By Cathy Dyson
The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, Va.
STAFFORD COUNTY, Va. — Jim Soderberg was in intensive care, recovering from the moment his heart stopped beating.
After several days in an induced coma, he was awake and talking. His wife, Peggy, asked if some of the men outside his room, who’d been there almost nonstop since Jim was admitted, could visit.
“Are they relatives?” the nurse asked.
“They’re his brothers,” Peggy answered.
The men in the hallway looked nothing like the patient in the hospital bed. They weren’t from the same ethnic group and didn’t share a last name or any DNA.
Yet the men have become as much a part of the Stafford County’s family as the couple’s four daughters.
“These guys are just phenomenal,” Peggy said. “There are no words to express everything they did.”
Jim Soderberg, 52, has been hanging around firehouses since he was 18. He’s been a professional firefighter with the District of Columbia Fire Department for 21 years. He’s currently with Truck 4, Engine 6.
Jim typically works one 24-hour shift, then gets three days off. For the past 11 years, he’s spent his days off at Stafford Volunteer Fire Department Company 2.
“Oh, yeah, firefighting is fun,” said Jim, grinning. “Where else can you run into a place when all the rats are running out of it?”
Jim could have gone to college on a football scholarship, but wanted to be a firefighter. Almost 20 years ago, a lieutenant decided he looked like Bronko Nagurski, a Chicago Bears fullback who symbolized bone-crushing power in the 1930s, and nicknamed him “Bronco.”
That’s how he’s known at both firehouses; except this Bronco is seen as a kind-hearted soul who’d go out of his way to help anyone. He’s also the firefighter’s equivalent of Chef Emeril Lagasse in the kitchen, said fellow firefighters.
Jim was at his home near Hartwood on Jan. 11, waiting to watch a Pittsburgh Steelers playoff game. He and Peggy are from Pennsylvania, and he has brothers, biological ones, in emergency services there.
Jim said he felt dizzy, then passed out and fell to the floor.
Peggy, who had a broken ankle in a cast, called 911 and started CPR. When the call went out, someone at Company 2 recognized it as the Soderberg home.
By the time the ambulance arrived and Peggy stepped outside to call relatives in Pennsylvania, she saw Company 2 Chief Shawn Dunstan walking up the driveway.
“From that point on, we were never left alone,” Peggy said. “There was absolutely nothing we had to worry about.”
Stayed with daughters
Dunstan drove her to Mary Washington Hospital and arranged for firefighters to stay with the three Soderberg daughters at home: Jessica, 17; Melissa, 16; and Nicki, 14.
He posted regular updates on the department’s Web site and coordinated a volunteer effort that involved dozens.
When Peggy arrived at the hospital, the hallway already was filled with firefighters from Stafford and Washington.
Someone from Stafford stayed with family members whenever they were at the hospital. Members of the ladies auxiliary were with the girls until their mother came home.
The Stafford group provided hotel rooms for out-of-town relatives, and every meal for the girls at home and the family at the hospital.
Volunteers took the girls to dentist’s appointments and to and from school. They helped them with homework, took them shopping and kept their kitchen stocked.
They even offered to drive the relatives back to Pennsylvania.
Jim’s younger brother, John, a paramedic in Pittsburgh, couldn’t believe the outpouring.
“Just when I thought I couldn’t be surprised anymore, they surprised me again,” he said. “I know that’s the way it is in the brotherhood of the fire service, but I never imagined this.”
The effort didn’t stop with Stafford.
At Jim’s firehouse in Northwest Washington, professionals volunteered to work for Jim so he wouldn’t have to use any sick or vacation time.
They did that for six weeks, until Jim returned to light duty at the end of March. His heart wasn’t damaged permanently from the cardiac arrest, but it was weakened temporarily, Peggy said. Jim will have a test in July to see if he can resume full duty.
Regular checks
Washington firefighters also made the trip south regularly to check on the Soderbergs. Truck 4 stayed out of service for several days so crew members could be close by, said firefighter Cliff Hall.
“Bronco’s probably the spirit of the shift,” he said. “Everybody looks up to him.”
Hall and dozens of other firefighters from Stafford and Washington gathered at the Soderberg home recently for a picnic. The family wanted to thank those who had done so much for them.
Stafford volunteers, such as Lisa Taylor, said the effort to help Jim was more extensive than most, but was typical of the department.
“Anyone from Company 2 is a family member,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if we’re blood or not.”
John Slavik, a Washington firefighter who’s worked with Jim since 2000, was impressed by the effort. “Guys and gals” at the firehouse have always stepped in to help each other, with things like building a deck or moving, he said.
“But I’ve never seen a volunteer fire department, or any department, do as much as they did,” he said.
Jim cooked some of his famous ribs and made side dishes of pasta salad and baked beans. He and Peggy passed out shirts they had made, with “Soderberg Family Angel” on them.
Family members, both biological and by bond, talked a lot about “the brotherhood” and what it meant.
“It does my heart good,” said Jim’s brother, John, “to know the career he has loved all his life is loving him back.”
Copyright 2009 The Free Lance-Star