Chris Lytle: I thought I was going to die in that room
Chris Lytle is one of a few fighters at his levle who still keeps his day job, although for Lytle,…
Chris Lytle is one of a few fighters at his levle who still keeps his day job, although for Lytle, his day jon is a night job – he’s a firefighter in Indianapolis. Below he relates his scariest moment on the job.
Most of the time when firefighters get injured or killed, it’s your basic residential house fire. I had one of those where it was just a normal fire, but it became very confusing when we went in. Fires aren’t like in the movies where you can see what’s going on everywhere. It’s pitch black, and you just couldn’t see anything.
“I couldn’t find the fire. I could feel it — it was really hot — but it was almost like a maze in the house. There was a lot of junk in there, and I kept tripping over stuff and falling. They’re pushing the hose in there, and the hose gets all coiled up, and eventually they said, ‘We gotta pull out, we can’t get it from here, we gotta try and go through another door.’ So [the other firefighters] start to leave, and I realize real quick that I can’t find where the door is. I’ve gotten spun around.
“The way you’re supposed to find your way out is by following the hose, but the hose was a big coil on the ground so I couldn’t find my way out that way. And it’s getting really hot. It sounded like the walls were creaking; sometimes when that happens the roof falls in. It was very nerve-racking, thinking, ‘I’m gonna die in this room if I can’t find my way out.’ A lot of people die like that and they’re right by door but didn’t know it.
“Luckily I was able to eventually calm down and relax my breathing. I just tried to be as quiet as I can and listen to see where the sounds were coming from, and where I can hear people talking. I followed that noise and made my way back out.