My Visit with Firefighter Don Keller

On Friday, April 1, 2005, I met Don Keller. He had been to our memorial service there in Roanoke, but I didn’t remember meeting him then. For me, this was our first meeting.

He picked me up at the home of the neighbors who live across the street from our property there; the couple who opened their home that night of the fire and served coffee and snacks and hot chocolate to the firefighters, and provided a place to warm up from the sub-zero wind chill. Don remembered being in their home and now coming to pick me up there must have been a strange experience for him.

We went for a bite to eat, but neither of us could eat much. We had lots to talk about: Our fire, his fire, and how we’re coping now.

We talked for hours, and I'm not sure he can ever fully understand the depth of the gift he has given me. Don took time with me. He answered questions I had and respectfully avoided graphic details I did not want to know. He took me on the very route he drove from the fire station to our place, describing how things unfolded from the time he got the first call, and pointed out at what point he saw the glow in the sky – it was about four and a half miles away.

From the initial 911 call, the dispatcher radioed that the residents were believed to be still in the home. Don explained that when he heard that, he rushed. He went a long distance from his home to check in at the fire station and on to our place in only 16 minutes. His goal was to rescue.

Being a Level 1 firefighter and EMT, Don was handed a fire hose and told to go in. So in he went, hoping to find a place where there were no flames; hoping to find people to rescue. But instead, as he crawled in through a window and his feet touched the floor, it gave way, sending him down toward the basement, the inferno surrounding him. Fellow firefighters had to pull him back out while he clung to the fire hose.

As Don took me the same route in his truck, we talked a lot. But for a moment, he was appropriately and respectfully silent: as he pulled down his visor to show me the picture of my family he keeps in his truck. With a glance my direction, a meaningful look in his eyes as they moved to the picture, there was a connection there that needed no words; words would have only crowded the moment. If a fireman can be graceful, it was the way he gently lowered his visor, paused long enough for us both to look, and just as gently lifted it back up. There was respect for my family in the way he did it, and I got the sense he handled my family with this kind of honor and respect the night of the fire.

I had originally believed ours was a four-alarm fire. It wasn't. Don explained that eight fire stations were called. Seven responded and one was on stand-by. At any given time throughout the night and the following day, there were 45-50 firefighters on the scene.

I will be forever grateful to Don Keller and to each and every firefighter who responded, who came to our home in the hope they could rescue my family. I am well aware it was a traumatic event for each person there, as Don told me most of them, if not all, were not able to sleep through the night for four to six months, and each received counseling to deal with the trauma. The men and women who put their own lives on the line every day are some kind of special people. Most of us have jobs, some of us have careers, but it has been my experience that for firefighters, what they do is their life.