'I am exactly doing my job': Firefighter reunites with woman, dog after saving them from burning apartment

 

DELAFIELD, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Kelly Medina wiped away tears as audio of the 911 call she made two months ago played in a packed room Wednesday night. Lake Country Fire Chief Matthew Fennig held a ceremony awarding the firefighters and dispatchers involved in the response to a Sept. 12 fire at a Nashotah apartment complex.

Medina and her dog, Isla, were trapped in their second-floor unit after her downstairs tenant intentionally set his apartment on fire. Fennig wanted to highlight the calm demeanor displayed by dispatcher Kelly Campbell while Medina waited in a bedroom for firefighters to reach her.

"Do not unlock your door, ma'am," Campbell told a tearful Medina on the call. "The door is providing coverage between you and the fire."

Campbell and Lt. Caleb Lucht were among those honored Wednesday. Lucht was the first responder who entered Medina's bedroom and guided her and Isla down a ladder that crews set up outside her window.

"It's weird, right? Because my hair was standing up, I'm sure like many others' was," Lucht said of hearing the 911 call for the first time. "But also, in my mind, I was already thinking, 'Work faster, work harder. Get there faster.'"

Campbell said it was also her first time listening to the 911 audio, which she described as gratifying.

"Because we don't get that resolution most times. Most of the times, we hang up, and another phone call is coming in that we have to answer," Campbell said. "It makes me feel like my path in life is worth it, and I'm in the right place. I'm good at this job and built for it, and I can help people."

Medina declined to be interviewed on camera but told a CBS 58 reporter she had found a new home for she and Isla.

Medina brought gifts for the firefighters, including Lucht. She gave him a stone molded by Isla's paw print. In an interview with CBS 58 one day after the fire, Lucht recalled Medina insisting he get Isla out to safety first.

Kelly Medina (Second from L) gave Lt. Caleb Lucht (R) molded paw prints of her dog, Isla. Lucht rescued both during a September 12 fire at Medina's apartment complex.

He explained the human was always firefighters' priority, and Medina reluctantly agreed to go down the ladder with Isla following next.

"[She] was cool as a cucumber," Lucht said of Isla during the rescue. "It was awesome."

On Wednesday, Lucht said his initial comments got back to Medina, who he saw at the fire scene when he was out with a fire marshal and she was gathering her belongings.

"Kelly nicknamed their dog 'CC' because of my last statement of how she approached the fire being cool as a cucumber," he said with a laugh.

Lucht said while he appreciated the acclaim at Wednesday's ceremony, it was unnecessary.

"Just that thank you is sometimes even beyond too much because I am exactly doing my job," he said. "And it's because I want to do it, not because I have to."

Delafield police consider the fire an arson. Medina's downstairs tenant, Stephen Anderson, 60, has been charged with 10 counts of recklessly endangering safety. He is due back in court for a hearing in the case next month.