Retired Fireman: [00:00:01] Two guys, a Spanish guy and one of the engine guys, prepared the ladder, brought it to the building the wrong direction, the heels. Just as they dropped it there, they were gonna put it up. They tipped the ladder because if somebody jumped. So they went to do something else. So I’m there, me and one firefighter, there’s a lady on the top floor. I’ll never forget this. She didn’t have a blouse on. She’s sitting on the window sill. Now that was a 28 foot ladder. We needed a 35. We didn’t have time to go back and get it. We went up. I really shouldn’t tell you this, but they extended the ladder upside down. So they they tied it with the lanyard, the only thing that could hold it in place. I’m calling direct in company. I need truck gear. I need an engine there. It’s really involved too much with the operation, but we were there. My fault too. Not paying enough attention. When we got there, it was up. I sent the guy up. I realized the ladder was upside down. He’s on the top. I said put a leg lock in, that girl’s gonna jump and knock you off the ladder. We missed the windowsill by that much because the ladder was a little short. We didn’t have time to go get another ladder. She could’ve slipped off, came down, Jerry could’ve got her, rolled off bounce off the awning on the street. The rest of the people in the building were there all perished. Eventually when we got in at the Top Floor, we started searching I’ll never forget this. Girl came to the Top Floor window, died right on the windowsill.

Retired Fireman: [00:01:48] Hung right over the sill and died. They went up and grabbed everybody, took them out. That was it. I thought one firefighter, he was in shock. Like, didn’t know what the hell and after it was over, he didn’t know what the hell was going on. I’ll be honest with you. It was really devastating. Devastating to the men there, and there was no critical incident debriefing at the time. You had to, like, suck it in. And the best thing you could do is go back to the firehouse and talk about it a little bit. Then the chief sends somebody down to us after we write all our reports up, what we did and why we did it. I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m gonna tell you because it’s a fact. And one of the deputy to come and tell us,  changed our reports. I said, I ain’t changing nothing. We were short on guys. That was the bottom line. The big thing back then was cut back because it would save money. But they cut back to a point where you can’t do your job, and they detail a guy without replacing him that made a devastating difference in the first ten minutes of that fire. So he wanted us to, like I said, I’m leaving my report the way it is. And if he doesn’t like it, tell him to come down here, and I’ll give him a lesson in firefighting. And that was my answer to the deputy, and he never came back to the house again. Did you ever That’s the real story. It’s a little it’s not Sorry. Nice, but that’s how it happened.