BY MIKE FAHER
Lying on his back inside a burning building, Ethan Kabler couldn’t see and could barely breathe.
And he was not sure he would ever see his family again.
“There was a point where, honestly, I didn’t think I was going to make it,” he recalled Sunday night.
Well before dawn Sunday morning, Kabler, a 17-year veteran of the volunteer-fire service, had raced to join his colleagues from Richland Township Fire Department at
1801 Bedford St.
That’s where Carmen’s Wholesale Tires was burning out of control.
A few hours into a battle that involved 22 local departments, Kabler and three others were on the structure’s roof trying to execute a “trench cut” – a maneuver that, they hoped, would save some of the building.
But Kabler accidentally stepped in a hole and fell more than 10 feet, landing on a pile of tires.
Because he fell on his back, his breathing apparatus malfunctioned. A firefighter on the roof tried to help by tossing down his own air pack.
But Kabler lost the mask, leaving him with little oxygen and few options.
“It was pitch-black, there was smoke everywhere,” he said.
“I was coughing, throwing up.”
He switched on a small light, but that provided only a few inches of visibility. And Kabler, knowing that his would-be rescuers could pinpoint his exact location, did not want to move.
“I would try to scream, but I was trying to preserve my air, because I didn’t know how much I had,” he said.
Kabler added that a voice from above was a lifeline of sorts.
“If it wasn’t for a firefighter being there on the roof and communicating with me, I would have lost hope,” he said.
It just so happens that Kabler coordinates his department’s rapid-intervention team, which trains for the type of situation he was in.
Remembering that training, he tried to stay calm.
“It seemed like an hour and a half,” Kabler said. “It was actually probably 10 to 15 minutes where I had no air.”
Help arrived when firefighters punched through a nearby garage door.
“When I saw them, that was the best moment,” Kabler said.
The firefighter was rushed to Memorial Medical Center.
He had no injuries from his fall but was suffering from carbon-monoxide poisoning.
By midmorning, Kabler was released from the hospital and returned to the fire scene to check in with his colleagues. By early afternoon, the 36-year-old was home with his wife and four children.
Kabler said he owes his life to his department’s rapid-intervention training and to the rescue efforts of his fellow firefighters.
“I told them, if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here right now,” he said.
