Rookie Makes First Rescue

Four was a lucky number for rookie Firefighter Jason Shuttleworth — and for a little boy named Michael who lives a block from the East Grand Avenue fire station.

Shuttleworth was 4 years old when he started hanging around the firehouse in Greenwich, where his dad was a firefighter. He spent much of his childhood in the firehouse, taking on whatever tasks he was allowed, dreaming of becoming a firefighter one day like his dad and his grandfather.

Four months ago Shuttleworth completed New Haven’s training academy and started work as a city firefighter, assigned to the East Grand firehouse.

On Saturday he helped rescue 4‑year-old Michael Purvis III, who was trapped inside ductwork in the basement of his home.

At first the story sounded even scarier than it eventually turned out.

Michael was playing in his first-floor bedroom shortly before 4 p.m. when his mom, Waleska Marrero, was tucking in his 3‑year-old sister Michelle for a nap.

After tucking in Michelle, Waleska began to fold laundry. Her fiance, Michael Purvis Jr., the father of her kids, was at work at the car wash he manages.

Waleska called out to young Michael. When he didn’t answer, she rushed into his room — and discovered a grate removed from the floor. A grate that led to the basement.

A grate that led, she figured, to the furnace.

She heard Michael eight feet below, screaming and crying.

Waleska ran into the street, yelling, ​“Help! Help! My baby is burning!”

The next-door neighbor sent her own two young girls down a block to the firehouse, then called 911.

The four men on duty there were preparing for a shift change. Shuttleworth was by Engine 17 checking his medical bag following a call to a nursing home.

He and the rest of the crew swung into action. They knew their roles, so they didn’t need to discuss it. Shuttleworth was the ​“pipe guy,” who would run into a potential fire to make a rescue. He had on his air pack, helmet, coat and boots. Lt. William Busca, who is in charge of Division 3 at the station, would direct the scene. Firefighter Daniel DeBerry hopped into the driver’s seat. Vincent Hall would work the hydrant if needed.

“It sounded so surreal,” Busca recalled. ​“We just took off.”

They arrived within a minute to find Waleska on the ground outside the house.

“My child’s on fire!” she yelled. ​“You’ve got to get my baby! He’s in the furnace burning alive!”

By then a 911 operator had taken the call and put out a description of what was believed to be the situation: A child was trapped in a chimney that was on fire. Moments later a revised call went out: A child was trapped in a basement on fire.

That proved closer to the truth.

Cops were on the scene, too. Busca spoke with Waleska while simultaneously doing a ​“360 size-up,” visually evaluating the scene. He saw no sign of smoke from the chimney or inside the house. The initial reports form the girls and 911 didn’t gibe with the scene.

Inside, Busca saw the open grate. He peered in. ​“He [Michael] was in there. He was crying. I could hear him screaming.”

He dispatched Shuttleworth to the basement along with Officer Martin Feliciano. He also called in to dispatch to correct the narrative, to note that there was no fire.

Shuttleworth passed through a finished basement room, found the furnace. Michael was stuck inside ductwork beside the furnace.

Luckily, the grate led not to the furnace itself, but to a passageway through which return air was cycled back downstairs into the system. Michael had slid down the passage to a point where it curved at a 90-degree angle, and was stuck in the plenum. (Rescue workers shut off the furnace.)

Still, as Shuttleworth knew, ​“there’s not a lot of oxygen in there.” They needed to get the boy out.

“We’ll get you out,” Offucer Feliciani told Michael, as the rescuers unscrewed a portion of the sheet metal, according to Shuttleworth.

Through a two-foot hole, Shuttleworth ​“scooped him out” and grabbed him in his arms. Michael yelled for his mom. Shuttleworth brought him upstairs to safety.

At the time, he wasn’t thinking about how this was his first rescue since starting work in November. Firefighters rarely do during a rescue, said Busca, who has participated in ​“dozens” of rescues in his 17 years with the department. ​“Training kicks in,” he said. The gravity of the situation, the perilousness of it, kicks in only afterward.

Back upstairs, Busca reported to Waleska. ​“We have him. He’s alive,” he said.

And Shuttleworth thought to himself, ​“Wow. This just happened.” His first rescue. A reason he followed his father and grandfather into the business — to ​“help other people.”

At first, Waleska hesitated to enter the house to see Michael, who was being helped by medics. Convinced Michael wasn’t truly alive, she didn’t want to see her ​“baby” burned, Busca recalled. Busca reassured her that Michael was OK. He shepherded her inside, where she grabbed Michael, relieved he had survived.

Busca had another mission now, to convince Waleska to let go so paramedics could take Michael to the hospital for observation.

Mission accomplished. It turned out Michael had emerged from the adventure with only minor cuts and scrapes.

It could have been much, much worse.

And for that Waleska will never forget the firefighters down the street.

“They’re great, amazing,” she said as Michael returned home from his day at preschool Monday afternoon. ​“They got him in and out in one piece, safe. I will never be able to repay them for what they did.”

Waleska said she hopes other parents will learn from her harrowing incident to be extra careful about not letting little children out of your sight — and to pay attention to unsecured grates. She had no idea, she said, that her son could squeeze through there.

Previous firefighters of the week:

• Matt Kennedy, Jose Maldonado, Tommy Michaels, & Troy Adams
• Billy Gould
• Dino Ferraro
• Robert Bonetti, Miguel Rosado, Jr., Heather Myers, & Chris Parker
• David Vargas and Isaias Miranda