NORMAL, Ill. (WMBD) — Normal Fire Department Lt. Matt Hill and Firefighter-Paramedic Nathan Riordan are being recognized for heroic acts that brought a lifeless child out of a burning mobile home on Sunday.
The fire department responded early Sunday, Nov. 2, to the call of a mobile home fully engulfed with people still trapped inside, according to Fire Inspector Matt Swaney. Upon arrival, it was confirmed victims were trapped in the rear bedroom, with one of them possibly a baby.
Entry to the home through any door was not possible, Swaney explained. But both men made the split-second decision to enter the mobile home through a rear wall without the protection of a hose line.
When the duo got inside the room, flames were already venting from one of the two small bedroom windows near the roof line and the room was moments from flashover, he said.
Despite the imminent risk, Lieutenant Hill and Firefighter Riordan forced their way through the exterior wall into the burning bedroom.
The two worked “methodically through extreme heat and zero visibility. They located a young victim on the floor showing no signs of life,” Swaney said.
Other firefighters had started working to put out the flames from outside the home when Hill and Riordan carried the 13-year-old child to the hole in the wall and passed him to crews outside.
Swaney said two firefighter-paramedics, Xian Graden and Alan Miron, transitioned immediately to life-saving resuscitation and the child regained a pulse en route to the hospital.
But Hill and Riordan continued searching the home for the possibility of someone else trapped inside. They continued, Swaney said, until the home became too unstable to remain inside.
There was no one remaining in the home when they had to leave.
The inspector said, “Their courage and commitment under extreme conditions serve as a powerful reminder of the risks our firefighters willingly take each day to protect others in their greatest moment of need.”
The 13-year-old boy rescued from the fire was transferred to the burn unit in Springfield, and a GoFundMe established for the family has already raised nearly $20,000.
The Bloomington Fire Department provided three mutual aid companies and the Normal Fire Department employed seven units and 16 firefighters to handle the blaze.
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