Firefighter Who Lost Child Rescues Girl, 6, From Blaze

There is nothing like losing a child.

The numbness. The longing. The eerie sense that something is missing and will never be found.

Firefighter Tim Weurfel crawled through a burning building on East 73rd Street in South-Central Los Angeles, searching for a small voice, knowing just what that loss feels like.

And in the smoky darkness of the wood-sided house, he made a vow to himself.

“I wasn’t going to leave without her,” said Weurfel, who saved the life of 6-year-old Tammy Smith.

The Los Angeles city firefighter traced the little girl’s voice and carried her to safety.

Saving lives is the job of firefighters. But for Weurfel, a 10-year department veteran, this rescue was different.

It came at a time when he and his family were grappling with the recent loss of their own baby. In a year filled with personal tragedy, saving the life of another child has been a bright moment, a chance to feel happiness amid pain.

“This is the first real good thing that has happened to us this year,” Weurfel said Thursday, as he stood in a hospital lobby with his wife, Kimber, and 2-year-old son, Gavin, waiting to visit Tammy.

The child, who suffered smoke inhalation and minor burns, was listed in critical but stable condition and is expected to fully recover, said Dr. Marc Eckstein, medical director of the Los Angeles City Fire Department and an emergency room director at County-USC Medical Center.

Authorities believe that Tammy might have started the fire by playing with matches.

In the hospital lobby Thursday, Kimber Weurfel clutched a large white-and-black stuffed fire dog, a gift for Tammy.

“It’s just something to help her,” she said, her voice full of emotion, “to let her know we’re thinking of her and that we want her to have a happy life.”

That possibility almost ended Wednesday evening in the bathroom of Tammy’s home.

Tim Weurfel was on his first day back on duty when his company responded to reports of a fire.

Just two weeks ago, his wife delivered a stillborn baby girl and Weurfel had taken time off to deal with the loss.

By the time firefighters arrived, neighbors with sledgehammers were desperately trying to break a hole in a back wall to free the child.

Weurfel knew somebody was in the house.

“I was able to hear a voice coming from inside,” Weurfel said. “It was a girl. I don’t know if it was a cry for help or just a cry.”

Firefighters breached the wall, tearing open a 4-by-4-foot hole big enough for Weurfel, the “inside man,” to crawl through.

He entered the house through the closet, where authorities believe the fire may have started.

Crawling, he searched the bedroom and then the bathroom, feeling for the voice he had heard earlier in the smoke-filled room.

“It took a lot of guts to do that,” said John Jackson, a neighbor who was part of the group that had tried to free the girl. “That fire was all over him.”

On his first sweep of the house, Weurfel found nothing.

For some reason he decided to return to the bathroom.

“I don’t know why,” he said. “That’s what’s kind of odd. As a family, we’d like to think it was because of the angel we lost. Maybe she helped us save this angel.”

In the bathroom the firefighter scooped up Tammy in his arms and carried the unconscious, barely breathing child outside.

“He brought her out of there and didn’t let her go until he got right to the lawn,” Jackson said. “He was hugging her like it was his own child. He wouldn’t let nobody get her. Nobody. He crawled out of there with her, got to his feet and walked to the front yard with her.”

A few minutes more in the smoke-filled house and Tammy would not have survived, Eckstein said.

At least five people lived in the house, but at the time of the fire only Tammy and her grandmother were home. The woman managed to escape the fire but suffered smoke inhalation, authorities said.

It was not clear if Tammy fled to the bathroom to escape the flames or if she was hiding.

“That normally happens with children, they hide” if they think they have done something wrong, said Fire Department spokesman Steve Ruda.

Had the house been equipped with smoke detectors, the two probably would have been able to escape earlier, he said, handing out brochures on fire safety at a news conference .

In Tammy’s hospital room Thursday, the Weurfels were greeted with warmth, hugs and deep appreciation from her family.

One of the child’s aunts is pregnant and expressed sympathy after hearing of the couple’s loss, Kimber Weurfel said.

Tammy was asleep. “She’s beautiful, curled up and sleeping,” Kimber said after she emerged from the room. “I’m so happy she’s alive and that they’ve got a second chance.”

The couple would like to see Tammy after she is released, they said. Tim Weurfel would like her to visit the fire station and have lunch with the firefighters. The rescue has helped start a healing, Kimber Weurfel said, and she wants to stay in touch with the child over the years if Tammy agrees.

“I feel sort of a bond,” she said. “I’d like to be there, to know her, to see her become a big girl.”