Firefighter Andrew Brown returned home to Orange County on Friday after being discharged from Colorado’s Craig Hospital following a fire utility truck rollover accident in September. Brown was one of eight fire personnel driving back from a 12-hour shift spent battling the Airport Fire in Orange County.
On Sept. 19, eight firefighters with the Orange County Fire Authority were involved in a solo crash rollover at around 6:50 p.m. on the northbound 241 Toll Road just north of Portola Avenue in Irvine. Six were seriously injured and two sustained minor injuries.
Seven of the firefighters were transported via ambulance to several hospitals and one was transported by an OCFA helicopter to another local hospital.
Brown was flown to Colorado on Oct. 2 to begin six weeks of intense rehabilitation at the Craig Hospital that specializes in neurorehabilitation. Brown sustained injuries to his beck, shoulder and spinal cord, according to KCAL News.
On Friday, Nov. 15, Brown walked off a plane at the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. In a video posted by the OCFA on Facebook, a room full of firefighters were waiting to welcome Brown back home.
“I was very concerned if I was ever going to be able to walk again or move my arms again,” Brown said in an interview by the OCFA. In that interview, Brown spoke about his limited memory of the accident, rehabilitation and what has been giving him strength in the months since the life-altering accident.
“With my initial injury, with my initial assessment, they expected me to leave the ICU on a ventilator and lying on a bed for at least a couple of months,” Brown said. He reported being off the ventilator within a couple of days after undergoing a surgery.
“I’ve gone a lot further in my recovery than I thought I was going to … It’s just blown me away at how much I’ve been able to accomplish. Like walking, and even walking up stairs.”
Recalling the night of the accident, Brown remembers the fire truck starting to tilt. His next memory is waking up outside of the vehicle.
“It was chaos, I didn’t move a muscle,” he said. Brown remembered the paramedics arriving and being loaded into an ambulance to be taken to the emergency room. “I remember being really scared and frightened during the ambulance ride that I was going to die. …I was just praying that God would take care of my wife who’s pregnant and that was my biggest concern, that’s all I could think about during the ambulance ride,” Brown said.
Brown said he draws his strength from his family in California, his wife, and their soon-to-be daughter. “I just want to be able to support my wife and hold my daughter and play with her some day. You know, throw her in the air and stuff. So, that was my biggest motivation to get back to normal is just being able to be a good husband and a good father.”
Brown said he would love to return back to the fire crew and go to the fire academy. “It’s a family I want to be able to return to, I think it’s the greatest job in the world.”
Brown provided advice for people who have suffered similar injuries. “Hold on to hope. Try to have the best attitude you can, every day. Some days are going to be hard and you’re going to feel like you’ve taken a step back but if you try to hold on to that good attitude and you put your best effort forward every day no matter how hard it is, you’re going to see more results.”
One firefighter from the Sept. 19 accident remains in rehabilitation at the Craig Hospital in Colorado.
The OCFA and its union, the Orange County Professional Firefighters Association Local 3631, set up a relief fund for the eight injured crew members via the Fallen Firefighter Relief Fund.