LAGRANGE, Ga. -- For the first time, all four LaGrange firefighters who were nearly killed fighting a fire on Labor Day are speaking about what happened.
Their recovery has been slow, but steady.
“I’m doing very well," said Firefighter Jordan Avera on Friday, and his fellow firefighters sitting with him said the same about the progress of their own recoveries.
On September 3, Avera, Lt. Josh Williams, Firefighter Pete Trujillo, Lt. Jonathan Williamson, along with other firefighters were called to a home on Revis Street just before 3 a.m.
The firefighters said that soon after they put out the fire in the back of the house, thinking they had everything under control, they suddenly felt a blast of heat, and fire burst through from the attic, and “flashed" through the main floor, nearly engulfing them all in an instant.
Those seconds, they thought, might be their last.
"Things that go through your head when you think you might die is--you can’t explain it," said Trujillo. "Family, friends, so I don’t want to have to think about it again, to be honest.”
That terrifying moment is still fresh in their memories.
“The room flashed. Knocked us down to our hands," said Williamson. "“And everything kind of went pitch black, really quickly.”
They could not find a way out.
"There was a wall of fire basically in the front door," he said.
Suddenly, somehow, they were able to find windows, and jumped through them, saving each other after saving the family inside of the home, but they were all severely burned. They have all gone through surgeries and skin grafts and now wear bandages on their hands, arms, legs, shoulders and torsos. They have physicial therapy and occupational therapy several days a week.
Lt. Williams spent the longest recovering in hospitals -- 40 days. He was released on October 9. .
Community fundraisers have been helping support them and their families during their recovery.
"The love and support that has poured out from everybody, it’s just been unreal and it’s been a blessing," Trujillo said.
“It was scary and we’re lucky to be alive, but in the moment, we were just doing what we were trained to do," Williamson said.
Even after this experience, they have a goal--to get back on the engine, back to full duty, responding to emergencies again.
