PHOTOS: Six homes were destroyed early Thursday morning in a roaring apartment fire in Tomball. The fire started around 4 a.m. at the Cobble Creek Apartments on Lawrence Street near Medical Complex Drive. Tomball police officers helped neighbors evacuate the building as flames tore through the roof, firefighters said. Crews raised a ladder to fight the fire from above as firefighters went door-to-door trying to quell the flames. The fire made its way into a shared attic space, which had no way to stop the blaze from spreading to other apartments in the building. Authorities pulled a second-alarm, bringing more firefighters to the scene. The flames were under control a short time later. No injuries were reported. Arson investigators are working to determine what happened.  

VIDEO: Dallas Fire Rescue crews responded to a 2-alarm fire at a vacant commercial building Wednesday night. It happened around 11:00 p.m. on Composite Drive in the northwest part of the city. Firefighters arrived to find smoke coming from the one-story building. The fire quickly spread and sent flames shooting from the roof. Dozens of firefighters worked to put out the flames. One of those first-responders sustained a non life-threatening burn and was taken to a local hospital to be checked out. He is expected to be okay. No one else at the site was injured. Investigators are still working to find the cause of the fire.  

EMS Appreciation Week promotes public safety, and celebrates the life-saving efforts of first responders. And this year, it's especially important. Several Texarkana businesses partnered to help honor first responders who are now on the front line helping in the fight against COVID-19. Organizers say during this time, it's more important than ever, to let frontline workers know that the community is standing behind them. "This year especially with COVID-19, and every call is a potential life risk call," said Dr. Matt Young of the Texarkana Emergency Center. Dr. Young says the work of local first responders is not only essential, but it's critical. Mayors of both Texarkana cities proclaimed May 20th as EMS Appreciation Day. All first responders including EMS, law enforcement, and firefighters were treated to a free boxed lunch.  

The city of Victoria plans to apply for about $162,000 in grants to support first responders on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. "It's never been this scary for first responders as it is right now," said Councilman Rafael De La Garza after the Victoria City Council meeting Tuesday. "We have to do everything we can to show them we care and support them." De La Garza, who worked for decades as a Victoria firefighter and paramedic, said first responders have "always known there are contagious diseases out there," but were able to feel comfortable hopping in an ambulance and focusing entirely on the person in need of care. Now, with COVID-19, he said, "it's a different world." "You have to constantly wear gloves, goggles, a mask – you have to think of yourself as well," he said. "They never used to do anything to this degree."  

A 13-month-old boy is recovering after a near-drowning in Gun Barrel City According to the Gun Barrel City Fire Department, around 4:30 p.m. on Monday, multiple agencies responded to reports of an unresponsive baby that had been pulled from a swimming pool in the 300 block of Masthead Road, near the Harbor Point Airport. Gun Barrel Fire Chief Joseph Lindaman was already in the area and was flagged down by a family member. When Chief Lindaman arrived on scene, he found a family member attempting to revive the child. The GBCFD says the child was unresponsive and not breathing. Chief Lindaman began rescue breathing on the baby and after a short period, the boy began breathing on his own. The child was treated at the scene by EMS before being flown to Children's Medical Center in Dallas by UT Health Air 1 helicopter.  

The Fort Worth Fire Department (FWFD) has added two new advanced medical devices to aid in patient care. Ten mechanical CPR devices have been deployed throughout the city and are deployed with responding units on cardiac arrest calls. The device is manufactured by Defibtech and allows hands-free compressions during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, FWFD deployed eight firefighter/EMTs to each cardiac arrest call. The pandemic changed that response number to help reduce the number of firefighters who could potentially be exposed. The Defibtech device provides continued compressions, which have been proven to increase the odds of survival for the patient, but does not require more hands to perform those compressions.  

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said Wednesday, May 20, that he backs a bill moving its way through the Assembly that would make it a crime for first responders in California to take photos of dead bodies at emergency sites unless for an investigation. Assembly Bill 2655 would make it a misdemeanor for police officers, sheriff's deputies, firefighters, paramedics and other emergency personnel responding to disasters to take such photos. The bill comes on the heels of the January helicopter crash in Calabasas that killed Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, Gigi, and seven others. Officials later discovered that eight deputies were involved in the taking or sharing of the photos, the sheriff has said. He ordered the pictures destroyed and, he said, launched an internal investigation.  

VIDEO: Six homes were destroyed early Thursday morning in a roaring apartment fire in Tomball. The fire started around 4 a.m. at the Cobble Creek Apartments on Lawrence Street near Medical Complex Drive. Tomball police officers helped neighbors evacuate the building as flames tore through the roof, firefighters said. Crews raised a ladder to fight the fire from above as firefighters went door-to-door trying to quell the flames. The fire made its way into a shared attic space, which had no way to stop the blaze from spreading to other apartments in the building. Authorities pulled a second-alarm, bringing more firefighters to the scene. The flames were under control a short time later. No injuries were reported. Arson investigators are working to determine what happened.  

The fear is still there, but some first responders have somewhat mastered coping with that fear of COVID-19. "You push it back so that you can maintain your mission," Parma firefighter and department spokesperson T.J. Martin said. But the fear of unknowingly carrying the virus is hard to ignore. Martin says no one on his team has tested positive, but it would be comforting to know for sure. "I'm pretty confident that when we do get tested a lot of first responders throughout the country are going to come back as testing positive for COVID-19," he said. "You don't know if you're carrying that virus to other members of your family or other members of your department family or possibly to the community at large." With testing still limited across the state, Dr. Christine Schmotzer, University Hospitals' Chief of the Division of Clinical Pathology, says antibody testing will help determine if someone was ever infected with COVID-19 and could help confirm if they were asymptomatic.  

VIDEO: The more than 20,000 paramedics, EMTs and 911 dispatchers in Massachusetts were honored Wednesday as part of National EMS Week as a large convoy of ambulances traveled from Worcester to Boston. The "Convoy of Champions" set off from UMass Memorial Medical Center about 1:15 p.m. and made the 40-mile drive in about an hour, with a state police escort and a UMass Medical Life Flight helicopter. Upon arrival, the drivers formed a heart in the Red Sox' outfield, around the word "EMS" mown into the grass. The ambulance crews were greeted with a flyover from both UMass and Boston MedFlight helicopters. Gov. Charlie Baker, Attorney General Maura Healey, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and health care leaders were expected to provide video tributes to the EMS professionals, as well.  

As the world continues to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of focus has been on the health risks to healthcare workers due to the infectiousness of the virus and the insufficient amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) available. However, another health risk to these providers that is just starting to get attention are the physical and mental health effects from their constant exposure to the trauma of this disaster. Even without a pandemic, our healthcare workers are already at higher risk of psychiatric disorders including: burnout and suicide. However, the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic raises additional concerns about the mental health outcomes for our front-line responders. One of the things we see in disasters is that first responders and healthcare workers jump into action and will often work past their limits. Their training kicks in, and they enter what we often refer to as "operational mode."