Timo Klotz said he heard a loud noise, but didn't think much about it until there was screaming and panic.
He soon learned a car had run into Ireland's Four Courts pub where he'd been just moments before. Smoke was starting to billow.
As throngs fled from the smokey scene, the volunteer firefighter/EMT with Fairfax County Fire & Rescue, ran towards it and climbed into the pub through the jagged hole made by the car, he told an ARLNow reporter.
“I couldn’t even make out that there was a car in there. There was ceiling, wires, cables, tables… everywhere,” Klotz said. “It was demolished. Like a bomb went off.”
He helped one person up but saw another trapped under debris. Before he could even help them, he caught a glimpse of another person, bloody, lying on the ground, according to reports.
“There’s people everywhere,” he told the media. “At that moment… I was almost overwhelmed to the point of thinking ‘what am I going to do? There’s so many people.'”
But Klotz’s instincts kicked in. He knew fires can increase very fast. That meant, he had to act fast.
“We have a fire. We need to get people out,” he said, remembering that moment.
With the help from a police officer, he started pulling people from the debris. As soon as they were freed, others helped them across the street to a treatment/triage area.
“The fire just started to get bigger, bigger, bigger. To tell you the truth, I didn’t think it was going to go as fast as it went,” Klotz said, adding that he and the officer knew they had to evacuate.
They would soon learn that they left no one behind.
He went across the street to check on the folks he helped, and helped treat them.
Klotz suffered lacerations to his hands, and smoke inhalation. “The outcome that nobody died and people got out of there, to me that is amazing,” he said.
