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Houston fire captain responds to rescue criticism
By Rosanna Ruiz - Houston Chronicle
HOUSTON — Unable to make his way out of a burning building and with his oxygen tank empty, Houston fire Capt. Eric Abbt seemed to be out of options. If he was going to die, he would do it by the book.
The 40-year-old wanted to spare his family the added grief that he was somehow to blame for his own death. He lay prone on the fifth floor of the North Loop building near the two victims he had discovered. Firefighters would have a better chance of recovering all of them if they were together.
But moments later, and still conscious, Abbt realized he might be able to survive. He repeatedly beckoned on his radio for help between gasps for air. He told those listening, including his wife, Melinda Menchaca, who is also a Houston firefighter, that he was on the fifth floor near a window.
Firefighters on the ladder truck below began to break out the windows in their search for their fallen captain. When that proved too slow, they used the ladder as a battering ram.
Once the ladder was close, Abbt leaped from the window, his legs hanging precariously off the end of the ladder. He was saved.
Almost six months after the March 28 fire, Abbt suffers from flashbacks and has trouble sleeping. Locked doors and the dark of night sometimes send him into a tailspin. The 15-year Houston Fire Department veteran also can't seem to shake the feeling that he gave the department a black eye.
The recent release of a 24-page HFD report faulted him for failing to maintain "crew integrity" after Abbt separated from the two firefighters with him and got lost in the pitch-black smoke inside the building.
"We try to keep crews together," Abbt explained in an exclusive interview, "except in a life-or-death situation when you do what you have to do." Please read the rest of this important story... click here.
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