I may say “always remember” in this issue’s editor’s note, but sometimes I forget. This time I just blew it.
Back in 2009, when Dave Hoover ’03 was named Firefighter of the Year in Hammond, IN, John Bramfeld knew that his classmate and fraternity brother was too humble to tell us about it. So John wrote to me with the news, asked me not to mention it to Dave, but said I could get more details from Dave’s wife, Michelle, who was in on the surprise.
Thanks to the Web, I didn’t need to bother Michelle. I Googled Dave’s name and “firefighter of the year,” found an announcement about him, and added that information to the news I slipped into the Winter 2010 Class Notes right on deadline.
Mission accomplished.
Except the firefighter of the year Dave Hoover I had found lives in McConnellsburg, PA (a small detail I had failed to note). Except for the fact both had saved a man’s life, all of my information was wrong.
Our Dave Hoover had seen the piece in WM and thought his friends must be playing a joke on him, not paying tribute to him.
It was too blatant a screw-up for a mere correction. So after the next deadlines cleared up and after convincing Dave his award was worthy of the trip, I drove to Hammond and interviewed him on his day off (he was in the middle of a house-remodeling project, but he was generous and forgiving and welcomed me anyway). I took a photo and needed only a couple of details from the firehouse to finish the story.
That was more than a year ago, and I still don’t have the one detail I need to finish the story: the official explanation of the rescue that became the reason Dave was named firefighter of the year.
But time’s up, so here’s how Dave tells it: In the middle of the night, his firehouse got a call for a house fire. Dave was on the first truck.
“Our job is to get inside and search for anyone who might be there, then ventilate the house to get the smoke and pressure out,” he says.
Flames were coming from upstairs and the front door was locked, and even after they worked through the lock, the door would hardly budge.
“We got it open just enough for a small guy like me to fit through. I pulled off my tank so I could fit and get the door open for the rest of the guys.”
Turns out there was a man up against the door, overcome by smoke.
“I dragged him out of the doorway, then two of us got him out of the house and started doing basic CPR, gave him oxygen, trying to get him breathing again.
“I went with him in the ambulance, and he finally started breathing on his own.
“Wasn’t really anything,” Dave says, though the man he saved likely has a different take on that. “Two of us got the award; we both dragged the guy out. This happens all the time in the city. It’s not a story, it’s a job. Talk to guys in any fire department and they’ll tell you it’s just another day on the job.”
In fact, a printed story like this one is more likely to provoke ribbing than praise from his colleagues.
“It’s a lot like a fraternity,” Dave says. “You live with these same guys 24 hours a day, 16 days a month. You clean, you have house jobs, guys cook, you work out, eat together. There’s a big open sleeping room like a cold dorm. It’s a lot like being in a fraternity at Wabash.”
That camaraderie—like Hoover enjoyed with Bramfeld and his other pledge brothers at the Beta House—is one reason Dave likes the job.
“I get along with everyone; never had a problem with anyone,” he says.
“I’ve learned if I ever need something done on my house, there’s someone in the fire station that’s done it or who knows how to do it. Funny how many different trades they know.”
Not long before my visit, 10 of those guys helped Dave waterproof his basement, by hand—10 guys with shovels dug out a trench to the house’s foundation so he could coat the walls. A job a contractor quoted at $25,000 was finished for $1,000 in materials.
“I’m making a decent living and making good friends,” he says.
Those same friends will likely give Dave all kinds of grief if they ever see this story.
As Dave says, “It’s a job, not a story.” He’s just a guy who goes to work like anyone else. Of course, when I go to work and make a mistake, people get mad, and I get embarrassed. If Dave makes a mistake, he, or someone, dies.
And there’s this from a recent letter to the local paper about the Hammond Fire Department and a more recent rescue: “I watched as those men and women marched into that burning building. Who knew how bad the fire was? Who knew if there was a potentially explosive situation?
“They went in. They saved a life. When they left, that fire was out.
“Sure, they’re trained, and this is what they do. But I think it takes a special kind of person to walk into a burning building.”