Three firefighters were honored in Clinton, Md., Thursday for the life-saving ride they gave a 5-year-old girl on a fire truck.
Christina Luckett had trouble breathing one day in late November.
“You could hear Christina wheezing,” said Aleighta Hughes, the girl’s grandmother. “She has asthma, but it’s never been like that.”
“We got the call for 5-year-old, trouble breathing, asthma attack, and so we got on the engine and we went to the house,” firefighter Eddie Scott said.
“And she was just hollering and screaming and fighting and saying she couldn’t breathe,” Hughes said.
“And I tried to convince her that we weren’t there to hurt her, I just wanted to listen to her lung sounds,” Scott said.
“She just went out,” Hughes said. “I lost it.”
“He said, ‘The medic unit’s five minutes away, so we’re not waiting. Let’s go,’” Scott said.
“And I was going wherever he was going,” Hughes said. “And that’s when I figured out it was the fire department because they were getting on the fire truck.”
“We put her on the floor, and we had one person at her head, standing in the wheel well, so they could control her head, and there was another EMT back there controlling the oxygen,” Scott said.
“I don’t know what to think,” Hughes said. “I was just praying that she was breathing and that she was fine.”
“That engine wasn’t going fast enough,” Scott said.
The Prince George’s County Fire Department gave Scott, William Philpott and Ashley Butler awards Thursday for their heroic actions.
Even more special, Christina gave them each awards of her own.
“It’s our job,” Philpott said. “We don’t do it for awards. We just do it because we like doing it.”
The firefighters said their experience helped them. Had they been rookies, they may not have thought to take Christina to the hospital in the fire engine.
