By Ashley B. Craig
The Charleston Daily Mail
GLASGOW, W.Va. — Glasgow Fire Chief Marty Blankenship will read from a letter at the funeral service for Donnie Adkins today.
Actually, it’s a short poem that says volumes about a life that was sacrificed in the service of others.
A member of the Wheeler family sent it to the Glasgow station for Adkins’ family after learning of his death.
“Although we never knew him, one thing we know for sure, Donnie was a courageous man whose heart was loving, giving and pure,” she wrote.
Nine members of the Wheeler family, including a toddler and a person in a wheelchair, were the second rescue in the early morning hours of March 13 for the Glasgow crew.
In all, the crew had transported 15 people and three dogs to safety before Adkins, 32, was lost. They were attempting their fourth rescue in the cold, swift floodwaters when their boat capsized.
However, Blankenship and other firefighters said Adkins died doing what he loved, helping others in a time of dire need.
Glasgow, which is one of several Kanawha County fire agencies equipped to handle water rescues, was one of the stations called by the state Fire Marshal’s office just after midnight on March 13 to assist rescue crews in Raleigh County.
Adkins had been with Glasgow for 2 1/2 years and served at the Rand Fire Department for several years before that. He had been trained in swift water rescue.
Blankenship said Adkins was eager to respond to the call for help that day.
A five-man crew, including Blankenship, Adkins, Slack, Scooter Little and Roy Fernett, left the Glasgow station in the wee hours of a cold, rainy night.
They were headed for Mount Hope in Fayette County where they were supposed to rendezvous with another water rescue team from Smithers. They soon learned that W.Va. 61 in that area was impassable due to high water.
Blankenship said the crew was rerouted to Pax in Fayette County, where Paint Creek had risen over its banks. The chief said they hadn’t been in Pax very long when the state Emergency Operations Center asked them to head to Beaver, where people were said to be trapped in their homes, some even in their attics.
When the Glasgow crew arrived in Beaver, they found that the station and main road was flooded and firefighters already had moved emergency vehicles to a staging area on higher ground, he said.
Beaver and Glasgow firefighters headed for Violet Lane off U.S. 19 just west of Beaver.
“We sized up the situation and decided that we couldn’t deploy because of power issues,” Blankenship said. “It wasn’t safe for us to go in there then, so we notified the power company of the situation and went back to the staging area to wait.”
The chief said the waters of Piney Creek in the Violet Lane area had risen enough to pose a serious threat to rescuers, who would have had to negotiate floodwaters beneath live power lines.
Three good missions
They arrived back at the staging area just after 3 a.m. and were led by a Beaver firefighter to an area known as Sullivan’s Camp about eight miles outside Beaver. They found four people standing on top of a car and clinging to a tree limb.
Blankenship said the rescue crew quickly got their boat into the water and motored to the car, where the people had been standing for more than 90 minutes. Crew members, including Adkins, pulled the four from the nearly freezing water and hurried them to two ambulances waiting nearby.
“Those four people on that car, they’d been there for over an hour and a half and that water was extremely cold,” Blankenship said. “They were really struggling.
“It was just a bad situation and they needed our help.”
Then they pulled the boat from the water and returned to the staging area. They learned that the power company had turned off service on Violet Lane.
However, the water had risen and was moving even faster than when they were there a short time earlier.
The firefighters again launched their boat into the floodwaters.
“The water was so deep we actually had to cut down power lines so that we could get in,” the chief said.
He said a glowing flashlight at the two-story home of the Wheeler family caught their attention and they maneuvered the boat in that direction. Water had risen to the second floor of the home, the chief said.
Inside the house they found nine people, including a toddler and a person in a wheelchair, and two dogs. Blankenship said they gave each person a life jacket and a helmet and pulled them out of the house, making two trips to ferry them all to safety.
Down the street from the Wheeler home, rescue crews found two elderly women taking refuge in their attic and were able to transport them to safety.
Into the water
The crew returned to the staging area for a break, but it was cut short when the Beaver fire chief notified them of people in the attic of a house at 151 Violet Lane. It was just after 6 a.m. when they headed back out.
“We were on our fourth run. That’s when the incident occurred,” Blankenship said.
The chief said he could not provide details because the incident still is under investigation by several agencies.
County officials said last week that the boat carrying Blankenship, Adkins and Capt. Jay Slack capsized after striking an object in the water. The three were dumped into the cold, swiftly moving water.
