By Rick Hurd
East Bay Times
PITTSBURG, Calif. — A police officer who helped rescue a blind man from a burning house underwent surgery Thursday morning to repair serious injuries to his forearm, a spokesman for the department said.
The officer punched open a window with his bare hand after residents in the first block of West 11th Street told police that a man was inside a house consumed by smoke and flames Wednesday night.
The Pittsburg police officer was still recovering at the hospital Thursday night, Pittsburg police spokesman Capt. Ron Raman said.
The 65-year-old blind man was hospitalized for smoke inhalation and was in critical but stable condition, he said.
Police have not identified either man.
“This is definitely a reunion, down the road, that we’ll love to have,” Raman said. “It wasn’t just this officer, either. There were several involved.”
Police were the first ones to the fire, which began around 7:25 p.m. According to Raman, the officer who punched the glass did so to get inside. But the injury prevented him, and he began to kick in a nearby front door with other officers.
It took several kicks to the door to get it open, Raman said.
“The door opens and there’s about two feet of crawl space underneath dark, really thick smoke,” Raman said.
Another officer crawled through the front door and underneath the smoke until he felt the resident inside. Then that officer and three others -- including the injured one -- carried the man out of the house. He was unconscious and unresponsive initially, and officers struggled to find a pulse, Raman said. They began CPR, and eventually, the man’s pulse returned.
Fire crews gave the man oxygen, and an ambulance took him to the hospital.
“It wasn’t until the officers gave him a few breaths during the CPR that he finally came back,” Raman said. “It did not look good at all when they pulled him from the house.”
Fire officials have not said what caused the fire, but it appeared to have started accidentally in the rear of the home, said Robert Marshall, a fire marshal and spokesman for the Contra Costa Fire Protection District. The fire caused about $202,000 damage to the house, and it was unclear whether it could be salvaged.
The blind man’s caretaker was not home at the time of the fire, but was in the neighborhood, Marshall said.