Firefighter Tommy Hedden had to be saved from his own house when the Rolling Fork River rose dramatically.
Nelson County, Ky. – Tommy Hedden thought that his piece Nelson County would stay in his family forever.
“To be honest, I said to everyone that you will take my body out of this house,” he said. “And I think it's almost that.”
After the nearby Rolling Fork River rose to almost 53 feet at the weekend, he is not so sure.
“I sit on this veranda, drink my coffee and watch the world come by on our bank,” he said. A bank that was washed in the trench on the other side of the street.
Nelson County's fireman jumped between fire brigades since he was 15. A grass -covered Berm protected his house from rising water – until it rose too high.
Now this bowl flows slowly into the nearby stream with a Berm. Hedden shows that about a million gallon water surrounded the house.
“I've seen the power of mother nature before,” he recalled. “I saw Tornados, the hurricanes in New Orleans. Water is the worst that they could ever have. I would never have stayed and made my family through the fear if I knew that this would happen. I sent it away. I am a first aid, I am a quick water technician, but I never thought that we would have looked at it.”
On Saturday, when Bardstown Fire – and a special team from Georgia – produced Hedden, they sent their boat from the Bluegrass Parkway. The ramp is closed almost a week later.
When Hedden worked as a firefighter, he had no way home.
“And this part killed me because I put other rescue workers in danger,” said Hedden. “And what did I save? Nothing.”
Neighbor Doug Daniels couldn't save much either. His house was down the street, from his farm hovered in the overflow.
Slamm slips towards the soils of his sweet home – but: “It is no longer at home,” said Daniels. “Had a few good times here, but I have to have them somewhere else now.”
His hope is now that the Fema will pay for his house and that it will be torn down.
“I didn't even go to look,” said Hedden, stood with us on the edge of his property and watched
“You don't want to look?” I asked.
“No,” he replied. “I don't even want to watch mine. At some point I have to open the doors to see what I have and I don't want to.”
It is a difficult time to be saved by the savior.
“When they came to the fire station to thank us, it was nice of them,” said the 35-year-old fireman. “But after that I didn't have to deal with something else. I did the next run. This run does not end for me. It always comes.”
So he now navigates new waters.
He has the support of his first aid family. A friend brought him a pump to eliminate the Berm. Hedden's daughter started a gofundme because the insurance does not cover the full costs for the flood damage.
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