Episode 23: Chief Thomas Mills - Maglite HERO SERIES - PART 3
The fire gets worse, firefighters are seemingly trapped inside a collapsing structure. Lives are now on the line of the firefighters themselves and as help begins to arrive everything hangs in the balance.
Transcript:
Welcome to the MAGTAC Hero Series with your host Lou Desmond. Join Lou as he talks with honored hero chief Thomas Mills of the North Beach Maine Volunteer Fire Department.
Lou Desmond:
This massive townhouse fire, wind's blowing 30, 40 miles an hour. Everything's getting engulfed. You're all volunteers. And this kid has zero experience in live fire and he's got to jump into it?
Producer:
Now let's join Lou and Chief Mills for the exciting conclusion of this incredible story of a true real life hero.
Thomas Mills:
I had all the faith in the world in safety Officer Morrison. Danny is pretty well versed in everything here and his firefighting capabilities are top notch. So they made entry into the townhouse. They wet down what they could before they went in. Well they got it into the townhouse, and when they went into the townhouse about 30 seconds into it, I noticed that townhouse started to separate from the other one. And I told the gentleman that was the commanding officer, he was from joining department called Huntingtown. His name was chief Timmy Clark.
Thomas Mills:
He had got there rather quickly too, because he lives in our area. So I told him, I said, "Timmy," I said, "This is not looking good." And about that time the town house shifted three to four feet and I told him, I said, "Go ahead and call a Mayday," because I didn't think they were going to make it out. Well in that whole minute, two minute timeframe of them being in there, Danny and Max had made it all the way in the first floor, searched the whole first floor and the bathroom. And he turned to Max and Danny told Max, he said, "You have to get out of here. Don't wait for me. Go."
Thomas Mills:
So Max made his way back to the front door and I guess the floor had already started giving way. So instead of Max using the door, he dove through the front window onto the porch. I would say 15, 20 seconds after him coming out, we'd had no signs of Danny and the townhouse was starting to collapse completely. Two seconds, it crossed my mind. I said, "What have I done?" I second guessed myself to what I had told him and seeing what we saw and thinking, "How am I going to explain this to his wife that I sent him in here to get these people," when knowing that it was probably a 50/50 chance. I was beside myself.
Lou Desmond:
But that's what you guys are doing. Your volunteers risking your lives to save other people's lives.
Thomas Mills:
So the floor had gave way when Morrison was making his way back out and like I said, within Max coming through the window and him coming off the front porch and standing in the street and us not seeing Danny and the townhouse started to collapse completely.
Lou Desmond:
When you say he came through the window, how do you get through a glass window. I mean, he just dove through with his equipment on?
Thomas Mills:
Yep. He just dove through.
Lou Desmond:
Just shattered the glass like Bruce Willis coming through a window in an action movie?
Thomas Mills:
Yeah, that's what it looked like.
Lou Desmond:
Oh my Lord.
Thomas Mills:
Like I said, 15 seconds after Max come through the window, the townhouse started to collapse completely and next thing you know, you see Danny's... Y'all all we'd seen was his helmet and his face piece at the front door and a couple of the other fireman ran up and grabbed him and pulled him out onto the porch. When they pulled him onto the porch and were coming off the porch, the townhouse collapsed completely.
Lou Desmond:
Lucky SOB.
Thomas Mills:
The good Lord was on his side that day.
Lou Desmond:
Yeah. You guys that do that stuff, it's bravery that I cannot, I cannot imagine.
Thomas Mills:
After that happened, we went to a defensive operation. We started flowing the tower ladder from the front side of the building, which we were. We call that the alpha side for the fire department personnel. And then we had another tower that had gotten there from Prince Roderick and he set up on the rear side of the townhouse, which would be on Charlie's side.
Lou Desmond:
So you get a whole lot of equipment finally coming in from other places. And now are these professional firefighters? Not that you're not professionals, but I mean paid?
Thomas Mills:
The first five or six units that showed up were all from Calvert County and they're all volunteer staffed. We had North Beach, we had our engine, both our engines and our tower there. Dunkirk came, they had their ladder truck and their engine. Huntingtown showed up with their rescue squad and their engine and Prince Frederick showed up with their tower. And then the units to follow them that are on the initial alarm came from Anne Arundel County, which are career firefighters, and they do have some volunteers. They had a pumper tanker and another engine show up from Anne Arundel County. That was-
Lou Desmond:
And once all those show up, you eventually get those fires out and unfortunately two civilians lost their lives. You had a couple of firefighters injured, one jumping through a window, one falling through a floor and getting out. Thank God none of them were were killed and that was the incident that happened. Now I want to shift gears here for a second, Chief. Let's talk about the aftermath of this incident and why the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation chose you. And let's make clear, Maglite sponsors the Firefighter Hero Award, but we do not choose the people that get the award, the people that get the award, in this case you, Chief Mills from the North Beach Volunteer Fire Department, that is decided upon by the board of directors for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.
Lou Desmond:
And they get dozens of recommendations every month and they only give out four to six of these a year. So if you think about the math Chief Mills, you are one person that's obviously the board of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, thought really deserved this award. And it was because mostly, yes, you handled the incident, but it was what you did in the aftermath of the incident that you really got the award for. Can you explain what you did after this happened?
Producer:
What more did Chief Mills do after an already heroic display? Get the story behind the real reason for his special honor on the next episode of the MAGTAC Hero Series