Woman thanks firefighters for rescue from January house fire
Published: February 10, 2006
Two rookie Shreveport firefighters got a reminder of why they plunge into burning buildings when Shreveport resident Teri McGuire tearfully hugged their necks Thursday.
Jared Wright and Jake Shaver, helped by Capt. Greg Fulco, pulled McGuire from her burning home a little after 2 p.m. Jan. 27 after finding her sprawled, unconscious, on a bedroom floor.
Wright has been with the Shreveport Fire Department five months and Shaver with the department a year. The fire at McGuire’s Ratcliff Street home was the first time they faced a blaze knowing someone might be trapped inside. The fire started near a fireplace, but firefighters still do not know what caused it.
“You never expect to use the fire department,” McGuire said, voice still husky from the smoke she inhaled. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Shaver found McGuire during a standard search pattern. Wright also was performing a standard search, while Fulco used a thermal imaging camera, one of more than 20 the fire department started distributing fire trucks Jan. 27. The cameras help firefighters see not only people and animals, but fires or hot spots inside walls and other areas they cannot look at directly.
“We got our camera a couple of hours before the fire that day,” Fulco said.
McGuire said the day of the fire started normally enough, but that she doesn’t remember anything past the morning of Jan. 27.
“I had been on the computer, instant messaging with a friend in Indiana,” McGuire said. “I told her at 9 or 10 o’clock that I was going to take a shower. That’s the last anyone heard of me.”
Someone driving along Ratcliff Street smelled smoke that afternoon and first thought a resident was violating the burn ban in effect at the time.
But then the driver realized McGuire’s house was on fire, stopped, broke through the door to the house and ended up calling 911, McGuire said.
“I’m doing incredibly. I’m not going out any. I’m trying to let all my organs and my body heal. I’ve got plenty of time to do that,” McGuire said. “I have two pets, a dog and a cat. They went to the vet, went and got put on a respirator, too, I think. Both of them are fine.”
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