VA Police Officer Saves Family In Fire

[RWC130 594]

Friday, December 30, 2005

Officer in the right, smoky place for the 2nd time

Sgt. Kevin Tucker rescued a woman and her baby from an apartment fire. An earlier incident didn't have a happy ending.

By Tim Thornton

381-1669

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For the second time in less than a year, Kevin Tucker ran into a smoke-filled building Thursday morning, trying to save someone's life.

The first time, Tucker and four other police officers got the victims out, but couldn't save them.

This time the Christiansburg police sergeant saved a mother and her baby.

Angie Wilson was watching television

across the hall when she heard Tucker's siren and saw him leap from his cruiser.

"The cop just went flying up the stairs," Wilson said. She watched him pound on the door. "As soon as the door flew open, all the smoke flew out."

Smoke was roiling out of the apartment even before he got the door open, Tucker said.

"I guess you could say instinct or something kicked in and you just go to work," he said about his response to the fire call.

Tucker wasn't supposed to be working when the fire broke out. He recently transferred from the patrol unit to crime prevention duty. But the sergeant taking his place is out on maternity leave, so Tucker was filling in.

Shortly after 4:30 a.m., April Elkashef called 911, saying her apartment was on fire and she was trapped with her 5-month-old. They were on the second floor, too high to jump to safety.

Tucker, more than nine hours into a 12-hour shift, was the first person on the scene.

"He just happened to be the closest to the call," Capt. Dalton Reid said.

The door was locked, so Tucker kicked his way in. The apartment was filled with smoke.

Tucker said he picked an afghan off the floor and put it over his face. He got down on the floor and felt his way through the darkness toward the screams.

Tucker found Elkashef huddled with her baby in a back bedroom near a window.

Tucker put the afghan over their heads, held his breath and led Elkashef down the hall and outside.

"He was doubled over, just coughing and catching his breath," Wilson said.

Leaving the mother and child in the care of officers Gary Fields and Steven Swecker, Tucker went back into the apartment with a fire extinguisher.

A firefighter who lives nearby joined Tucker with an extinguisher, according to Jimmy Williams, assistant chief of the Christiansburg Fire Department. It didn't work.

As soon as the woman and child were clear, Williams said, firefighters banged on doors and evacuated the building. They quickly put out the fire, which was limited to a sofa and a few spots on the living room floor.

"But the whole apartment was smoked up," Williams said. "Thank God they got in there and got them out."

Elkashef and her daughter were treated and released from Montgomery Regional Hospital.

"He's a real good officer," Reid said of the nine-year veteran.

Tucker, 32, came to the department as an intern, while studying at Radford University. When he graduated, he joined the department full time.

In March, Tucker was one of five officers who carried a mother and two children from a fire on Roanoke Road. Tucker and the others received the Life Saving Award from the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police for their efforts, but the people they carried out died.

"I guess that was my biggest fear, was having to go through that again," Tucker said Thursday.

But this time the ending was much happier.

"When I met up with them this evening, they were doing great," Tucker said of the Elkashefs.

Tucker said he gave the Elkashefs a gift card. His wife of two months lost everything in an apartment fire a few years ago, Tucker said, so they know something about what the single mother and her child are going through.