Fire Captain Dustin Moore and Firefighter Paramedic Andrew Freisner (Lenexa Fire Department, Kansas) are being honored for risking their lives to rescue a family from a burning apartment building.
On the afternoon of April 24, 2017, Fire Captain Moore and Firefighter Paramedic Freisner acted decisively and at great personal risk to enter a burning building, locate its occupants and successfully rescue the people inside. The officers had been dispatched to the area where an apartment building was burning, with smoke and fire coming from three sides, on all three stories, and the roof. The fire was growing aggressively due to a 35 mile-per-hour gusting wind.
Assigned to evacuate the building, Fire Captain Moore and Firefighter Paramedic Freisner learned that a family was trapped on the second floor. The two men placed a ground ladder on the side of the building, climbed up to the balcony, removed the glass from a locked sliding door and went inside.
They found the apartment filled with smoke, with the heat rising and near zero visibility. Fire Captain Moore and Firefighter Paramedic Freisner found an unconscious adult and two young children in a bedroom, carried them to the balcony and handed them off to firefighters on the ladder. The disoriented adult reported that there was no one else in the apartment. Fire Captain Moore and Firefighter Paramedic Freisner went back to make sure, and they found and rescued the family dog.
But for the courageous and selfless actions of Fire Captain Moore and Firefighter Paramedic Freisner, the family would have perished in the fire within minutes. They exhibited a tremendous commitment to the community and did enormous credit to the fire service profession.