QUINCY, ILL. -- The three Quincy firefighters credited with rescuing a 15-month-old baby girl from a burning house were recognized at city hall Monday.
The Quincy Fire Department presented Firefighter Mark Bichsel with a Letter of Commendation.
The department's Medal of Valor went to Firefighter Justin Twaddle and Lieutenant Eric Becks, who rescued Ella Cain from the house fire at 303 Ohio on January 3rd.
KHQA's Rajah Maples spoke with all three men about what it was like to save a life.
"Extremely humbling. I accept this on behalf of my whole shift. It was a total effort. Being on the fire department is really the ultimate team sport." QFD Firefighter Justin Twaddle said.
"It's really a great honor, I'm humbled by all the attention. I'm not used to a lot of attention but I'm certainly humbled by it and it's a great honor.I appreciate all the nice things everybody has said tonight about what happened that day," Lt. Eric Becks said.
"The recognition that I got really needs to be passed on to the other guys that were on that fire," QFD Mark Bichsel said. "We've all got to work together, we've all got to follow each other and know where each one's going to be working so we can work together and that was really the case that morning."
"Everything happened very quickly and any fire scene is intense and you're trying to figure out what course of action on your way there," Becks said.
"You know as a firefighter you never want to be put in these situations you never want this to happen to anyone but at the same time you want to make an impact in someone's life so it's extremely humbling. There's just a lot of emotions that go with it," Twaddle said.
"Everything worked out as good as it could in the situation so I just hope that things continue to improve for Baby Ella," Becks said.
Here's an update on Baby Ella straight from her mother's Facebook page.
Sarah Ginster wrote, "Today after the dressing change, we know that Ella WILL need one more surgery. About 20% of the grafts did not stick. It is mostly her lower back and her left thigh. The infection is still present so they will be doing a dressing change every day now until it is cleared up.... it could be another 2-3 weeks before her next surgery can be done depending on how fast her donor sites heal."
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