VIDEO: Firefighters often face many dangers on the job, some are obvious, others are hidden. Two Joplin firefighters faced that hidden danger recently.
When you’re a firefighter, the last call you ever want to hear, or have to make, is ‘mayday.’ But that’s what happened last Friday during an incident at the former Holiday Inn in Joplin. Joplin Fire Chief Jim Furgerson says “I’ve been here for a little over 19 years that’s the first mayday that’s been called while I’ve actually been the incident commander of a scene, and it does, it’s heart stopping.”
Chief Furgerson says his top concern, is his firefighters. Chief Furgerson says “You wonder what is going on, what are they going through, where are they at, what’s the situation.”
Captain John Miles was one of the two firefighters that had to issue a mayday call that day. Miles says it was a typical call at first. “When we got there, there was no fire visible, lots of smoke, but no fire and that’s kinda where the issue was is we had to go in to find the fire.”