Washington fire captains outline rescue
Washington Fire Department Cap. Nick Blumer helps Nathan Engott out of the collapsed buliding at 15 N. Main St. in Washington on Wednesday.
Washington Fire Department Capt. Nick Blumer works at the scene of the building collapse on North Main Street in Washington on Wednesday.
Megan Angelone
When the call came into Washington fire station Wednesday about a building collapse, Capt. Jerry Coleman thought firefighters might be responding for some tiles or parts of a ceiling that had come down.
“I never envisioned this severity of the collapse,” Coleman said Thursday. “As I pulled onto North Main Street, folks were coming in and out of the building as city police officers, sheriff’s deputies and others were helping people get out of the building. All you could see was dust that looked more like smoke.”
While the right side of the building at 15 N. Main St. was intact, Coleman said everything to the left had collapsed.
“The top of the door to apartment one was at my feet,” Coleman said. “Almost the entire floor collapsed.”
Fire Capt. Nick Blumer, who was off duty and called in to help, said yelling could be heard from the back of the building.
“When I got around back, the victim’s boyfriend was coming out,” Blumer said, referring to the woman who would be trapped in the rubble of the building for more than nine hours. She was later identified as Megan Angelone.
“He wanted to stay, but we got him out of there, and he was taken by Ambulance and Chair Service to Washington Hospital,” the fire captain said of Nathan Engott.
Blumer said they knew early on just getting to Angelone was going to be difficult.
“She was sandwiched in a void between a refrigerator and debris,” said Blumer, who oversees medical responses for the department. “It wasn’t like we could just drag her out, because of concern of collapse.”
“I knew this was going to go way beyond our resources,” Coleman said. “I established a command post and called for the Pennsylvania Strike Team One Urban Search and Rescue.”
Coleman said Brian Kokilla happened to be on duty at Peters Township Fire Department. Kokilla is a deputy chief with the Pittsburgh-based unit that covers Southwestern Pennsylvania.
“He was able to get the ball rolling quickly,” Coleman said. “They brought in a lot of sophisticated equipment.”
Alan Hausman, Strike Team One chief, said Kokilla had everything set up so the team could quickly get to work.
“Mobilization usually takes several hours,” Coleman said. “He mustered and was able to get equipment moving, speeding up the process.”
Hausman took over management of the rescue. Coleman, who is a member of the search and rescue team, said he started working with that unit to free the victim.
“The city firefighters who responded first were very well disciplined,” Hausman said. “They knew what to touch and what not to touch until we could get in there.”
Blumer and North Strabane fire Capt. Chris Chiprich cared for Angelone until they were joined by the strike team, which included paramedic Tim Mills and Dr. Jim Dickson. Hausman said Mills has received specialized training in treating crushing injuries. Dickson, a physician at Indiana Hospital, is the state’s medical trainer.
“He is not afraid to get in there belly up with the paramedics,” Hausman said of Dickson. “They are trained to know how much fluids to use to keep the patient viable.”
The challenges continued for rescuers as they tried to free Angelone. Not only were they dealing with an unstable building, but they were battling the extreme heat.
“It was a very labor-intensive rescue,” Coleman said. “It was important firefighters stay hydrated. We had two go to Washington Hospital for treatment of heat-related issues, but they returned to the scene when released.
“Someone was also monitoring the time spent inside the building.”
Coleman said he is grateful for the response from the fire departments around the area who assisted.
“North Franklin and South Strabane townships answered some calls for us,” he said.
Throughout the ordeal, Blumer said the woman became more anxious.
“And rightfully so,” he said.
“The rescue was so complex,” Coleman said. “After starting with Plan A, we changed the plans six or eight times.”
Rescuers were ordered out of the building when it shifted in the early afternoon.
“Eight inches may not sound like much, but you’re talking hundreds of tons of material,” Hausman said. “That’s a lot of force, and we had no idea what was in the building.
“It was an incredible challenge,” he added. “The building was very, very, very unstable.”
Blumer said they had to leave Angelone in place when they were forced to leave. Hausman said they could not risk a collapse of the building with rescuers trapped inside.
Once the building appeared to steady, a camera was put inside. Angelone was still in the same position, but there was a change in strategy to rescue her.
“We decided the best access to her was to go through the wall of the building next door,” Coleman said. “Those walls have three to five courses of brick, so they are thick. We tried using power tools but were concerned the vibration would cause the building to go down.”
Hausman said the team reverted back to the old-fashioned way.
“They used hammers and chisels to remove it a brick at a time,” Hausman said. “We knew we had a viable patient.”
More than nine hours after her ordeal, Angelone was out of the small space confining her and on the way to Washington Hospital, before being transferred to UPMC-Presbyterian hospital in Pittsburgh.
Hausman said he was excited about the outcome.
“In our 14 years as a team, we never encountered anything like this, but it shows our thousands of hours of training paid off,” Hausman said. “I know there will be a few things we’ll be looking at, but overall it went well.”
But, if the team is called out in the near future to another collapse, they will have to rely on one of the other seven urban search and rescue teams in the state.
“We left our shoring in the building,” Hausman said. “It is the only thing holding it up right now.”