[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 22 (Thursday, February 15, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1459-S1460]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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      HONORING CHASKA POLICE OFFICERS BRADY JUELL AND MIKE KLEBER

 Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise today to honor two 
Minnesota heroes.
  Chaska police officers Brady Juell and Mike Kleber saved the lives of 
more than a dozen residents as fire burned through an apartment 
building.
  On the morning of Tuesday February 6, 2001 a fire broke out in an 
apartment building in Chaska, Minnesota. With little regard for their 
own safety, Officers Juell and Kleber searched and found resident after 
resident. In some instances they literally pulled people to safety.

[[Page S1460]]

  Officers Juell and Kleber did their job. But they did so much more: 
they inspired us because they showed how great and how selfless we can 
be.
  The community will be honoring these brave men on March 3, but I 
wanted the Senate today to recognize these good and noble men who saved 
lives and provided us a glimpse of who we can be as a people.
  I ask that the following articles from the Minneapolis Star Tribune 
and the Chaska Herald be printed in the Record.

           [From the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Feb. 7, 2001]

       Police Officers Save People From Burning Chaska Apartment

                           (By Chris Graves)

       As he lay choking on smoke and unable to see, Brad Bandas 
     saw the glimmer of a flashlight through the sooty black smoke 
     filling his Chaska apartment building.
       The 22-year-old man hoped that whoever was on the other 
     side of the light saw his hand frantically waving.
       Out of the smoke came a hand. Then Bandas was on his feet. 
     Then he was outside, standing--and coughing--in the crisp, 
     predawn air.
       ``The officer just clutched my hand and pulled me out and 
     gave me the boost I needed,'' Bandas said. ``I could have 
     been dead. Smoke kills you.''
       He was one of more than a dozen apartment residents saved 
     by Chaska police officers Brady Juell and Mike Kleber as fire 
     lapped up the side of the three-story stucco building in the 
     600 block of Ravoux Rd. about 4 a.m. Tuesday.
       One resident, Robert A. Ebert, 38, died in the blaze after 
     he broke out his garden-level apartment window to try to 
     escape.
       Chaska Police Chief Scott Knight said a bystander tried to 
     pull Ebert out of his burning apartment, but he fell backward 
     and died in the blaze.
       Knight said preliminary findings indicate the fire, which 
     started in Ebert's apartment, was caused by an electrical 
     malfunction and was an accident.
       Knight beamed like a father about his officers' actions.
       ``They are heroes. I know we would have many more deaths,'' 
     he said, ``with the people sleeping and the rapid spread of 
     fire and smoke.''
       Bandas had made it down to a first floor hall before 
     collapsing. His fiancee, Jackie Gallipo, 19, watched from 
     their third-floor apartment as he was pulled out of the 
     building. The officers, as well as Bandas, were yelling at 
     her to jump. The officers assured her they would catch her.
       And they did.
       ``I climbed out the window and was hanging off the sill. I 
     didn't want to jump,'' she said. ``But I didn't want to burn 
     up . . . so I jumped.''
       Knight said the two officers crawled through the smoke, 
     banged on apartment doors and yelled to awaken residents. 
     Several times, the two men used their shoulders to break down 
     doors.
       ``They reluctantly accept the title `hero,' '' Knight said. 
     ``They said they were doing nothing short of what their peers 
     would have done. But I have to tell you, they are heroes.
       ``I'm beaming with pride.''
                                  ____


              [From the Chaska (MN) Herald, Feb. 7, 2001]

               One Dead in Fire; Police Help Save Others

                           (By Mark W. Olson)

       Dave Cooper's first migraine in six months kept him awake 
     early Tuesday morning. He was flipping from channel to 
     channel when he heard glass breaking. Cooper looked out his 
     Creekside Apartment window at the other Creekside Apartment 
     building across the parking lot. Flames were shooting from a 
     sub-level apartment of the three-story complex, at 625 Ravoux 
     Road, and windows had shattered from the heat, Cooper said.
       Cooper called 911, ran outside and into the west entrance 
     of the blazing building and began pounding on doors. His 
     girlfriend, Donna Busch, ran to the east side of the building 
     and began yelling at residents from outside the apartment. By 
     the time Cooper reached the second floor, the building was 
     filled with smoke, he said.
       Chaska Police Officers Brady Juell and Mike Kleber arrived 
     about a minute after receiving the 3:54 a.m. call.
       The fire began in Robert Andrew Ebert's sub-level 
     apartment. He had apparently broken the bedroom window of his 
     flame-filled apartment to escape and another resident had 
     tried to reach for him, said Chaska Police Chief Scott 
     Knight. By the time police officers arrived, flames six to 10 
     feet high were coming out of Ebert's apartment windows. 
     Ebert, 38, died in the fire.
       Ebert was the only occupant in the apartment. Knight said 
     Ebert had a son, who did not live with him, and relatives in 
     Watertown and Waconia.
       The fire may have been ``electrical in nature,'' according 
     to Knight. Preliminary investigations by the State Fire 
     Marshal point to it starting in Ebert's living room in the 
     vicinity of the VCR and television. There is a continuing 
     investigation into the exact cause.
       The apartment building could be a complete loss, Knight 
     said. There were 21 occupants in the building, according to 
     apartment manager Brad Bandas. Residents suffered from smoke 
     inhalation and one occupant sprained an ankle, Knight said.
       Knight credited officers Juell and Kleber with saving many 
     lives during the fire. ``I can tell you that I am fiercely 
     proud of these men,'' Knight said, at a Tuesday afternoon 
     press conference. ``I'm here to tell you they're heroes.''
       The officers entered the smoke and fire-filled building to 
     get people out, experiencing ``conditions we can't imagine,'' 
     Knight said.
       In one case, the officers saw a hand reach out from the 
     darkness for help. The officers shouted at occupants to walk 
     toward their flashlights. For one brief moment the officers 
     lost each other in the smoke, Knight said. ``They had to 
     crawl and shout and came upon people by feel,'' Knight said.
       Bandas, and his fiancee Jackie Gallipo, woke to the sound 
     of smoke alarms. Their apartment was so full of smoke, Bandas 
     said he couldn't see a television across the room.
       He headed out the door of his third-floor apartment, 
     thinking Gallipo was right behind him. ``I couldn't see a 
     damn thing,'' Bandas said. He felt his way out of the 
     building by following stair railings. A police officer pulled 
     him out the door. ``All I could do was gasp for air,'' he 
     said. Emergency crews gave him oxygen.
       Meanwhile, Gallipo popped out a screen and jumped out a 
     third-story window, into the arms of two awaiting police 
     officers. ``I'm just glad everyone got out,'' Bandas said.
       ``We thought someone's (clock) alarm was going off at 
     first,'' said Al Knadel. Knadel and his girlfriend, Missy 
     Schumacher, threw on shoes and jackets and headed for the 
     door. By the time they left, flames were coming from under 
     one of their apartment's doors.
       ``We just moved in a week ago,'' Knadel said. ``Time to 
     pack everything up and start at square one again.''
       Tuesday morning Bill and Virginia Standke, volunteers with 
     the American Red Cross of Carver County, were helping the 
     residents find temporary places to stay, and finding out what 
     clothes and other supplies residents needed.
       Firefighters from Chaska, Chanhassen, Shakopee, Victoria 
     and Carver all fought the fire.
       Chaska's last apartment building fire, on Jan. 15, 2000 at 
     123 W. 2nd Street in downtown Chaska, left 11 people 
     homeless. There were no fatalities in the 2nd Street blaze. 
     The historic 1891 F. Hammer building, made of Chaska brick, 
     as since been repaired.

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