Three firefighters tumbled into the basement during a fully engulfed home fire Sunday in Woodstock as they tried to rescue a couple inside.
A day later, two of the emergency workers detailed what happened as they recover from their injuries.
The third, Woodstock fireman David Gray, remains in the intensive care unit at WellStar Kennestone Hospital.
“I feel like we got out of it because of a little luck and a lot of training,” Cherokee County fireman David Burnaugh said Monday afternoon.
Gray, Burnaugh and Cherokee fireman Matthew Richter were on the porch of the Woodstock home when the concrete floor caved in beneath them, and the adjacent wall and canopy collapsed on top of them.
“I was kind of in free-fall,” Richter said Monday. “All I could see was fire.”
The blaze started early Sunday morning in the Kingston Square subdivision, within earshot of the Dixie Speedway.
Jim and Carole Mallons, both late septuagenarians asleep in an upstairs bedroom, perished in the fire.
What began as a rescue mission for the three emergency workers instantly became a struggle to save their lives in what appeared to onlookers to be frighteningly desperate affair.
“It was one of the most heart-wrenching scenes to see three firefighters fall into a [hole in the ground] in a fully-engulfed house fire,” said Cherokee County fire department spokesman Tim Cavender, who was outside as the blazing home seemingly devoured the three firemen. “My heart just sank.”
Gray, Richter and Burnaugh were part of a four-man hose team putting water on the front section of the home.
They had advanced onto the porch and were shooting water into the living room when the ground fell out from beneath them.
“Out of nowhere, the whole two-story front wall collapsed,” Burnaugh said. “It took the porch and the overhang with it. I just saw a huge fireball.”
The men dropped about 10 feet to the basement floor, where Richter and Burnaugh found themselves dodging falling, fiery debris.
“I knew I had to keep my feet moving or I would get them pinned in,” Richter said.
Burnaugh said the trio was lucky, because the collapse seemed to snuff out much of the debris that fell into the hole with them.
Burnaugh managed to avoid the falling shards of wall, flooring and roofing and found an opening above.
“I pulled my right foot out of the debris, but my left foot was stuck,” he said. “I just pulled and took my foot out of my boot and hoped that it wouldn’t get burned.”
