Building collapses as rescuers try saving man on roof, NC officials say. 1 dead, 7 hurt
Firefighters in North Carolina rushed to help a man having a medical emergency on a rooftop, officials say. Then, while transporting the man down, the building collapsed.
Seven firefighters were injured during their rescue attempt Saturday, Oct. 28 in Burlington, of which six were sent to the hospital, Daniel Shoffner, the city’s fire department public information officer, said in an Oct. 30 news conference. The 54-year-old man they were trying to save was pronounced dead at the scene, deputy director of Guilford County Emergency Services Kyle Paschal said at the news conference.
Several responders in the area, including from Burlington and Whitsett fire departments, were called to help aid a man stranded on a roof of “an outbuilding that was under construction” around 5:15 p.m., according to an Oct. 28 news release from the Burlington Fire Department on Facebook. The man was confirmed to be in cardiac arrest, Paschal said.
Responding units arrived to the scene within three to seven minutes, Shoffner said.
Firefighters reached the roof of the building and performed CPR to see if the man could be revived, Shoffner said. They also attempted to lower him to the ground, according to the news release.
The operation was “not a quick grab and go” for responders, Guilford County Fire Marshall Bobby Carmon said in the news conference. They had to follow specific procedures to both resuscitate the man while also finding a way to get him down, Carmon said.
Then, the building collapsed from underneath them, causing the group to fall down “among the building debris,” the release said.
“It just went with no warning,” Carmon said.
Around the time the building crumbled, paramedic units arrived, Paschal said. EMS personnel not only “promptly continued providing medical care to the original patient,” the release says, but they also began to aid the firefighters injured in the collapse.
Resuscitation efforts continued on the man for about 45 minutes, Paschal said, but he was ultimately declared dead. The department’s current indication is that the man died from cardiac arrest rather than the fall, Paschal said.
The man was helping to build a one-story building near someone’s house, Carmon said. There was no sign that the building, which appeared to be in its last stages of construction, would be prone to collapse, he said.
The injured firefighters were sent to Alamance Regional Medical Center and Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, Shoffner said. One responder from the county’s rescue unit was in recovery at the hospital after undergoing surgery, Carmon said, for a “non-life-threatening but serious” injury. Others have been treated and released.
All of the responding agencies were fully staffed on Saturday, Shoffner said, and the Burlington firefighter who was hurt is expected to return to work Oct. 31. Whitsett Fire Department “definitely will have some impacts on them,” Carmon said, but there would be “no reduction of coverage or service.”
Throughout the week, the respective departments plan to brief their employees with updates on those who were injured, Shoffner said.
“These are traumatic events, not only for the cardiac arrest victim and their family, but the responder community as well,” he said in the news conference.
Burlington is about 20 miles east of Greensboro.
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