It’s rare for a firefighter in the Zanesville area to pull someone out of a burning building. It’s even more rare for that person to live through it.

In October, firefighters from different departments were a part of rescuing two women from two separate house fires.

“You train all the time for pulling someone out of a house, making a rescue, doing a save, whatever, but some people go 40 or 50 years in their career and it never happens,” Captain J.T. Roberts of the South Zanesville Fire Department said.

He was a part of a secondary search for the elderly woman trapped inside of her Grove Avenue home during a house fire on Oct. 14.

“You train on searching a room, pulling a victim out all the time,” Roberts said. “I mean, that’s your bread and butter of being a fireman.”

For Roberts, this was the first time in his nine-year career as a firefighter that he rescued someone from a fire. An experience that he made clear, doesn’t happen often, especially in a town as small as Zanesville

“This is the first time I’ve ever … actually pulled someone out that was able to be revived to at least be alive so the family could say goodbye or have a fighting possibility of living,” Roberts said. “I’ve been on other fatal fires.”

Unfortunately, the woman died a few days later in a hospital in Columbus. But, for Roberts, he was thankful and surprised that the woman even made it to the hospital.

Although he explained that it’s rare for firefighters to have that experience, Roberts said he was well prepared for the situation, as was his partner in the search who had only been to a couple of fires prior to the occurrence.

“Everything clicked. All the training comes to the front of your head and you scoop and go,” Roberts said.

Like many other first responders, Roberts doesn’t believe his actions were anything more than his assigned duties.

“It is a heroic job, but I’m on board with everyone else. We’re not here for self fame, we’re not here for look at me,” Roberts said. “It’s a cool job, we’re just a bunch of big kids that play on trucks and have fun and enjoy doing what we do and get to help people along the way. It’s just a hobby really, especially for volunteers.”

A Sunday morning rescue

Just one week prior to the Grove Avenue fire was a Sunday morning fire at the corner of Bell and Taylor Streets.

The home was on fire and a woman was trapped inside her bathroom.

“We showed up and the police had the woman at the window, and I think they were kind of holding her up, you know so she wouldn’t fall,” Kelly Brocklehurst of the Zanesville Fire Department said. “They just couldn’t get her out the window, you can’t just do that the window was too high.”

Two Zanesville Police Officers were the first to arrive on the scene of the fire. They located the woman inside but were unable to get her out of her home.

Upon the fire department’s arrival, Brocklehurst immediately went to the aid of the police officers at the side of the home.

“I just had one of the cops boost me in the window, went in over top of her, over her head there and just got behind her and it took a little bit, a couple of tries but I boost her out of the window and the cops took her from there,” Brocklehurst said.

Throughout his 23 years as a firefighter, Brocklehurst had never rescued a person trapped inside a fire.

“It doesn’t happen often,” he said. “(I was) just fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.”

Much like Roberts, Brocklehurst doesn’t feel that he did anything heroic in the situation, nor were his actions anything more than his assigned duty.

“It’s nothing above and beyond, it’s what we’re paid to do,” Brocklehurst said.

While he was the one who actually got the woman up and out of the home, Brocklehurst said he gives a lot of credit to the officers. They were able to locate the woman and stayed with her until firefighters arrived.

Brocklehurst, like other first responders, doesn’t want to portray the persona of a hero. He feels that his training prepared him for the situation, but he did nothing more than his job.

He hasn’t spoken to the woman since the fire, but he hopes that everything worked out for the best.

Woman rescued during Sunday morning house fire in Zanesville

House fire on Grove Ave. sends elderly woman to hospital