Firefighter Survives Inferno but Faces Another Kind of Heat

“What do you remember?” the reporter asked.

“It almost seemed like it was in slow motion,” the hero said. “I went head first. . . . It was a sea of red and orange. It felt like an eternity while I was in there.”

“How do you feel?”

“It’s quite painful right now.”

The price of heroism--at least in a media town like Los Angeles--is often more than the physical pain and risk that accompany acts of bravery or coolness under fire.

Take firefighter Leo Lopez. He was the media’s hero of the moment earlier this week because he saved himself--on video.

Early Sunday morning he stood atop a blazing apartment building in Hollywood, preparing to cut holes in the roof. He had his fireproof gloves off so he could adjust his safety mask. But just as he began replacing the gloves the roof collapsed where he was standing.

And Lopez disappeared in a ball of flames.

His plummet into the inferno was captured by a free-lance video cameraman. It was dramatic stuff, looking as though hell had opened up and grabbed him, the drama heightened by the frantic movements of other firefighters who watched as he disappeared.

But a few moments after Lopez was gone, he reappeared at a window of a burning apartment below. Falling into an attic engulfed in flames, he punched and kicked his way through the fire-weakened floor and dropped into the apartment below. From the kitchen window of that apartment, he grabbed a ladder with badly burned hands and climbed to safety.

Since then, the 31-year-old firefighter has been in the burn center at Sherman Oaks Community Hospital. He has second- and third-degree burns on all ten fingers and the backs of his hands.

His fire suit protected the rest of his body, but afterward, there was not much that could protect him from the media. The video documentation of his fall insured that the reporters would come calling.

So there they were in the hallway, seven TV cameramen, assorted reporters and a couple of still photographers. Earlier, in a hospital courtyard, there had been a press conference with Fire Capt. Steve Ruda and Dr. Richard Grossman, medical director of the burn center.

“This is the type of sacrifice firefighters and paramedics are called on to make often,” Ruda said of Lopez’s exploits.

“This is one tough Marine,” added Grossman.

Nice quotes but not what the gathered assemblage was there for. The media wanted the words of the Marine himself. Lopez was the man of the hour--or maybe the minute, since that’s about how long his story would play on TV that night.

Although the firefighter had come out of surgery just hours earlier, he agreed to be interviewed. His hospital room is small and Lopez is under medication, Ruda said. How about one cameraman, one interview and then everybody copy the tape?

This is called pooling. And journalists avoid it like assignments to cover the county fair. It’s just the way it is. It doesn’t matter that everybody is essentially going to get the same story, the same sound bite, anyway. Everybody wants their own interview. And if the friendly firefighter is willing to do it, well . . . no pooling.

So they lined up in the hallway outside the burn unit and two or three at a time the camera crews and reporters were walked down to Lopez’s room. Right away there was a delay. Lopez asked for a few minutes because he felt nauseated by the post-surgery medication he was given. When he was ready, his mother dabbed the sweat from his face and in came the media.

Lopez--his hands swaddled in gauze to the size of oven mitts--patiently and stoically answered all questions. The hot TV lights reflected off the sweat sheen on his forehead. He appeared to be in pain and acknowledged he was. At times a somewhat bewildered look clouded his eyes.

“It consumed me immediately,” he recalled of the blazing attic. When asked if he wanted to continue his 10-year career as a firefighter, he didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely. Without a doubt.”

While he spoke softly, the reporters and cameramen still waiting down the hall were growing impatient for their turn. One reporter arrived late after stopping by a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Van Nuys that had been evacuated because of a mysterious “swamp rot” odor. She was miffed because she couldn’t see Lopez immediately. Maybe it takes an ego like that to make it in a town with seven local TV channels.

Finally, she handed her microphone to her cameraman and announced, “You’ll have to do it. I have too many stories to do.”

She left, on to the next one.

But not Lopez. He told his story three times. He answered the same questions three times. It was unclear if he knew what was in store when he said he’d talk. It was unclear if he’d want to do it again.

There was something cut-and-dried, lacking of compassion, about the whole episode. For the reporters it was just one more stop in a busy day. And it was an absurd reminder of the immediacy of the media; a man gets the skin literally burned off his hands on a Sunday, talks about it on TV on Tuesday. The media is like a hit-and-run driver sometimes. It slams through and doesn’t look back.

Though Lopez said he has no doubts about his desire to return to the fire lines, Grossman said his future is not yet known. A full recovery is anticipated, the doctor said, but whether Lopez can return to duty is a wait-and-see proposition. More surgery is scheduled Friday.

For his injuries in the fire Sunday, Lopez could be in line for a departmental commendation. For his courage in facing the media, he got to see himself on seven different channels. That is, if someone could work the remote for him. And if he cared.