The only thing louder than the howling winds of an encroaching Category 4 hurricane eyewall was the rescue tone coming from radio dispatch into the Columbia County Fire Rescue station in Columbia City Thursday night.
At 11:42 p.m., winds from Hurricane Helene were increasing close to 90 mph and 10 minutes prior, all county first responders had reached the safety threshold instruction of shelter in place until the weather threat passed.
But there was the alarm code. These resonate louder than anything with fire rescue personnel. These ring the bell deep in a firefighter’s soul. CCFR Chief Jeff Crawford heard it and did not hesitate. He was calm and he was ready to lead or go alone, if necessary.
Crawford was on duty at the station in Columbia City. His wife, Hope Crawford, a Columbia County Sheriff’s Office employee also was there with him and heard the call, reminding her husband of the imminent danger and the county policy to shelter in place. She was urging her husband to stay inside, but he was quietly ignoring her cautionary warnings as he was quickly suiting up in turnout gear.
Across the county at the Columbia County Emergency Operations Center, Assistant Fire Chief Lance Hill was in the 911 operations center and heard the call come in first hand, knew the area where the distress call was coming from off Junction Road outside Fort White along U.S. Highway 27 that a man was pinned in his truck being crushed under a massive oak tree. He knew what was about to happen.
“When I heard the call, I knew the Chief was going,” Hill said. “I know him. No way he wouldn’t respond. That’s the kind of guy he is. I knew he would be there. Not a doubt in my mind.”
Crawford said he did what any firefighter would do and answered the call.
“He needed us. We were going to respond,” Crawford said as he recounted the incident earlier this week. “We never stop answering calls. Never. We’re there.”
What was going wrong in the woods off Junction Road was on the beautiful, wooded property of Ken Stapleton, 66, of Fort White. Stapleton lives on a secluded tract on Cowpoke Lane, in a heavily wooded area near the Ichetucknee Springs and river.
Stapleton said he was riding out the storm in his home and had his four prized dogs protected in an out-building that he thought was safe. He has three German shepherds and a Labrador retriever. Of his shepherds, one is a trained search and rescue animal and the other two are retired police dogs. He said the Lab was a pet. As the wind picked up, it flipped the building upside down and the dogs were panicked and yelping, so he went to rescue them in one of his trucks.
“The wind had really picked up and it was howling pretty good, so I decided to drive my F-350 dually across the property to where the building had flipped and put the dogs in the truck, which was only about 40 feet or so, then I was going to back the truck up, keeping the dogs safe in there with me,” Stapleton said Tuesday. “I had the back seat out of this truck and there was plenty of room. My timing was just bad.”
Before he got to the small building, a massive oak tree fell across the cab of his truck and crushed the cab, knocking him to the floorboard of the truck and causing a large laceration from his forehead across the top of his head all the way to the back base of his head.
“It split my head open like a watermelon,” Stapleton said. “I called 911. They said they could not come get me because of the wind. I told them what happened and if they didn’t come get me, I was going to bleed to death. Blood was everywhere.”
Stapleton’s cell call was dropped three times because of the weather, but 911 operators instructed him to find something in the vehicle, a cloth, anything, to apply pressure to the wound as best he could and hang on until the storm passed. He applied pressure with an old pillow in the truck, but the blood did not stop. Stapleton also called his brother who lives 15 miles away and his brother tried to get there, but falling trees and power lines prevented him from getting to the scene.
Back at the station, Chief Crawford had the basics that a tree fell on the truck, a man was trapped and needed a rescue. Trucks were rolling toward the scene. A normal response time to that location from Columbia City would have been seven minutes, but this arrival took almost one hour. CCFR cut their way past fallen trees, downed power lines and debris in the roadway to get to the rural address, then to Stapleton’s Cowpoke Lane to cut a path through the many downed trees to arrive at the crushed truck.
Arriving at the scene with Chief Crawford were CCFR Firefighters Cody Bertram, Dylan Alvey, Randy Hill and Mike Archer. Then once on the scene, Crawford said all the chatter on the radio brought out Firefighters Collin Redish, Dustin Woodard and Nathan Fry. Those full-time firefighters were joined by Volunteer Firefighter Mark Matthews.
“We had nine guys all show up to work this scene,” Crawford said. “They all did a great job. They all did what was needed. We can’t thank them enough.”
By the time they reached Stapleton in the truck, Crawford said he was disoriented and very weak and shaken. Winds at the scene by this time also were screaming at 100 mph or more with more trees, limbs and debris flying around them while they cut the oak tree off the truck in chunks, then needed the jaws of life of cut the truck apart to free Stapleton.
“These guys came out at the peak of the storm and went above and beyond the call of duty and I have no doubt they saved my life,” Stapleton said. “God knows, I love them for it.”
Stapleton suffered the large head wound, a concussion and one fractured vertebrae. He was transferred to Shands at UF Trauma Center where he spent three days before being released. He spoke from his home on Tuesday and was emotional recounting the story of the rescue.
“If I waited 30 seconds longer. That tree falls and doesn’t hit my truck. Anybody in their right mind would not have come out in that weather,” Stapleton said. “They did it anyway. They are heroes. I hope everyone recognizes them for it.”
Crawford said everything about the rescue was difficult, but everyone on scene was determined. He also said looking back that he realized the wind was howling unmercifully and limbs and debris were flying around everywhere, but he and his team were locked into the rescue zone and at the time didn’t pay much attention to anything more than doing what they were trained to do.
“It took us an hour to cut him out of there,” he said. “We got the tree off the truck, then had to cut the truck apart. He was in and out of consciousness. He had a pretty good head injury. It was so tight in there that we couldn’t get a firetruck back there, so we used a pickup truck to move him up to the road to an ambulance.”
Stapleton said the truck was one of his other pickups at his house. A firefighter drove the truck and he was placed in the passenger’s seat. He was placed in an ambulance, which followed the CCFR brush truck away from the scene on Junction Road.
“We had some of our guys on our brush truck with chainsaws leading the ambulance out of there because while we were at the scene getting him out of the truck, the road was covered over with debris and other falling trees,” Crawford said. “They had to stop a couple of times and cut away fallen trees out of the roadway so they could all get through on the way out.”
The caravan traveled about 12 miles south where they met an Alachua County ambulance and transferred Stapleton over for transport to Shands Trauma.
“I ain’t an important guy, but they showed up for me,” Stapleton said. “They are my heroes.”
Crawford said he and the firefighters finished the call and sought cover at the nearest fire station, which was in Fort White, around 3:30 a.m. Friday.