3rd floors, yet just moments later you can reports of a “baby coming out on the fire escape” and “114 truck, I’ve got 3 10-45’s from the top floor coming down in the bucket.” 4 victims saved after the MAYDAY and while Command considered evacuating the building.

Check out the rest at:

http://backstepfirefighter.com/2011/04/25/sometimes-its-not-so-simp...