Firefighter, paramedic share story of rescue

BANGOR – The firefighter and the paramedic who on Saturday saved a woman from her burning apartment on Market Street have a newfound appreciation for their jobs.

“This call makes my whole career worth the effort, knowing that one person was saved,” paramedic Bruce Johnson said Thursday during a news conference at the Central Fire Station on Main Street.

Fire officials have declined to release the name of the woman, who was taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. The woman remained Thursday in intensive care, but fire officials said it looks as though she is going to pull through.

Bangor firefighters, including Johnson and Capt. Matt Costello, responded to the alarm Saturday morning at 52 Market St., where a woman was trapped inside the apartment building.

When they first arrived on the scene, six people had evacuated the building safely, but one woman was inside Apartment 2 and had not responded when a neighbor knocked on her door.

Costello forced the apartment door open and Johnson was the first to enter, while Costello finished putting on his gear. Johnson said that when he was about 10 feet into the apartment, he saw the woman’s legs. She was lying on the floor of her kitchen, which the officers said was filled with heavy, black smoke.

Although Johnson first thought she was unconscious, when he yelled “fire department,” she turned and looked at him, he said.

“I was a little surprised when she turned and looked at me,” Johnson said. “It was kind of nice to know she still had a viable chance.”

Johnson and Costello took the woman to the ambulance. Johnson put her on oxygen and helped her breathe during the trip to EMMC, talking to her the whole time, while Costello went back to help put out the fire.

For Costello, who has been with the Bangor Fire Department for 16 years, the rescue was his third lifesaving experience. For Johnson, who has been with the department for 15 years, it is his first.

“A lot of times they don’t make it,” Costello said about victims in burning buildings. In all his years as a firefighter, he has learned that “smoke alarms make a difference,” he said.

The neighbors who got out of the building safely before the fire department arrived said they had heard a smoke detector go off. When Costello and Johnson made it inside the woman’s apartment, they noticed her smoke detector had been burned and no longer was working.

Costello and Johnson said they couldn’t have made the rescue without the support of the other firefighters and paramedics at the scene.

“We’re the two that brought her out, but there’s a whole crew that made this happen,” Costello said.

The officers both received anonymous thank you letters and fruit baskets after Saturday’s rescue. Although they don’t know who sent them, Costello said he has a hunch.

“I think the [state] Fire Marshal’s Office might have had something to do with it, but I’m not sure,” he said.