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Trumbull sheriff calls deputy’s actions at fire scene ‘courageous’
By Ed Runyan
NEWTON FALLS
Though Trumbull County Deputy Dallas Young says he never felt his life was in danger when he went inside a burning house Jan. 16, Sheriff Thomas Altiere sees it quite differently.
“I think it was really courageous what he did. Going into a burning building three times to rescue two people is heroic,” the sheriff said.
But don’t mention that “h” word around Young, who says there was nothing heroic about it.
“Yes, we got them out safe, but that’s what first- responders do every day,” Young said, adding that he allowed The Vindicator to interview him because that is what Altiere asked him to do.
Young was on patrol on his regular beat in Newton Township when he was alerted by dispatchers at 7:36 p.m. to a possible house fire at 2505 Canal Street Ext., the home of John Laney, 69, and Beverly Laney, 68.
Young was the first police officer or firefighter to arrive and saw smoke coming from the home. He told dispatchers it appeared John, who uses a walker, and Beverly might still be inside.
Young went in the house and saw Beverly, “who appeared disoriented and confused,” Young wrote in his police report.
He helped her outside to the porch after she said John had locked himself in his bedroom.
Young went back in to find John, but Beverly followed him inside “yelling for me to get him out,” so Young took Beverly back outside a second time.
“I then got her back out and again went back for her husband. As I yelled out to him, he stated that he was ‘over here,’ but I was unable to see him with all the smoke,” Young said.
“I then yelled again to him and asked where he was, and he had made it to the side door leading from the kitchen to the attached garage,” Young wrote.
Young then came around to the front of the garage, where he and Officer Dave Thompson of the Newton Falls Police Department helped John out of the house.
John and Beverly both suffered smoke inhalation and were taken to the hospital by ambulance, but both suffered only minor injuries.
Young says one reason he may have been comfortable entering the structure is because he served as a firefighter for about five years for the Braceville and Newton Falls fire departments, so he had an idea how to evaluate the fire.
“With the training I have, I knew it was safe to go in,” he said, explaining that a big concern would be a backdraft, but he could tell that would not be an issue here.
“You really don’t think about it. You just act. This is what we’re here for,” Young said.
It’s not uncommon for law-enforcement officers to reach a fire scene before firefighters, Young said, “because I’m already on the road.”
In fact, it’s the second time he had an opportunity to help fire victims, also helping two children and an adult escape a house fire in Bazetta Township in 2008.