Even a hero needs a guardian angel.

If someone thinks that firefighting isn’t particularly exciting, that person has never seen a firefighter in action. Even a call that might initially seem routine can quickly become life-threatening situation. Fire Chief Greg Porter knows this first-hand from an experience he will never forget.

One day his fire station received an emergency call: A house in a neighboring town was on fire, and his team was called in as second-alarm responders. The first-arriving firefighters had extinguished the origin of the fire, which was on the first floor. The assignment for Greg’s team of eight was to try to reach the second floor and open up the ceiling. Just as Greg and his partner Steve reached the second floor, they heard a loud cracking noise. Suddenly the roof came crashing down upon them. Steve was hit by a falling beam and the force of impact completely knocked him through the floor. Massive clouds of dust and smoke filled the room, obscuring visibility.

The collapsed roof fed the fire, creating dangerously high temperatures within the house. Greg ordered his team to leave the unstable building immediately and radioed for additional support.

Greg knew that if he were to save Steve’s life, it was now or never. The top portion of the stairs was gone, so Greg climbed down through the hole in the floor to look for Steve. He quickly found him buried in a pile of rubble but – to his great relief – awake and talking.

Steve traveled about 10 feet with 80 pounds of equipment on him and hundreds of pounds of debris falling on top him. He was trapped in the rubble, lying on his side with his face down. He had landed on one portion of the landing with the cylinder first. "Because of the way the Dräger air pack contours to the small of his back and the weight rides on his pelvic girdle, it was Steve’s belief that it helped prevent him from breaking his back or having more extensive injuries than he did.

Any one change that day and it could have turned out differently. But certainly the equipment we issue is the safest we can afford to buy. Steve had brand new gear on that day – Dräger air pack, face piece, hood, gloves, boots – everything was top-of-the-line equipment and certainly contributed to his surviving.”

That day, Greg learned that even heroes need a guardian angel.

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