By Mara H. Gottfried
The St. Paul Pioneer Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Five St. Paul firefighters won their department’s highest honor Thursday, June 7, for saving a fellow firefighter who plunged into a hole during a January fire and held on, dangling into the fire and getting burned.
Firefighter Jeff Black, who needed a skin graft for the worst burn on his leg, returned to work in March.
Black had been the first firefighter through the door at the house fire in the 1400 block of St. Albans Street on Jan. 2. He fell up to his armpits and, Fire Chief Tim Butler said, “struggled above the flames for three minutes while a group of rescuers held onto him and then formulated a rescue plan and saved Jeff from, I think, almost likely a fatal event. We could have lost several firefighters that day.”
Black previously described what happened as, “absolute, sheer terror.”
The Meritorious Service Award Butler gave to the five firefighters — Capts. Mike Mills and Art Rodriguez, and Firefighters Ian Nash, Mike Lee and Dane Lund — is “for going above and beyond the call of duty,” the fire chief said.
While they appreciate the awards, Rodriguez said, “I don’t think we did anything differently that day than anybody else would have done.”
Butler gave Unit Commendation Awards to these firefighters also involved in the rescue: Capts. Anthony Katz and Ed Nelson, Fire Equipment Operator David Georgi, and Firefighters Gary Benson, Daniel Paro, Adam Ritchie, Gordon Ross and Juan Mena.
When the fire occurred, the homeowners, Emily and Josiah Hill, were in Chicago for New Year’s with their daughter, Grace, now 14 months old.
“We can’t even begin to express how thankful we are that you’re OK, Jeff, and that all of you were able to be there that day,” Emily Hill said at the award ceremony.
The family got a few keepsakes out of the house after the fire, she said, and the home has since been demolished.
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