YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown fire Capt. Tommy Gibbs and the other firefighters on Ladder 22 from the main fire station downtown were sent to the Realty Tower at 2:44 p.m. last Tuesday, and it wasn’t for an explosion.

“It came in as a pull station alarm with a smell of gas,” Gibbs said, adding it wasn’t the kind of call that wouldn’t have normally caused his battalion chief, Tim Frease, to necessarily get in his vehicle and head over.

Frease did “to help me out,” Gibbs said.

“Then during the response, it came in as an explosion,” Gibbs said of radio communications.

Frease said he believes between the time the call came in and when Gibbs’ ladder truck arrived, “it actually exploded.”

“As I turned the corner, I could see what I thought was smoke filling the downtown area,” Gibbs said during an interview with three captains and the battalion chief Monday.

“At that point, we could see we had something of significance,” Gibbs said. “As we approached downtown, you could just see the devastation, police just running everywhere. There were a lot of people during the initial response.”

Gibbs called a second alarm when he saw the smoke. That is a call that alerts additional firefighters to respond.

“I hate to say it, but it kind of reminded me of the images of 9/11. There was that much smoke,” Gibbs said. “I’m not comparing it to that, but that’s all I could think of.”

Soon, Gibbs was climbing down a ladder into the basement of the building and searching for people. He said in that situation, “I don’t remember a single thought I had, just relying heavily on whatever training we have.”

He said he knew Frease would be there immediately and would take charge of the scene. “As I approached the hole (in the first floor), I saw a man just standing down there (in the basement) in obvious distress. He pointed out the female to me,” Gibbs said of an early victim who was rescued.

The woman’s head was bloody, and she was “buried under debris, but I knew the other gentleman would be able to get out himself,” Gibbs said.

The man climbed the ladder and got out of the basement and walked to the base of a large monument in Central Square and waited. Several bystanders approached the man to offer water and talk to him.

Gibbs said he’s been a firefighter 25 years, but the rescue of one of the seven victims of the explosion, who was later identified as Caroline Pizarro, a Chase Bank employee, a short time later is the first time he ever had to put a person over his back and carry them on a ladder out of a basement.

That is an episode that may forever remain in the memories of local residents because it was captured on the body camera of Deputy Joe Hamilton of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office. Hamilton was one of several deputies working security at the Mahoning County Courthouse just up the street who responded immediately to the Realty Tower.

Hamilton’s body camera shows how much of the first floor of the building collapsed into the basement about 16 feet below. That includes the corner of the building at Market Street and East Federal, where Gibbs and other firefighters found and rescued multiple bank employees in the basement.

Firefighters located the first woman and Gibbs carried her out before Hamilton and another firefighter took her from the area.

“We’ve attempted rescues coming down a ladder, when someone was placed on my shoulder,” he said.

While Gibbs and firefighter Scott Thomas were in the basement, they heard another voice, but it was on the other side of the gas leak, so they could not get to that area. Water from a ruptured water line was flowing into the basement throughout that period.

Gibbs requested additional ladders so that firefighters could reach the person closer to the rear of the building.

“I made my way around and found another gentleman that I was able to make contact with through the basement. He was alert. He just couldn’t stand,” Gibbs said. “And then I saw another female across, kind of hanging on the edge” of a drop off into the basement.

Frease explained that parts of the first floor collapsed, mostly the bank lobby area, but other parts did not, including an area at the rear of the building near a break room. There were at least two people on the first floor when firefighters arrived who had to be “extricated” from that area.

The woman Gibbs mentioned was holding onto the door frame of an area that led to the break room on the first floor. In front of her was the opening into the basement 16 feet below.

In all, four people were removed from the basement, including one man who climbed out on his own. All of the people who were trapped and either helped or rescued from the first and second floors were Chase employees. There were no customers in the bank, Frease said.

A seventh employee, Akil Drake, 27, was working in the bank that day and was found deceased early Wednesday in the basement, officials have said.

The captains and battalion chief said they do not know for sure how many people they helped out of the apartments on the second through 12th floors, including a 94-year-old woman who was carried down the steps from the 10th floor because she had trouble walking

None of the residents of the apartments suffered any serious injuries. There are multiple stairwells in the building, and that is how the residents got out. One young man used a fire escape.

Frease said after he arrived, he made sure over the radio that it was understood that additional firefighters were needed at the explosion and then started to assess whether the building would hold up long enough to make rescues.

“Is this going to hold together for the next couple hours for us to operate?” Frease said. He concluded “it should.”

Frease could hear the hissing of the open natural gas line. “The assessment was that it was an immediate risk to go down and get people that were immediately available and needed to be rescued,” Frease said.

“Sometimes it’s better to take that immediate risk rather than try to wait if you don’t believe the conditions are going to get better. There’s only one thing you can do in that situation — the rescue,” he said.

Frease said the last rescue took place 22 minutes after the initial call — at about 3:06 p.m. The last of apartment residents were cleared from the building 45 minutes after the initial call — at about 3:30 p.m.

Tom Chapman, a board member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at news conferences last week, regarding the investigation into the explosion, that workers in the basement apparently cut a natural gas line in the basement and vault area next to the basement.

However, they realized what they had done, evacuated the basement, alerted the bank employees upstairs and pulled the fire alarm.

“We understand that at least one of the workers called 911,” Chapman said. “The workers were instrumental in alerting the residents of the upstairs apartments and they assisted to evacuate residents.”

Capt. Brian Hoffman, who works at the West Indianola Avenue fire station, was assigned to the rear of the building to start bringing people out and brought out the two women from the first floor break-room area.

After that was complete, they went into the upper floors to search for and rescue the apartment residents.

Hoffman said firefighters are aware when they go into a building like that, it could be dangerous.

“You know the dangers involved, and you know you signed up for it. It’s your job,” he said. “During the call, when all of this was going on, there was still debris falling in the building.”

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