Positivity: Man gives thanks to firefighters who saved his life
From Cathedral City, California:
They say it happens maybe once in a firefighter’s career that a victim who is as good as dead can be brought back to life.
Because of the work of three Cathedral City firefighters, Bob Etherton overcame seemingly insurmountable odds.
The 54-year-old from Yucca Valley was staying in a Cathedral City home when it caught fire Feb. 27.
Etherton doesn’t remember much about that night. He bumped his head - maybe from his socked feet slipping on the marble tile in the house.
All he recalls of the day he would have died was looking at one of the Cathedral City firefighters who saved his life as an air mask was slipped over his nose and mouth.
So when Etherton saw firefighters Mark Caouette, Kino Suarez and Joe Burque and engineer Josh Hess this week for the first time since that evening three months before, emotion couldn’t be contained.
“I owe those guys my life and the neighbor who called them,” Etherton said. “I got tears in my eyes. A couple of the guys got tears in their eyes. I have no words for it.”
The Cathedral City firefighters were honored at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.
Chief Bill Soqui told a full house at the meeting that of every 10,000 American deaths caused by fires, 80 percent are due to smoke inhalation.
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