‘It looked like a war zone’
‘It looked like a war zone’; Emergency personnel describe scene of blasts during response
By Deb Fitzgerald, Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers / Original article appeared in Green Bay Press Gazette
ELLISON BAY — Julie Williams has been a paramedic for 10 years. Bob Landeck, a paramedic for 27. But neither their experience nor the 2:30 a.m. dispatch call Monday describing multiple explosions and injuries prepared them for the gravity of the event they were about to deal with.
Williams, 34, and Landeck, 57, were the first emergency personnel to arrive on the scene from the North Ambulance Center at the Sister Bay fire station early Monday, when three explosions in Ellison Bay claimed two lives and caused seven injuries.
“It wasn’t even a thought in my mind that it was going to be serious,” Williams said. “I know that sounds terrible, but you just never expect that.”
The paramedics listened to radio dispatches while traveling about eight miles to Ellison Bay. They learned the Pioneer Store had been leveled; they learned that people were injured.
“That will get your adrenaline up a little bit,” Landeck said.
“Then we came to the top of the (Ellison Bay) hill and saw the flames shooting above the trees, and both of us simultaneously said, ‘Holy crap,’” Williams said.
The moment was so intense, Williams couldn’t think of a radio code that adequately described what they were witnessing.
“10-33 is emergency, but that didn’t do it,” Williams said. “So I said, ‘It’s really, really bad,’ because that’s all I could think of at the time.
“It looked like a war zone. There was glass and debris everywhere. All you saw was flames and smoke and people yelling; the only smell I remember is burnt flesh and hair. It was just insane.”
Williams and Landeck headed for where they’d been told the most seriously injured were waiting.
“We were driving over lawns and around fire trucks, and over debris,” Landeck said. “With good fortune, we stopped where the most injured were.”
They were the family members of Patrick and Margaret Higdon of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., who died in the explosion: twin sons, James and Patrick, 14, daughter, Megan, 12 and Margaret Higdon’s parents, James and Margery Brooks.
“Their hair was singed, their eyelashes were singed, but it wasn’t what I expected to see,” William said. “I think it was because they were blown out of the building.”
James Brooks said he remembered “flying through the air and hitting something with his chest,” Williams said. “Then he remembered looking down and seeing his wife, who had been blown out of the building onto the grass.”
James Brooks informed Williams that the children’s parents were killed in the explosion.
“Not that I needed it, but the magnitude of the situation was brought into light by that,” Williams said. “It’s still so surreal.”
“I don’t really remember the scene after that,” Williams said. “I really honed in on the patients and stayed with them. It’s weird. You kind of just ‘do.’”
The paramedics took the family to Door County Memorial Hospital in Sturgeon Bay. Megan was taken separately because Williams didn’t know she was a member of the Higdon family.
Williams traveled to Green Bay on Tuesday to visit the family at St. Vincent Hospital. At the time, only the grandmother remained in ICU. Williams said her gesture wasn’t “a totally selfless act.” She needed to hug them, and talk with them, and know they were OK as part of her own healing process.
Margery Brooks was listed in fair condition Friday at St. Vincent; Megan and Patrick Higdon also were still hospitalized.
While there, Williams learned the grandparents were going to raise their orphaned grandchildren.
“I thought people would want to know what was going to happen with them,” she said.
Adrenaline, training and experience kept Williams going, and her emotions in check, as she performed her job Monday. But once she reached the hospital, and her patients were in the care of doctors and nurses, her body reminded her of what she’d just been through.
“Someone asked me how I was doing, and I just broke down and started crying,” Williams said. “All I could say was, ‘Their parents were killed.’”
— Deb Fitzgerald writes for the Door County Advocate.