By Bob Kasarda
The Times, Munster, Ind.
PORTER, Ind. — As Porter County police Lt. Kevin Van Kley races up to the collapsed and partially burning house, his body cam captures the frantic scene and cries of, “There’s a baby.”
As he makes his way through the debris, he repeatedly yells out, “We need a pry bar” and then begins searching for a 2-by-4 board to free the child.
“No, no,” he says as he spots part of the child’s debris-buried body. As the child cries, he and others begin lifting away the debris from the collapsed house.
“Here baby, here baby,” he is overhead saying on the dramatic footage released Wednesday by the Porter County Sheriff’s Department.
Van Kley then lifts the injured girl to safety and hands her off as a part of the house burns a short distance away.
As he races to free another person from the collapsed house, he encourages a fellow responder to move a woman complaining of a broken leg farther away from the heat of the fire.
Van Kley and others then struggle to lift a corner of the collapsed roof to allow the woman to escape from underneath.
“All hands on deck,” he yells. “Let’s go.”
“Keep coming, honey,” he says as he and others struggle to hold up the section of roof. “Come on, struggle out of there.”
The woman is eventually slid out to safety.
The dramatic video captures the chaotic scene of a natural gas explosion Sept. 10 in the town of Porter that left seven people injured, including the 3-year-old girl.
The girl, who was airlifted to a Chicago hospital, survived the ordeal, as did her mother and others from scene, Porter County Police Cpl. Benjamin McFalls said Wednesday morning.
Porter County Sheriff David Reynolds awarded Van Kley with the Medal of Honor on Monday — signaling the third time in department history the medal has been bestowed upon an officer, according to a department news release.
The explosion and fire occurred at a single-family home in the 400 block of North First Street at the northeast corner of U.S. 20 and Ind. 49, Porter Fire Chief Jay Craig said at the time.
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