For months, the Gresham Fire Department has been working without one of their own.
In May, Spencer Tejedas and two other firefighters raced into a duplex without a hoseline when they heard a disabled child was trapped.
A flashover occurred leaving Tejedas with burns over nearly half his body while the others suffered minor injuries. As they would find out later, the child wasn't in the house when the fire started.
Tejaedas is now out of his medically-induced coma and scheduled for his seventh and hopefully last surgery next week. But the road to recovery is a long one, KOIN reported.
“He’s definitely one of the most skilled firefighters we have. That’s the guy you always want with you. He has your back on any fire. We love Spencer and we miss him,” said Firefighter Jack Pilarski.
Captain Travis Soles – who trained Tejedas when he came up through the fire academy – was one of the Red Cross blood donors who rolled up his sleeve Friday.
“When someone is burned, it actually takes a lot of blood products to help them with that healing,” he noted.
Tejedas can only communicate by blinking his eyes and nodding his head.
Soles and the other firefighters say they do whatever it takes to get him home to his wife and children.
