Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 17, 1993 TAG: 9312170140
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Kathy Loan
DATELINE: PEMBROKE LENGTH: Medium
His plans didn't include helping save a woman from a burning house, being overcome by smoke and ending up in the hospital.
Freeman, 29, is a patrol officer with the Pearisburg Police Department. He's also a lieutenant with the Giles County Lifesaving Crew.
Early Saturday morning, he answered an emergency call for fire and rescue units to respond to a house fire less than two miles from his home.
Freeman, the first emergency worker to arrive at the house on Castle Rock Road, saw smoke rolling from the home.
He saw Coburn Lucas standing in the yard barely clothed. Lucas' daughter, Judy Gillispie, was with him, and they were yelling for help.
Freeman, a former Pembroke volunteer fireman, ran up to a window where he found Albert Gillispie trying to get his mother-in-law, Lorene Lucas, out of the house.
Judy Gillispie said her husband had thrown a brick throw a picture-window, gone into the home to try to rescue her mother and stayed with her throughout the ordeal.
"He wouldn't leave her," she said.
Gillispie and Freeman pulled and tugged at the elderly woman, then settled for getting her near the window so she could take in fresh air.
Freeman and Audie Stevers, the Gillispies' son-in-law, tried to enter the home but the smoke was too thick.
"I crawled inside the house and the smoke knocked me outside," Freeman said.
He radioed for more help and went back to the window. Freeman said he could tell Lorene Lucas was near respiratory arrest.
"Another two minutes and I knew she wouldn't be with us."
Both Gillispie and Freeman had inhaled a lot of smoke by the time the first fire and rescue squad members arrived with air tanks and other firefighting equipment.
With the help of Rusty Castelle and Doug Davis, the men were able to use a backboard and get Lorene Lucas out of the home.
Freeman jumped into the ambulance and drove 70 to 80 mph to Giles Memorial Hospital. He recalls putting the vehicle in park and getting ready to get out. Twenty-five minutes had passed since he first heard about the fire.
"Next think I knew, I'd fell out of the ambulance and the nurses were grabbing me."
Freeman was placed on oxygen and his chest was X-rayed done to check for damage from smoke inhalation. He left the hospital Sunday afternoon.
Freeman, who has volunteered as a rescue member since 1982, has responded to wrecks and fires before, but this was different.
"This is really the first situation where I thought someone was going to die in front of me.
`Adrenalin took over me, yes it did," Freeman said.
Freeman knew Coburn Lucas from working with him at a local funeral home, and he's glad he was able to help the family. He gives lots of credit to Albert Gillispie and the other rescue workers.
Judy Gillispie is thankful for everyone's help.
"They were all wonderful," she said.
Bill Whitsett, Pearisburg's police chief, finds Freeman's actions commendable. He plans to nominate him for an Award of Valor, an annual award given by the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police.
Freeman, who has been with the Pearisburg Police Department for five years, was named Giles County's Police Officer of the Year by the local branch of the American Legion a few years back.
"Rodney's an exceptional person, he really is," Whitsett said.
Judy Gillispie said her parents - who are in their 70s - are in critical but stable condition at the University of Virginia's burn center. Coburn Lucas has been taken off a respirator and was not burned. Lorene Lucas remains on a respirator and has a burn on her arm and blisters on her back and shoulders.
Albert Gillispie suffered smoke inhalation and cuts on his fingers and head.
Authorities still are investigating the fire, which apparently started in the kitchen, then spread to cause heavy smoke damage in the rest of the house.
"Everything, even the refrigerator, is melted," Judy Gillispie said.
by CNB