Everyone has a story: Morning begins with a bang

A quiet June morning, 1987. I had time for coffee and papers before the busy public library in Billings, Mountain, opened to the public.

Wamp! A strong jolt hit the building. The immediate thoughts flashed: “An earthquake. A plane breaks the sound barrier. No, like a plane crashes somewhere near the top floor of a building.”

Complete calm. I had my coffee and went out to find out what happened. Barb came from a room near the back and suggested that a creaking freight elevator, built in the 1950s when the colossal building was a hardware warehouse, appeared to be the likely source.

Then we heard feet going down the stairs and screaming sounds outside the emergency exit. I threw the cup down and went down the open stairs from the second floor to the first floor. I shouted, “Call 911!” And I run.

In the side entrance foyer to reach the fourth floor, which includes many parts of the city, employees would disappear into the car park. Only one guy stood there, Brian, bouncing back and yelling, “Help me, I’m burning! I’m burning! I’m burning!”

I wanted to take Brian by his shoulders to calm him down. I was afraid he would come out of the door and disappear. I didn’t understand the “burning” and the “fire”, only I knew that something bad had happened.

“Wait, the ambulance is coming. I’ll be here,” I said.

Then Brian’s supervisor appeared, and seemed annoyed by Brian’s screaming. “Follow me!” He said.

Together, they ran to the library and I said to myself, “Good, Greg knows what he’s doing.”

I ran upstairs to collect the keys and wallet and crossed the street along the front of the building where I saw a parked ambulance. I ran back to open the front entrance to the library because I wasn’t sure EMTs would find Brian without knowing the design. My hand stumbled but Jim, one of the maintenance crew, showed up and opened the door for me. I noticed that his arms were covered in gray ash.

“Oh, he understood it too,” I thought, not understanding what “it is” – just a bad thing. I said, “Jim, go to this ambulance.

Staff had gathered in the car park to see the fire trucks and hoses. Someone heard that the gas stove on the fourth floor had exploded. I didn’t even know there was an oven in there. Will the library be burned? Damaged water?

When the public began arriving, dissatisfied with ignorance to find the front doors closed, we were able to collect some “closed” signs, thanks to the supplies provided by the newspaper’s office across the street.

The whole picture is in parts. The fire director later explained that Brian was clearing the furnace room and ramming the gas valve. Hearing and smelling the pressurized flow, he ran downstairs to fetch Jim.

“Call 911!” Jim shouted. He tried to close the valve while Brian was watching, and what happened was a fireball!

The shock waves collapsed office walls and fixtures, scattering any loose objects. Brian’s metal mop bucket has been flattened. But nothing was burned except for these two men at ground zero.

Brian had run out and into the side hall at the same moment that Greg, his superintendent, was entering the building’s main gas valve with concealed switches and brute force. On his way back inside, Greg took Bryan to a janitor’s tub and poured cold water on him. Brian and Jim were kept in the hospital for several weeks, but they made a full recovery. The library is not touched.

Funny views occur in emergency situations. The first three minutes sounded like 30. Gregg remembered the smell of Brian’s burning hair, but he couldn’t remember his screaming. I didn’t notice any smell, just his screaming and panic. The library business manager wondered why Brian wouldn’t wear the shirt. We later learn that a large chunk of black matter floating on the hallway floor was the remains of Brian’s burnt shirt.

We learned the facts. Perhaps it was a miracle we survived.

Each person with a story welcomes non-fictional contributions, maximum 1,000 words, and related images. Email to: [email protected] or PO Box 180, Vancouver WA, 98666. Call “Everybody Has an Editor” Scott Hewitt, 360-735-4525, with questions.

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