On the morning of Feb. 16, Richard McIntee awoke to a frightening scene.
The McLaurin Street building he was living in was on fire.
“I got up and saw smoke. I lived on the second floor, so I headed to the hallway, and then I saw a whole lot of smoke and fire. It was too much,” McIntee said.
Lt. Julian Beamon, right, and Division Training Chief Christopher Glass, left, worked in tandem to rescue Richard McIntee, center, from the second floor of a burning building on McLaurin Street in a fire on Feb. 16 in Greenwood. (By Johnny Jennings, Copyright 2024 Emmerich Newspapers, Inc.)
McIntee fled back to his room and busted the window. Fortunately for him, two Greenwood firefighters, Lt. Julian Beamon and Division Training Chief Christopher Glass, were on the ground below.
The pair worked together with the rest of their unit in making sure McIntee did not become a causality in the five-alarm fire that engulfed the historic McLaurin Street building.
“When we arrived, I didn’t see the man up at his window. I just saw a lot of smoke and a lot of black smoke. I put on my pump gear, looked up and saw him. He was an older man,” Beamon said.
McIntee is 72.
“This was a two-story building and he was at the window,” Beamon said. “We had to get the ladder.”
“He (Beamon) had seen him, I had not seen him,” Glass said.
Beamon got on the ladder and reached McIntee.
“I went up and got him down,” Beamon said.
“I got the ladder ready, so he could go up and get him,” Glass said.
“It was an unusual thing.,” Beamon said. “We’ve rescued people before, from cars, in a house, but in that scene, it just seemed unreal to see someone hanging on a ledge like that. It looked like something you see on TV.
“But with the training we’ve got, it was just an automatic reaction. I knew I needed to get my pump gear on and get this ladder up. We got it up and got him down, safely,” Beamon said. “Smoke was coming out of the building, and he was terrified.”
Glass said he thought McIntee might jump.
“We inhaled some smoke because we didn’t have (our) gear on, but we still had to get to him, quickly,” Glass added.
Beamon has been a firefighter for six years. He said the reason he joined the profession is also what still keeps him in it.
“I wanted to help my community. At the time, I needed a job, but the more I worked at it, I fell more in love with it. It’s something I love to do now.”
“I like the teamwork.”
Glass, a senior officer, has been in the department for 22 years.
“At the time before I started, I was working with my father and he got sick. I needed something with benefits. I finally got hired on my third try” by then-Chief Larry Griggs.
“When I started, I really liked the adrenalin rush. That was everything for me,” Glass said.
Glass found other aspects of the job attractive, too. He liked the structured environment as well as the day-to-day interactions with his fellow firefighters. As he grew in experience, he wanted to get into a leadership role.
Now as a training chief, he is able to instill in the younger members of the department what it takes to become a successful firefighter.
“I’m in the training position spot, and just helping the young guys just really makes my day,” Glass said. “You are only going to get something out of the Fire Department what you put into it. If you put out a lot, you will achieve a lot.”
Glass also spent four years with the Greenwood Police Department. Earlier on, he was doing both jobs.
“I liked both. In both positions, you are helping the community,” he said.
Beamon and Glass were joined at the Feb. 16 fire by other members of their unit: Tajayus Tyler, Antonio Kinnel, Malik Branch, Nathaniel Anderson, Eliot Taylor, Isaiah Riley, Capt. Jamie Simon, Capt. Shun Byrd, Capt. Lavar Bolden and Lt. Travell James.
Assistant Fire Chief Martrellis McDowell said Beamon and Glass and the greater unit were able to perform just as they were trained.
“It’s a testament to how they were trained and the commitment to want to do a good job. In all emergency scenes, it’s a team effort,” McDowell said. “None of this is singular. Everything we do, it’s as part of a team. I am just proud of the whole shift, and how they conducted themselves. I think the results that took place showed that.”
- This article first appeared in Leflore Illustrated, a quarterly magazine published by The Greenwood Commonwealth.
