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Three firefighters trapped in a burning house were running out of oxygen and time Thursday night at a fire on Pratt Lake Road in Gladwin, reports www.wnem.com
Travis Povey, a Gladwin Rural Urban Fire Department firefighter, thought he had answered his final alarm when he responded to the burning home in Gladwin. “I didn’t want anything to come down, and everything, that I could see, looked solid,” Povey said.
Crews were able to get the fire under control so Povey, a 13-year veteran of the department, took two newer firefighters inside to show them how fire works. Shortly after they entered, things went terribly wrong.
“We heard, sounded like a shotgun went off, just a big crack, and the three of us all went down together,” Povey said.
All three fell through the floor into the basement of the burning home. They were trapped. Their oxygen tanks ran out and water used to put out the flames continued to rise.
“I grabbed one of the guys hands, made sure we asked if everyone was OK, and we said a prayer,” Povey said. “I started thinking about my kids. And having grown up without a dad myself, I didn’t want that for them.”
Above ground, firefighters worked feverishly to dig the men out and after an hour, they pulled the three men to safety.
The firefighters were suffering from smoke inhalation and some minor bumps and bruises. They would spend the next three days in the hospital.
“We had a couple things go wrong, but we had a lot of things go right. And here I am, barely a scratch on me,” Povey said.
On Sunday, Povey and the other two firefighters returned to the home knowing it’s where they could have died. It’s a near tragedy that will forever be the tie that binds. And it has made them eternally grateful for their brothers who stopped at nothing to save them.
