A Grandview firefighter used an 8-foot hooked pole to pull a trapped colleague to safety this week.
A pile of plaster from a building’s ceiling had fallen on a fire captain who had been trying to find a second-floor resident. He issued a “mayday” call, firefighter language for “man down.”
The rescue was part of the drama associated with the fast-moving Grandview fire on Monday morning that killed one person, displaced eight and left the trapped firefighter with second-degree burns.
Several second-floor apartment tenants got out before firefighters arrived at 822 Main St.
But firefighters learned that someone was still in a second-floor southeast corner apartment, said Grandview Fire Chief Ron Graham.
A crew climbed a flight of stairs toward the apartment and encountered fire, heat and smoke.
“As soon as they knocked that down, the ceiling above them gave way,” Graham said.
It trapped the fire captain beneath a jumbled mass of plaster and wire mesh.
“He couldn’t free himself,” Graham said.
The driver of a Grandview Fire Department ladder truck was positioning the vehicle near the building’s southeast corner when he heard the mayday call. He eased the tip of the truck’s extended ladder just beneath a second-floor window.