It’s not science fiction that saves a town, but courage.

Lee Gordon was just 23 and still a rookie at the Greenville Fire Department in Mississippi when his skills and courage were put to the test. The fire department had received a call about a chemical emergency outside the city limits. By the time they arrived, a thick fog had completely engulfed the source of the accident, which they estimated to be about a quarter mile down the road.

The farmer on the scene told the rescue team that he had been trying to offload anhydrous ammonia – a widely used source of nitrogen fertilizer that’s also one of the most potentially dangerous chemicals used in agriculture. He had been unable to shut off the valve in time, and now everything was shrouded by a highly caustic gas cloud that burns the eyes, skin and lungs. It was threatening to spread to some nearby houses. The firefighters quickly donned their SCBA’s, lashed themselves together, and disappeared into the toxic cloud. "Of course we had flashlights," Lee recalls, "but there was zero visibility." They would walk a few steps and then Lee would get down on his hands and knees and put his facemask to the ground to make sure they were still on the pavement leading to the site of the accident.

Finally, Lee bumped into something and had to feel around to figure out what it was: a truck with its headlights on – which you could not see in the fog. The truck was pulling the chemical tank and quickly the firefighters were able to locate the valve to the anhydrous ammonia and shut it off.

“We pulled back after the cloud of gas dissipated somewhat and saw that there were some homes in the area,” Lee recalls, “but thankfully everyone was able to get out.” Suddenly the wind changed direction and the rescue team was hit so hard by the gas that all they could do was hold their breath as they scrambled to put their SCBAs back on. “At the time I didn’t realize – but I do now – how much danger we were actually in. A malfunction or failure of an airpack would definitely have been deadly for us.”

Now twenty years later, Lee is the chief of the fire department. He summarizes, “As we tell our firemen: ‘We can't become part of the problem, because then we can't help anyone else.’ So we have to make sure that we have the best equipment that we can possibly have to do the job we have to do. Our airpacks are 100% Dräger. They're excellent and have met our high expectations.”