[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 2] [Senate] [Pages 2105-2106] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS ______ 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. 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 [[Page 2106]] 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. ____________________