Glasgow firefighters Scooter Little and Roy Fernett and two Beaver firefighters who have not been identified were in another boat and were able to pull Blankenship and Slack from the water.
Adkins was swept away.
“I’ve been doing this for 27 years and that was the most scared I have ever been,” Blankenship said.
“But when we couldn’t find Donnie, we switched to a different gear and we took off trying to find him.”
Blankenship and Slack later were transported to Charleston Area Medical Center’s General Hospital in Charleston for treatment of multiple injuries, including broken bones and multiple cuts.
A frustrating search
The search for Adkins included nearly 100 volunteers from many agencies and was waged for six days.
On the first evening Adkins’ life jacket was found. The next afternoon they found his glove. Days later search crews recovered his wetsuit.
Blankenship said firefighters and family members were optimistic at first. As time went by their hopes that Adkins was alive and waiting to be rescued began to fade.
His body was found last Friday afternoon, a week after he went missing, in a tangle of brush nearly five miles down Piney Creek from where the boat capsized.
An American flag signed by all of the volunteers who searched for him that week was draped over his body after they pulled him from the water.
Brothers pay tribute
Volunteer firefighters from around the state began dropping by the Glasgow station house even while the Raleigh County search for Adkins was ongoing. More have come since his body was found Friday. They wanted to pay their respects at the station and offer a helping hand.
“It’s a brotherhood,” said John Slate, Adkins’ cousin and fellow firefighter. “When things happen, we turn out to help each other.”
Tyler Mountain and Institute firefighters spent Tuesday morning helping East Bank and Glasgow volunteers shine the small eastern Kanawha County town’s fire trucks to prepare them for the funeral.
Firefighters from around the county have pitched in to help cover Glasgow’s service area to give the firefighters time to mourn and celebrate Adkins’ life.
They took special care of Engine 79, the truck that will bear Adkins’ casket in the procession from the memorial services at Riverside High School to Kanawha Valley Memorial Gardens in Glasgow.
Firefighters draped the truck’s lights in black cloth and hung a black funeral wreath on the front grill. Flags will be hung from the back.
Slate said at least 20 area firefighters were at the station house Monday night. They helped clean around the building and wash the fire trucks.
On Tuesday Slate was working on the unit’s rescue truck with the help of Capt. Slack, one of the men who went into the water with Adkins that Saturday morning in Raleigh County.
Slate, who has worked at Glasgow for 10 years, said his cousin was always ready to help those in need.
“He loved to help people,” Slate said. “He always tried to do whatever he could for everyone.”
Blankenship said Adkins, a DuPont High School graduate who lived in nearby Cedar Grove, had lost his job at the Capitol Resource Weatherization Program in Montgomery the Friday before he died.
Two other Glasgow firefighters who worked for the weatherization program also lost their jobs, he said.
Blankenship said Adkins had two sons, Devin and Ethan, and also was a loving parent to Allyssa, the daughter of his girlfriend, Bobbie Evans.
“He was always around trying to do something for someone,” the chief said. “He would put together Easter egg hunts for the children in his family so that they could have a little fun.”
Parade after service
Blankenship said he wanted to commend the state Fire Marshal’s office and give special thanks to state Fire Marshal Sterling Lewis and Kanawha County Fire Coordinator C.W. Sigman, who was in Beaver every day while crews searched for Adkins.
Sigman led the team that found the body.
“They not only brought home a friend of mine, but a brother of the fire service,” Blankenship said of the search teams.
Blankenship said he also appreciated the unwavering support of Kanawha County commissioners.
The chief said the Beaver Fire Department members not only kept up the search for Adkins, but also were faced with running their normal emergency call load and cleaning their flood-damaged station house.
Visitation will begin at 11 a.m. today in the main gymnasium at Riverside High School followed by a memorial service with full honors beginning at 1 p.m.
A funeral parade including dozens of emergency vehicles and a flyover by a HealthNet helicopter will take Adkins’ body from the high school in Quincy to Glasgow, where he will be buried with honors.
Gov. Joe Manchin, who also plans to attend, has ordered that all state flags be flown at half-staff today.
“Donnie gave his life doing something he loved doing,” Blankenship said. “He died a hero.
“Everybody else who went out there and searched for him during and after the incident, they’re all heroes themselves,” he added. “They did everything they could to bring Donnie home.”
Copyright 2010 Charleston Newspapers