By J. Harry Jones
The San Diego Union-Tribune
ESCONDIDO, Calif. — Retiring Escondido Fire Chief Mike Lowry remembers one traffic accident call back in 1992 that changed his life.
Already with the city’s fire department for a decade, Lowry was the captain of a truck company that responded to a head-on collision on East Valley Parkway. A mother and her two twin little girls had been headed into town to buy things for the twin’s upcoming birthday party when an impaired driver crossed into their lane.
As the firefighters tried to cut the mother out of the wreckage she died. The little girls were saved and rushed by helicopter to Children’s Hospital.
“Later that evening I called my wife and said get the kids ready in the morning because we’re going to church,” Lowry said. “That was a turning point in regard to my faith.”
He said the incident reset his life priorities: faith, family, friends and fire department.
“We went to church that next day and have been going ever since,” Lowry said. “There was something about that call. This lady was a good person. I’m hoping she is in heaven now. I considered myself to be a Christian, but I wasn’t walking the way I probably should have been walking. My family wasn’t always my priority. That call in 1992 changed me.”
Friday was Lowry’s last day with the Escondido Fire Department where he has been on the job for 34 years and the department’s chief since 2008. Without proselytizing, he said he has tried to impress those priorities upon the men and women under him and he believes the department is better for it.
Lowry will be replaced this week by Deputy Fire Chief Russell Knowles, who will lead the department’s 130 paid employees and become only the eighth chief in department history.
All firefighters and those in law enforcement have specific memories of events that stick with them. Lowry is no different.
He remembers his first ever medical-aid call that came in 1979 when, at the age of 19, he went to work for the Alpine Fire Protection District. He had to give a man CPR and remembers hoping he was doing it right as he could hear the cartilage in the man’s chest crackle. He continued CPR in the ambulance all the way from Alpine to El Cajon.
He also remembers his first call in 1982 after joining the Escondido department as a fire cadet making $1,134 a month. He was on the back of an engine responding to a pedestrian vs. vehicle accident and had been trained upon arrival to get an oxygen tank and bring it to the victim.
“I grabbed it and got off and went around the engine. Everybody was looking at me saying we’re not going to need that. (A man) had been hit by a car and was pretty much severed in two.”
That was a big year in Lowry’s life. He was married to Cheri early in 1982, graduated from a fire academy, and joined the Escondido department.
He said his years with the department have been eventful and certainly not all memories are tragic.
Over the years, he helped deliver seven babies when expectant mothers couldn’t quite make it to the hospital on time.
“Those were always very rewarding,” he said. “We had a family that I helped deliver a baby girl. They would bring her by the fire station on her birthday every year for the first six years. That was nice.”
And of course there have been the big fires. He has fought them all over the state as part of a mutual-aid strike team.
San Diego County’s 2003 and 2007 fire storms are unforgettable as well as the 2007 Paramount fire — the largest structure fire in Escondido history — which destroyed 56 partially built downtown condominiums.
When the Paramount fire broke out, Lowry was inside the department’s headquarters, which were then based at City Hall. He heard the call, opened a door and saw the huge cloud of black smoke billowing into the air just a few blocks to the west.
His assignment was to make sure the blaze didn’t spread to any of the other buildings under construction to the north.
“As hard as we tried to keep those embers and heat from igniting the other buildings the fire just leaped from one to another,” he said. The buildings were a total loss.
Looking toward the future, Lowry said he’ll take the next few months to decide what the “second half” of his life will look like. He’ll do some traveling with family and then probably continue doing part-time consultant work for a private company in the emergency response field.
Church will play a big part in his future, he added, and he may look into becoming a volunteer chaplain with the San Diego Police Department where one of his two daughters works as an officer.
“My plan for this summer is to try and use it as a sabbatical and see what the Lord has in store for me,” he said.
He will also continue to work out. A fitness-nut, Lowry is a certified Level 1 CrossFit trainer and is such a gym rat that his retirement party Friday night was held at the CrossFit center on E. Valley Parkway.
Last month a ceremony honoring Lowry was held during the Escondido City Council meeting.
Mayor Sam Abed called Lowry “a tireless worker and a mentor who has earned the utmost respect from his friends, from his family, and from his coworkers.”
Lowry became emotional after receiving his certificate of recognition. He said all the successes at the fire department have been the result of teamwork.
“It has been an honor and a privilege,” he said, pausing to collect himself...“to serve you.”
Copyright 2016 The San Diego Union-Tribune