Saturday, March 21, 2015
YOUNGSTOWN
Even for a job such as firefighting, this was unusual — they don’t do many rope rescues in Youngstown.
Early on July 7, however, Youngstown Fire Capt. Charlie Smith found himself lowering his way down a steep hill by rope to a man and woman in their 20s to check on their injuries and figure out the best way to get them off the hillside.
They had tried to take a shortcut about 2:30 a.m. through the woods on the East Side near Wilson Avenue, Smith said.
Police officers had found them.
When Smith reached the couple, he discovered a situation that complicated matters even more.
The woman was hanging over the edge of what was later determined to be an 80-foot cliff, holding on to a tree root with one hand.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone to be over the edge like that, but you don’t think about it,” Smith said. “I had to stop her from going over the edge.”
The woman was saying she was slipping and that she couldn’t hold on.
Smith took off his own rescue rope and tied it around her waist. He wedged himself up against a tree with the woman’s boyfriend — that tree had stopped the boyfriend’s fall and kept him from going over the cliff.
Other firefighters sent a second rescue rope down to the boyfriend, then Smith was pulled up the hill.
It was only afterward that he thought about it.
The cliff dropped to a dry, rocky creek bed, he said. The department was lucky it didn’t have to do a body recovery that night.
Smith, who will be promoted to battalion chief in June, is one of eight Youngstown firefighters who are 2014 Lifesaving Award recipients.
Twenty-six firefighters received Crew Awards.
They were honored at the Youngstown Professional Firefighters I.A.F.F. Local 312 28th Annual Retirement and Awards Dinner Friday evening at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church Parish Hall, with plenty of family and friends present to applaud them. Among them was Smith’s son, Logan, who leaves for the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., on July 1. Logan Smith got his own round of applause for that.
Their stories, read by Local 312 trustee Brian Hoffman, were all in a day’s work for a firefighter, maybe — but if not for them, people most likely would have died.
A woman who uses a wheelchair has Lt. Ben Esposito to thank for getting her out of an apartment fire and helping the ambulance crew get her to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital with advanced life-support measures.
Capt. Craig Tershel, Capt. Gene Cook, A/Lt. Dan Jamison, and firefighters Terence Gamble, Josh McHenry, John Carbon Jr. and John D. Carbon saved a man who was pinned under a car after a wreck.
Firefighters Ryan Ott and Lyle Hayes helped to save a woman from a drug overdose.
Smith, Lt. Al Clarett and firefighter Andre Miller carried an elderly woman who couldn’t get up off the kitchen floor from a house that was on fire.
Hayes went through heavy smoke into an apartment and carried a disabled man down two flights of stairs to rescue him.
Tershel, Gamble, firefighter Jon Racco, Lt. Tim Hrina (A/C), firefighter Rob Class (A/Lt.) and firefighter Tony Ciccone rescued a man from a burning car.
Firefighters Dan Quayle (A/Lt.), Andre Miller, Ciccone, Mark Brown, Aaron Smith and Lt. Eric Swanson (A/C) were involved in the cliff rescue with Capt. Charlie Smith.
Retiring this year are Captain Edwin Fay, 35 years; Inspector Lisa Santiago, 25 years; Lt. Stewart Bissell, 29 years; Capt. Kevin Johnson, 32 years; Capt. Kevin O’Neill, 28 years; and firefighter John Carbon Jr., 30 years.
Honored with a special roll call were four retirees who died in 2014: Robert M. Knat, firefighter; Matthew J. DeCarlo, captain and interim fire chief; Frank Mursko, engineer; and Nicolas Cooper, engineer.