4:28 p.m., Oct. 1, 2008----Christopher Abbott, a UD junior, has volunteered hundreds of hours with local volunteer fire companies over the past six years, both as a high-schooler back in his hometown of Flemington, N.J., and as a college student with Aetna Hose Hook & Ladder Co. in Newark, Del.

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Yet, although the sociology major has responded to numerous fire calls and is a trained emergency medical technician, he'd never before been sent on a mission that required him to enter a burning building to save the life of someone trapped inside until late in August when a middle-of-the-night fire call dispatched him to help battle a blaze in a derelict apartment house in Elkton, Md.

“Sometime around 2:30 a.m., Aetna was asked to assist the Singerly Fire Co. in Elkton in a response to a house fire,” Abbott said of the Aug. 28 incident. “When we got there, the fire turned out to be in a very large, vacant house, but within the first couple minutes of the operation, a homeless individual told the chief officer that he had a friend who was still inside.”

Abbott and two other firefighters--Brandon Stombaugh from Aetna and Kevin Ryan from Singerly--entered through the third floor, searched it and found nothing. But on the way down to the second floor, they discovered a man unconscious from smoke inhalation on the landing and transported him outside to an ambulance.

“We knew that he was alive and that he'd suffered from respiratory burns,” Abbott said, “but as far as how much damage he'd suffered, we couldn't say. Once we delivered him to the ambulance crew, it was up to the paramedics to keep his airways from swelling.

“I really haven't talked about this to many people,” added Abbott, whose sociology focus is in emergency and environmental management. “The most important part of all this is that the three of us were able to save a life. You get a great feeling when you're able to do something like this, but it's also something you absolutely must do, and you don't do it to seek out recognition.”

John H. Farrell IV, public information officer for Aetna Hose Hook & Ladder Co., said that the Aug. 28 coordinated rescue effort between the Aetna, Singerly and other fire companies called to the scene is a lasting source of pride and added that the overall commitment from UD student volunteers contributes on a daily basis to Aetna's atmosphere.

“Both the students who volunteer with Aetna and the students who ride for the University of Delaware Emergency Care Unit give a lot of time and a lot of effort toward public safety in the Newark community,” Farrell said. “We'll see students in our fire station sitting in the corner, studying for their courses, and then at a moment's notice, they will shut all that down, put on fire gear and apparatus equipment, and start the process all over again when they come back from the call.

“They spend a lot of hours behind the scenes and are very good at managing their time,” Farrell said, “and this kind of contribution to the Newark community is not something that a lot of residents see.”

Farrell, who has a 40-year career fighting fires--34 of them with Aetna--also noted that UD's student volunteer firefighters also play a vital role in contributing to the force's overall morale.

“One of the things we benefit from in students is their enthusiasm and energy,” Farrell said. “They are go-getters, they're intelligent, they never suffer from a laissez-faire attitude, and they've been at least partially trained by their home fire departments, which is helpful, because Aetna has some of the most intense training of any volunteer fire company.

"Students are pulled in so many different directions nowadays that the amount of time they give to the company is time they really work hard to give,” Farrell said.

Article by Becca Hutchinson
Photos by Ambre Alexander