By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Copyright 2007 The Salt Lake Tribune
All Rights Reserved
SALT LAKE CITY — As police officers stopped the carnage at Trolley Square, fire crews began their life-saving efforts.
At one point, about seven paramedic units - 102 people - were at the mall to aid survivors, said Dennis McKone, Salt Lake City Fire Department spokesman.
“Four people are alive due to the fact we were able to get in and get them stabilized,” McKone said.
The first call to fire dispatchers came in at 6:44 p.m. and gave only the barest hint of what was unfolding at Trolley Square: There was a shooting.
With that, Salt Lake City Fire Department dispatchers rolled Engine No. 1 and Rescue Engine No. 2 from the station at 211 S. 500 East.
Then details came in of a massive shooting spree and multiple victims.
“We didn’t know how many victims we had,” McKone said. One after another, engines responded.
With all rescue crews occupied, the city relied on fire departments in surrounding areas - West Valley City, South Salt Lake, the countywide Unified Fire Authority and the south end of Davis County - for coverage, McKone said.
It took police officers less than five minutes to secure the mall. The paramedics then rushed in.
“This is probably one of the worst situations I have ever seen in my 39 years on the Salt Lake Fire Department being in public safety,” McKone said. “We see it happen on the news, see it in the movies, but you don’t think it will happen here, and it finally happened here.
“It was a devastating scene inside that mall,” he said. “It is pretty hard when you are passing over and see the ones you can’t help.”
Once their work was finished, crews gathered together at the scene that night to talk over what they had seen and heard, McKone said.
The rescue teams, though, “got their job done, very competently as they always do,” McKone said, and they are drawing satisfaction from this: “The ones we did work on and bring out alive are going to recover.”