As he recovers from facial burns, a North Carolina firefighter says: “I definitely feel like it was one of those situations that was kind of a freak accident and kind of the wrong place at the wrong time."
High Point Firefighter Josh Bryant told WGHP reporters he's anxious to get back to work, and will strive to be better.
Last month, he and several other crew members were working to clean out dust from a silo at the High Point Furniture Industries Warehouse.
“We were going to get all the sawdust to the bottom, and they were going to get it out with a skid steer…I wasn’t participating in any firefighter activity, so I didn’t have my mask on at the time,” Bryant explained.
The friction from the dust with the heat caused an unexpected flash fire, catching Bryant and another crew member in the middle.
“Instantly I felt a lot of heat in my face…everything started burning, and it was just a little bit of a blast,” Bryant said adding that he rolled away as fast as he could and crawled to the edge of the roof.
Fellow firefighters called a Mayday after seeing the blast that left Bryant with burns to the right side of his face, ear and right hand.
Before being rushed to the hospital, he called his mother to tell her he'd be OK.
He said it's vital that people working around dust collectors know the danger and how quickly a flash fire can spark.
“Moving forward, the most important thing is just to try to do everything I can as far as training, making myself better as a firefighter to try and keep anything like this from happening again. Of course, it’s a dangerous job. Sometimes things just happen that we have no control over,” Bryant said.
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