"Just trying to help other people"

From the BCCT.

Real heroes. That sums it up. And these four live right here in town riding the big red trucks when YOUR house or business is threatened.

Give up a big round of applause for all the firefighters.

'Just trying to help other people'
By: DANNY ADLER
Bucks County Courier Times

Four firefighters are among a group of 39 people to be honored as "Real Heroes of Bucks County."

Four volunteer firefighters headed home in the early hours of one September morning knowing they did everything they could.

Twenty-five-year-old Morrisville Fire Co. Chief Matt Wiedenhaefer, then the deputy chief, and fellow firefighters Jason DeShields, 29, John Weiss III, 25, and Tim Jones, 38, pulled an unconscious young couple from their flaming garden-level home at Colonial Gardens Apartments on Plaza Boulevard,

The firefighters never got to know much about the couple, though. The two, who were burned and inhaled smoke as a kitchen fire destroyed their apartment, died in the days following the incident.

"It's a damn shame," the chief said recently, while sitting with his comrades in the fire station's office, which is adorned with pictures of Morrisville fires, including the fatal Colonial Gardens blaze. "But it's one of those things where you know that you did everything you could."

He never questioned what else they could have done. "We did absolutely everything," he said.

As Weiss led the way, dousing the fire in the blacked-out apartment, Wiedenhaefer, DeShields and Jones helped with the hose and patted around looking for bodies, although no reports of entrapment had reached them.

Once inside, Jones said, the firefighters evaluated the whole situation, the heat, the smoke, the darkness.

And then, "Oh + we got a body, now we gotta get him out. There's 7,000 things going through your [mind]. You're playing every scenario out in your head in about 15 seconds, if that."

DeShields first found the young woman in the living room. She was taken out the front door. Shortly after, in a rear bedroom, he found the man, whose heart was not beating. Firefighters got him outside through a rear window, and rescue workers got his heart pumping again. Both were rushed to area hospitals. It was the first time DeShields found people inside during a call.

"It's like feeling a big pile of clothes, but then you realize that it's not a pile of clothes. You feel that arm, you know you got somebody," DeShields said. "It's a totally different ballgame once you feel that."

And it wasn't easy. The only light the firefighters had was the glow of the flames they were fighting. "If you literally cover your eyes, that's what you see. You see nothing. You can walk straight into a wall," Weiss said.

The firefighters - among 39 people to be honored by the American Red Cross as "Real Heroes of Bucks County" Thursday - all joined the company for various reasons, family ties, community safety, the adrenaline rush. But they'll admit, what they did was just part of the gig.

"It's not a glory thing, or anything like that," Wiedenhaefer said. "You're just trying to help other people and make sure they're OK."

March 25, 2009 02:10 AM