By Brian Rokos
The Press Enterprise
CORONA, Calif. — Thirty-six years ago, Corona firefighters raced to the area of River Road and Cota Street, where 18-year-old Rodney Allen Waltzingham lay at the bottom of a sewer.
What began as an attempt to save the life of the Norco man on June 5, 1977, soon turned into an effort to rescue the rescuers as, one by one, the firefighters who descended through a manhole were overcome by toxic gas.
Now, Saturday, April 27, three of those firefighters – Don Remp, Rex Vahovick and Ralph Davis – were presented with Medals of Valor in recognition of their bravery during an incident that still guides training today. Medals of Valor are awarded to those who exhibit extreme bravery and disregard for their own safety above the call of duty.
The event at City Hall was part of the Fire Department’s annual awards ceremony.
The department did not award Medals of Valor until 2001. And while the sewer rescue is part of department lore, only during the planning for this year’s ceremony did organizers become fully aware of the details of the individual heroics, Fire Chief John Medina said.
“If not for what they did, we could have had four firefighters who could have died. It was obvious to everybody that it rose to the Medal of Valor,” Medina said.
The report that someone had fallen into a manhole was received about 5:15 p.m. Firefighters were on the scene in three minutes, according to a story in the Corona Independent.
Capt. Tom Armstrong, unaware of the danger, was the first to descend the ladder. Without an oxygen tank and mask, Armstrong was soon overcome by gas. Remp, realizing that Armstrong was injured, entered the sewer, also without breathing support.
“I knew that we needed to do something,” Remp said in a phone interview in the days before the awards ceremony. Remp was in his second year with the department, and he said to that point, training had been fairly basic, especially for confined-space rescues.
As Remp tried to warn firefighters above about the gas, he fell unconscious.
Entering the sewer without carrying oxygen, he said, “In retrospect it wasn’t the right thing to do. Luckily the next person got the air pack on.”
That next person was Vahovick.
“For me that was the correct decision to put it on,” he said in a phone interview. “I can’t second-guess another man.”
Vahovick tied Remp to a rope, and firefighters hoisted Remp to the street, reviving him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Vahovick then tied Armstrong to a rope, but as firefighters pulled up the unconscious captain, Armstrong got stuck on a rung of the ladder. Vahovick couldn’t be heard calling for slack through his mask, so he exposed himself to the gas by opening his mask to speak. While firefighters lifted Armstrong out, Vahovick went unconscious from the gas and fell to the bottom.
“I wasn’t thinking about what was going to happen to me,” Vahovick said. “I knew the captain was in bad shape, and I knew I had to get him out.”
As firefighters successfully performed CPR on Armstrong and Remp, Davis donned breathing equipment and pulled Vahovick, whose heart had stopped, from the sewer.
“I’m thankful for Ralph Davis for pulling me out of that situation,” Vahovick said. “I’m totally grateful for those guys.”
Davis declined to be interviewed for this story.
In the narrative of the rescue that was prepared for the awards ceremony, engineer Bob Melton was also praised for taking control of the incident in the absence of the captain and remaining calm “at a scene of total chaos.”
Waltzingham did not survive. His body was pulled out about 3 a.m. June 6.
Remp said the award is “kind of cool,” though he believes he is not deserving.
“The boy we were trying to rescue died, so it wasn’t a successful rescue. That’s probably the biggest thing. Then I had to be rescued also. Hopefully I added a little to the rescue. Then I became part of the problem,” he said.
When asked what stood out most about the incident, Remp said: “That identified the fact that we were really lacking in training.”
The 1977 rescue is reviewed every time Corona firefighters do their annual confined-space training, said Medina, who joined the department in 1985.
“We learned from what occurred that day. You have to assume worst case and wear breathing apparatus,” he said.
Additionally, at any residential structure fire, there must be a crew available to rescue the rescuers. And typically, Medina said, captains should remain available to provide command and control.
Remp, 58, retired in 2004 as a captain. He came down from Ahwahnee, a central California town near Yosemite National Park. Remp has two sons in the department, Jess, an engineer, and Ryan, a firefighter.
Davis is retired and lives in Corona. Armstrong has retired, and Melton died after retiring.
Vahovick, 59, suffered a concussion and chemical pneumonia during the rescue and retired because of his injuries that left him with balance problems. Vahovick, a graduate of Corona High, flew in from Dryden, Ontario, Canada.
He was instrumental in the three firefighters being honored with the medals.
Medina said Capt. Fred Parr had been interviewing retirees to learn the history of the department. “Rex put pencil to paper and shared his thoughts,” Medina said.
Parr shared the story, and another captain researched the incident and made a recommendation to the awards committee, Medina said.
If the firefighters’ actions were deserving of medals, “We thought about wouldn’t it be great years later to recognize what they did,” the chief said.
Vahovick said he didn’t realize he was going to receive a Medal of Valor when Medina invited him to the awards ceremony.
Looking back, Vahovick said, “I think everyone did as good a job as they could do.”
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