ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) \u2014 A St. Petersburg firefighter is still recovering months after being injured during a call, as internal documents raise questions about the incident and point to what could be a larger issue involving fire hydrants across the city.<\/p>\n
The hydrant involved in the incident has since been replaced, but internal emails obtained by 8 On Your Side suggest there could be multiple hydrants in need of repair.<\/p>\n
According to the man\u2019s wife, Courtney Vilimek, the incident began with what she described as a life-changing phone call.<\/p>\n
Her husband, St. Petersburg firefighter Tyler Vilimek, was responding to a structure fire near 75th Street and 9th Avenue when a hydrant failed as he worked to establish a water supply.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me that he was hit in the head by this hydrant, and he flew backwards,\u201d she said. \u201cHis helmet was thrown off of his head, and he was bleeding from the face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Internal documents obtained by 8 On Your Side confirm the failure happened during that fire response.<\/p>\n
An email sent hours after the fire from the division chief of safety and training described it as \u201ca complete failure of a city hydrant,\u201d adding that it \u201cblew off its base, striking a firefighter in the face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vilimek\u2019s wife said the impact left him with a traumatic brain injury and a long road to recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the beginning, his being in the hospital for six days, I was there at his bedside every single day,\u201d she said. \u201cHe has needed assistance at home. He needs help doing his medications. He needs help doing tasks around the house.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) \u2014 A St. Petersburg firefighter is still recovering months after being injured during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-204730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}