Firefighters honor lifesavers

LIFESAVING AWARDS

o Bruce Goetz, Scott Hill, Lionel Patt, Larry Nulliner and Kelly Wilson, for responding to a co-worker’s cardiac arrest at Thompson Metal Fabrication.

o Bob McNally, for using the Heimlich maneuver to save a woman choking on a piece of candy.

o Brian Sabotta, for coming to the aid of four swimmers in jeopardy in the Columbia River.

o Luke Youngblood and Janel Rinehart, for performing CPR on a cardiac-arrest victim.

CERTIFICATES OF APPRECIATION

o Patrick Morrison, for putting out a fire at a neighbor’s home with a garden hose.

o Robert Rinehart, for using American Sign Language skills to aid an accident victim.

o DeWils Industries, for providing an automated external defibrillator (AED) and training so employees could help a co-worker.

o Lisa O’Malley, for leading the evacuation of employees and customers from a burning restaurant.

CERTIFICATE OF EXEMPLARY PERFORMANCE

o Capt. Scott Blanton and firefighters Matt Krussow and Tom Schell, for organizing the 125th anniversary celebration for Westside Firehouse Engine 2.

COMPANY COMMENDATION

o Tim Wright, Randy Marler and Charlie Schmidt, Fisher’s Landing Engine 9; Brad Jefferson and Justin Smith, Fisher’s Landing Rescue 9; Jay Getsfrid, Jesse Avery, Mike McHugh and Travis Myers, Burton Truck 6; and Jason Ingram, Tim Mortenson and Jeremy Stuart, Walnut Grove Heavy Rescue 5: They rescued a woman who’d been ejected from her car during a rollover accident and then was trapped under the vehicle at the bottom of a blackberry-covered hill.

Trevor Narvasa ran into a burning house to save a neighbor. Neil Oldaker reached into a burning car to drag the driver to safety — pulling the woman right out of her sandals.

On Tuesday, the two men were honored with the Fire Medal, the highest civilian award presented by the Vancouver Fire Department.

The list of honorees at the fire department’s annual awards ceremony included several lifesaving heroes.

But the Fire Medal, explained Vancouver Fire Chief Don Bivins, “is given to a person for getting involved at the risk of bodily harm or life.”

Narvasa was chosen for the honor after receiving a 5:50 a.m. telephone call on Feb. 5 from a 91-year-old neighbor.

“She said there was a fire in her living room,” Narvasa said. So, wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, he ran to her home and opened the door.

“My first reaction was to get her out,” he said. “She didn’t walk very well, so I kind of coerced her outside.”

Then Narvasa tried to go back into the house to fight the fire — which, he now says, “was dumb” — while his wife, Wendy, called 911.

During the award presentation, Deputy Chief Joe Molina noted that, “If Mr. Narvasa had not acted, the occupant would have been seriously injured or killed.”

Oldaker, the other Fire Medal recipient, was not at the ceremony. But Molina offered a detailed description of Oldaker’s quick response on July 28, when a woman’s car caught fire in the drive-through lane of a McDonald’s restaurant.

The fire quickly spread under the hood. Oldaker was behind her in the drive-through when he saw the flames.

In an interview with The Columbian after the fire, Oldaker said that the driver didn’t seem to notice the fire.

“I knocked on the window to get her attention. I yelled, ‘The car’s on fire!’ But she seemed confused,” he said.

So Oldaker dragged the 80-year-old woman from the car just as flames spread to the McDonald’s restaurant.

“Mr. Oldaker reached into the car through the passenger side door and pulled the woman out to safety — literally right out of her sandals,” Molina recounted. “He is honored for risking his own safety to evacuate the woman from a very deadly situation.”

George Hill was particularly happy to be at the ceremony at the Northwest Regional Training Center. Hill was glad he was alive.

“If it wasn’t for these guys, I wouldn’t be here today,” Hill said after firefighter Kyle Kirby and Capt. Tony Fletcher received the Meritorious Service Award. They were off-duty at a track meet on May 25 when Hill went into cardiac arrest.

He was at the track meet to watch his grandson, Hill said, then he added, “I didn’t get to see it.”

He described the sensation as “a little gray cloud. I thought I’d better sit down, and I didn’t make it.”

After Hill collapsed, Kirby and Fletcher did CPR for 10 minutes until rescuers arrived.

Hill said he never realized what happened until waking up in the hospital more than three weeks later.

“I lost 23 days,” Hill said.