By Julie Silva
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times
ROCKPORT, Texas — Three men responding to a fire in Rockport may think they were just doing their jobs, but the community sees them as more than a firefighter and police officers.
They’re heroes.
The city of Rockport recently honored police Lt. Larry Sinclair, Officer David Rollins and Fulton firefighter Brandon Morrow with Medals of Valor for their response to the Harbor View apartment fire that killed two people Nov. 3.
Judy Clark was awake the night of the fire and called authorities about 4 a.m. when she saw the flames from her window. She first heard Sinclair’s voice telling everybody to get out of the building. By that time, she said her neighbors were poking their heads out their windows.
“He was definitely the guy with the plan,” Clark said, describing how Sinclair told people how to get out of the building. “The tone of his voice was very authoritative without raising panic.”
Sinclair said he first identified where people could be and tried to find exits. Hearing screams from a second-floor window, he ran to get a ladder, and Morrow helped him get resident Gail Quiller down safely.
He’s not a firefighter, but “critical incident management is critical incident management” regardless of the event, Sinclair said. Four months after the fire, he still doesn’t think what he did was all that extraordinary.
" You’re trained to protect lives first,” Sinclair said. “Property is a far, far distant second.”
Though Clark touted Sinclair’s calm demeanor, he said he was scared as anyone would be. But Sinclair said he had a job to do.
“The thing that you worry about is, you know, did I do everything? First responders, as the tragedy unfolds, you secondguess,” Sinclair said. “You begin to go back and guess and think is there something else I should have done? Is there anything else I could have done?” Rollins tried to get underneath the building’s awning, but the fire was too hot.
“I heard a lady scream and I saw her lying on the ground, and I attempted to get to her because I thought she was actually on fire,” he said. “I was going to use the fire extinguisher to put her out.”
With a better view, he saw the woman, Linda Bessinger, wasn’t on fire and he was able to coax her out on her hands and knees, underneath the smoke. She was burned. Rollins had her sit down and went to help others escape the building. Sinclair and Morrow later helped her to an ambulance.
Bessinger wrote to Sinclair to thank him for his help, telling him she was healing from the burns and skin grafts. She was released from the hospital Nov. 29.
“I have to say it was the most frightened I have ever been in my life and when you came to me I knew I would be OK,” Bessinger wrote.
Rollins was at the burning apartments for four hours, helping gather people, finding out their names and getting blankets. At one point he took a group to the Police Department to get them out of the cold.
Rockport Police Chief Tim Jayroe said police officers aren’t trained in handling fires, but as first responders, they do what they have to do.
“Placing your own safety at risk in order to protect the health and safety of others is the true meaning of valor,” he wrote in a letter to the three men.
Rollins has been with the department about 10 years, but he has been in law enforcement for 16.
Jayroe said he has been active as a patrol officer, shown dedication and is not afraid to work hard.
Sinclair, who also is the city’s fire marshal, was at the apartments for 13 hours.
He also works as the Police Department’s bike patrol supervisor and public information officer. He’s on the tactical unit, and he is a certified water safety officer.
Chief Rickey McLester, with the Fulton Volunteer Fire Department, said Morrow has been with the department 10 years, except when he was on medical leave with cancer. He still hadn’t been placed back on full duty in November and was serving as a driver who was close to the scene when he heard the call.
“He doesn’t feel that he should be acknowledged for this,” McLester said. “He did what any one of us would have done.”
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