Compelled by a sense of duty, firefighters will race into a burning building in attempting to save anyone who might be caught up in a blaze.
Spencer Beach has heard many such stories over the last 10 years, and most of the time the selflessness of duty comes through.
“When there’s that emergency happening right then, the last thing you tend to think about is yourself and your family,” said Beach in his speech to Alberta Fire Chiefs Association delegates in Red Deer on Wednesday morning.
“That should be the first thing you think about before you go running into that situation: making sure you get home.”
Ten years ago last month, Beach felt a sense of duty to go fix a mistake that had been made in laying linoleum in a new Edmonton home.
Having been working at flooring installation since age three with his father and grandfather, Beach was an old hand at the trade, and was often counted on to do complicated tasks like stripping linoleum off floors so new flooring could be laid.
On that morning, he woke and told his wife he did not want to go into work that day, knowing that the task would involve working with the chemical Roberts 1901, which would make him go “funny in the head.” The chemical was part of his employer’s method to save lots of money and time in the normally pain-staking task of linoleum stripping.
He did go to work, and after going through four four-litre containers of the solvent, he was nearly done when an exiting contractor shut the door he had been using for ventilation. Beach noticed the closed door, but was sure he could finish the job without any problem.
A few seconds later, fire “was everywhere from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, and I was in the middle of it.”
The highly-flammable chemical he was using caused the blaze, which would reach 1500C.
Efforts to reopen the one door were futile, so Beach ran to the door leading into the attached garage.
“In the few short moments it took me to run down an eight-foot hallway, I could already feel, smell and hear all my hair burning off my head,” he said.
Efforts to open that door too were in vain as he felt the skin on his face melting to his skull. As he came to the realization that he was about to die, he curled up in a ball and felt a calmness wave over him as the flames danced around.
But while lying there, he focused his thoughts on wife Tina and the baby the couple were expecting. Inspired to give his escape another shot, he yanked at the burning door handle until it finally relented.
Even when out of the fire, though, his survival remained unlikely, with third- and fourth-degree burns covering 90 per cent of his body, the loss of many of his facial features, and no sweat glands. In the hospital, he was quietly asked if he would just prefer to die.
Today, 37 surgeries later — with a 38th in the works — he is an author and an in-demand speaker.
And although he has recovered well from the disaster, effects have spread wide. While he was getting better, his wife fell into a severe depression five years ago, he said.
“There’s not a single person in this world that I love that has not been affected by this. ... I’ve lost pretty much every single friend I had, because they can’t deal with it,” said Beach.
His overarching message on Wednesday was that workers must stand up for themselves when it comes to safety, something he didn’t do 10 years ago. Making safety a priority, said the 39-year-old father of two, does not mean sacrificing fun or the ability to get things done; rather, making it the first consideration allows a person to be able to do things again and again in good health.
mfish@www.reddeeradvocate.com