Firefighter recounts when tree fell on him

For a seasonal firefighter, it was a fairly routine day — a hot, lengthy hike up Case Mountain near Three Rivers and putting out a small, brush fire.

All that was left to do in the early evening of July 3 was for CAL FIRE firefighters and the inmate firefighters working with them to "mop up," putting out hot spots and stripping bark from the burnt remains of trees to make sure no fire still was smoldering remained inside.

That's what CAL FIRE firefighter Damien Pereira was doing "When I heard the worst sound you could ever hear. The only way I could explain it is you know when a board snaps? It's like that board being several thousand pounds.

"It made the ground shake. You could literally feel it in the air," said Pereira, who knew instantly from the sound that the trunk of a tree somewhere behind him had snapped, and without looking back he knew he had to run away.

But a pile of burned trees on one side of him and heavy brush on his other side allowed him only one direction to run, and he hardly had taken two steps when the oak tree fell on him.

"The first place it hit me was my head, and then it crushed me like nothing."

Pinned under the tree, Pereira said he couldn't move, and could barely breath, as a portion of his chest was crushed. "It was the most powerless I've felt in my entire life."

"I could barely manage the words, 'Get this [expletive] tree off of me,'" he recounted Thursday from the bed of his hospital room at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno.

Two of his buddies and fellow firefighters, Kevin Potts and Joe Willingham did just that, coming to his aid in just about a half minute and managing to lift the tree high enough to get it off Pereira's chest, likely saving his life.

Pereira's legs were pinned under the tree, and the firefighters used chain saws to cut away a section of the tree to free him.

The tree also fell on two inmate firefighters who had been working nearby, but they weren't injured as seriously as Pereira. They were briefly hospitalized and have since returned to their inmate firefighting unit.

Though he didn't know extent of his injuries, Pereira said he couldn't feel his legs and figured he had spinal damage. From the color of blood he was coughing up, he figured one of lungs was punctured.

But as urgently as he needed to get to a hospital, getting him there proved to be a slow process.

The fire had occurred in such a steep, remote part of Case Mountain, that it had taken a couple of hours to drive fire engines close enough that hose could be laid from the engines to the fire.

Even then, the fire crews had to lay about 2,400 feet of house, with each firefighter having to hike uphill in rocky terrain for about 35 minutes while carrying and wearing about 100 pounds in firefighting gear, heat-resistant uniforms and sections of hose.

With ground transport not an option and no place to land a helicopter nearby, it took a couple of tries to get a helicopter sent to the scene with the right equipment to lift out and transport Pereira, whose injuries had left him fragile.

"The whole time they were spraying water on me because I kept getting burns on my side — because the ground was so hot."

Pereira finally ended up on a backboard in a basket with two paramedics dangling from a cable 50 feet or more under a helicopter, which flew them to the Three Rivers Golf Course where a helicopter ambulance was waiting to transport him to Fresno.

He said he was grateful to get to the hospital and receive pain medication, as "I was in a lot of pain. I was going on three or four hours now — fully conscious."

CAL FIRE launched an investigation into what caused the tree to fall. While those findings haven't yet been released, Pereira said he was told that the 48-foot tall tree didn't snap at its base but rather at a point a dozen feet up the trunk.

He said officials believe that a burning ember drifted into a hole in the tree and started a fire inside.

"It so high, nobody saw the smoke," Pereira said, adding that even though the tree was healthy and green — despite the Valley's current drought — only six inches of its interior burned until the trunk snapped under its own weight and fell.

"It was a big [expletive] tree," the firefighter said, adding that oak is a particularly heavy wood.