From rock band to saving a lilfe

Alexis Barker
NLJ News Editor
 
Sgt. Chris Schmoker, a 1999 Upton High School graduate, and his partner, officer Dylan Goetsch, will receive the Carnegie Medal from the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission next month. 
The award is the highest honor for civilian heroism in the United States and Canada. Schmoker and his partner, officer Dylan Goetsch, went above and beyond to save the life of Jason McKee, 47. The two are members of the Sturgis (South Dakota) Police Department.
“Sgt. Schmoker and officer Goetsch are exemplary officers who went above and beyond their job description to save Jason McKee. Officers put themselves in great harm, and their actions have brought great credit onto themselves and our department, and we are proud they are members of our department,” Sturgis Police Chief Geody VanDewater said.
Schmoker wasn’t always running into burning houses to save others. In fact, his mother, Marilyn Schmoker of Osage, said that when her son was in school, she was “kind of worried” about where he would end up, especially after he started a rock band. 
“I never thought he would go that way,” Marilyn said. “I don’t know if anyone would have ever thought he would amount to much.” 
The proud mother expressed her excitement at the public recognition of her son, although Schmoker said that the recognition isn’t necessarily his favorite. 
“It’s a cool story. I actually thought I was going to get in trouble. I had gone into a house full of smoke and a presumable fire another time in my career and dealt with smoke inhalation. Everyone was smarter than me and told me it was a bad idea,” Schmoker said. “When the chief showed up and I told him I had been in the house, I thought I was going to get in trouble. I didn’t think anyone would be happy.” 
The morning of May 12, 2018, began like any other for Schmoker and Goetsch, who had worked the overnight shift and were completing reports for the night. At 5 a.m., Schmoker said, a call came in that there was a structure fire, and the partners readied themselves and headed that way, not knowing what to expect. 
“You never know what a structure fire means. It could be a home or a building,” Schmoker said. 
As an officer, Schmoker said, his main purpose when responding to a fire is to assess the situation and relay that information to dispatch, who can then inform other first responders of what to expect on the scene. Schmoker said that officers also block the roads and clear adjacent buildings, if necessary. 
“As we are driving to the scene, we learned that it was, in fact, a house fire and that there was someone still inside the home,” Schmoker recalled. “We still don’t know what that means as far as smoke and the scale of the fire. When we drove past the house, we didn’t see any flames or smoke because of the fog, but we saw people outside waving their arms and we could smell smoke. We knew we were at the right place.” 
Schmoker said that what happened in the moments that led to his and Goetsch’s actions to rescue McKee happened quickly.  
“The people who called said their son was still inside,” Schmoker said, noting that McKee was visiting his parents. 
After quickly processing the information, the partners headed to the front door to determine the extent of the situation. 
“We poked our heads in, and the house was smoky and hot. We didn’t see a bunch of fire at first, but we did see small flames through the smoke,” Schmoker said. 
The officers approached the stairs in an army crawl, hacking and gagging as they made their way to the stairs that led to the bedroom the man was in, he said. 
“We made it to a bedroom, but it wasn’t the right one. We tried to go back, to go to the room Jason was in, but we couldn’t breathe. We were going up and down the stairs to see if there was anything we could do. The fire was spreading so fast,” Schmoker said. “When we first got there, it looked like a fire in a pot on the stove. Within a couple of minutes, the whole wall was on fire and it continued to creep through the house. It was spreading fast.” 
Schmoker said that he and Goetsch knew they couldn’t stay in the home but that the family was panicking. So they knew they had to try something. 
“We go back outside and went around to where there was a ladder at the window. Dylan climbed up to the open window and ripped the blinds that were down out. Smoke started to pour out of the window and it was getting black and thick,” Schmoker recalled. “He could not see in the room, but he was hollering Jason’s name but there was obviously no reply. While he was up there, he said he could hear labored breathing.” 
At that second, Schmoker said, he and Goetsch knew exactly what they needed to do. They figured they were the only chance this man had of surviving. The officers made their way back to the front of the house and went back inside, scrambling to find the best option for getting to the man who was barely hanging onto life in the room upstairs. 
“I looked downstairs and saw a bathroom. So I ran down there and was digging for some towels or something to wet down. I came out of the bathroom and saw a heap of laundry, mostly women’s shirts and I grabbed the top two things and soaked them down,” Schmoker said. “I went back upstairs, and Dylan had found a fire extinguisher, although we knew that wasn’t going to work. At this point, the entire kitchen, the walls and the ceiling, were on fire and it was spreading to the living room. If we were going to do something, we had to do it now.” 
They wrapped the shirts around their faces, held onto each other so they would stay together, crouched down as low as possible and ran to the bedroom where McKee was. 
“When we got there, the smoke was so thick you couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. In the time it took to get there, we both became tired and couldn’t breathe,” Schmoker said. “We were searching the room for him and found the bed, but we couldn’t find him. Finally Dylan found him at the foot of the bed, and we grabbed his ankles and started pulling. There was no way to pick him up.” 
By the time they reached the top of the stairs, the officers were in desperate need of air, so they ran to the bottom of the stairs to breathe in some air. Schmoker said the fire had spread quickly, with things popping and exploding. Schmoker said the whole memory is really “weird,” with some scenes like snapshots while others are vivid. 
“We took our gulps of fresh air and started pulling again. I didn’t know at the time, but as we were going down the stairs, Jason’s leg had gotten stuck in the stairs and Dylan’s mask had fallen down and he took in a gulp of black grossness,” Schmoker said.
The partners eventually got the man free and finished dragging him to the front lawn just in time for the ambulance to show up but not before Goetsch inhaling enough of the thick black smoke to make him sick. 
The ambulance crew responded to McKee, while Schmoker and Goetsch went over the state of the fire and the incident as the fire trucks pulled up. 
“We walked back and let them take over,” Schmoker said. “By now, you could see the flames from outside the house. It was definitely on fire.” 
According to a Dec. 19 press release from the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, “McKee was hospitalized for smoke inhalation and inhalation burns to his lungs. Goetsch and Schmoker sustained minor smoke inhalation; they recovered.”
Officers, Schmoker said, sometimes find themselves in “weird and different” situations. What goes through his head in those situations, he said, is hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t been there. 
“A lot of times, we go and do something but don’t think about it. You subconsciously block out how bad of an idea it is and reflect on it afterwards,” Schmoker said. “We go to the gun, and that goes against all logic.” 
Schmoker said that he and Goetsch knew that McKee didn’t have a lot of time left and that he is both “proud and happy” that they were able to respond. 
Recognition is not why Schmoker and Goetsch did what they did, though. 
“I have mixed feelings about it. … People are very quick to frown on police, and something like this is good for everyone. It is good to be in the news in a positive light, but I don’t like bragging,” Schmoker said
Schmoker said he became an officer 10 years ago because he didn’t like the idea of working a mundane job. 
“I liked the idea of having an entire town as my office and not being tied down to a desk. I really didn’t know anything about law enforcement, not any more than most people know about it,” Schmoker said. “You have perceptions and assumptions about the job, but it really ended up being different than I ever could have imagined. I fell in love with it almost immediately.”