HOUSTON -- Darin Unruh is a survivor. And that s pretty good for a man whodied.
Houston firefighters responded in November 2008 to a frantic 911 callabout a burning home at Linder and Tuscon in northeast Houston.
The caller insisted that someone was trapped inside the house, half of which was already up in flames.
Unruh, a captain at Station 39, was one of the firefighters who donned full protective gear to rush inside to search for victims. But the caller had been mistaken. There were no victims inside. Unruh became a victim instead.
The heavy smoke and super-heated air left Unruh with zero visibility. The firefighter s co-workers still don t know what happened, but when they found Unruh he was lifeless on the floor. He was no longer wearing his mask and breathing apparatus. His neck and face were severely burned. He wasn t breathing and didn t have a pulse.
It s a terrible sense of dread when you think someone is going to die, said friend and Houston Fire Department District Chief Randy Hartman. And he was unrecognizable. I mean totally unrecognizable. It just didn t look like the person that I knew.
Firefighters at the scene estimated Unruh had been inside the burning house for up to five minutes. Paramedics reported they performed CPR for at least six minutes more.
The unconscious firefighter was one of the first in Houston to receive an emergency Cyanokit injection to remove the poisonous toxins he d ingested through smoke inhalation.
Paramedics brought him back.
He was alive when they reached the hospital, where doctors kept him in a medically-induced coma for five weeks. He had third-degree burns to his face, neck, and head and additional burns to his hands.
Hartman and a fellow firefighter took 12-hour shifts staying at his bedside.
I said, Well he should not die alone in this hospital,' because we really did not expect him to survive, said Hartman. Our only goal was that he was not going to die alone or forgotten.
We stayed 24 hours a day, Kept expecting things to go bad. But they never did take that big turn for the worst. It was quite a day when someone finally came in and said, You know what? He s going to make it, Hartman added.
In addition to the third-degree burns that would require skin grafts to rebuild his eyelids and a cornea transplant for a damaged left eye, doctors did not know how muchUnruh's lungs had been damaged or how much brain damage he might have suffered before being revived.
There was a fear of him being brain-damaged, his wife, Jill, said. I was terrified of that.
He didn t look like the same Darin Unruh, but all of Darin Unruh did wake up.
How are you still here? KHOU 11 NewsaskedUnruh, now two and a half years later.
The grace of God, Unruh said. But that is a darn good question. And why am I still here?
Unruh still bears the scars from his injuries. He knows his face may never be the same, but he is a survivor of the fire and a survivor of painful surgeries and rehabilitation. For a burn patient to regain use of damaged skin, it has to be stretched daily. Otherwise it will shrink and deteriorate.
Unruh s rehabilitation included a mouth-stretching device he had to use for several hours every day. He also spent months confined to a ski-mask pressure garment to help his skin heal.
It s difficult being burned. It s hell. It s hell being burned, he said. And I remember not wanting to be here.
But he wouldn t quit.
I remember sitting on my bed thinking, Darin you can t quit. You have to keep on pushing. You have to for your kids. To make the decision to fight. I distinctly remember that moment. I distinctly remember that moment. This is painful, this is hell, but we re gonna fight, he said.
But his survival isn t the only reason we're sharing his story. Unruh returned to work at the Houston Fire Department within a year. But it was a desk job, and it wasn t enough for him.
Instead, he worked his way back into firefighting shape, and as of late last year,he'sbeenfighting fires again as captain at Station 68.
I mean, I m a dead man walking. I have a second chance at life, he said.
And he s taking that second chance right back into the line of fire.
I think it s my reasonable service. You know why am I here? It s by the grace of God that I m here. I wanted to be able to look back on my life and be proud as a firefighter. I think this is who you are. I think this job is who you are, he said.
But when Unruh came back to full-time work, the first call he received gave him a moment s pause. He and his fellow firefighters, again at Station 39, were asked to make a medical aid call at Linder and Tuscon, just a few doors down from where Unruh almost died two years before.
And I said, Lord, what are you trying to tell me, ' he said with a laugh.
But Unruh said he fought through that, too, and believes that with the help of his family, his doctors, his church, and his fellow firefighters, he is back in the passenger seat of an engine truck -- where he s supposed to be.
I said, Darin you were dead, added District Chief Hartman. So you had nothing to do but get better from that point. It s nothing short of a miracle.
So what do you see when you look at the face --and the scars --of Darin Unruh? He and his friends see a miracle. His wife see's something else, too.
This is a true test of perseverance and he s truly had to overcome great obstacles, said Jill Unruh, who admitted she wasn t too wild at first about her husband s motivation to return to a life of fighting fires. I ve learned that he has an inner strength that a lot of people don t have. And he s worthy of my admiration.
I definitely believe that is part of my reasonable service, Darin repeated. Definitely part of my reasonable service.
Sometimes it s a thankless job. But it s an awesome job, he added.
