{"id":53128,"date":"2025-12-05T16:25:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T16:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/53128\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T16:25:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T16:25:06","slug":"firefighters-honored-for-rescue-efforts-during-west-reading-pa-factory-explosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/53128\/","title":{"rendered":"Firefighters Honored for Rescue Efforts During West Reading, PA, Factory Explosion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Members of the\u00a0Spring Township\u00a0and\u00a0Wyomissing\u00a0fire departments have been recognized for putting their lives on the line to save workers in the immediate aftermath of the 2023\u00a0R.M. Palmer Co.\u00a0chocolate factory explosion<\/a> in\u00a0West Reading<\/p>\n

The medals were awarded in a joint ceremony recently hosted by the Township of Spring Fire Rescue Services and Wyomissing Fire Department at the Spring Township fire station.<\/p>\n

In a report released in the spring, the\u00a0National Transportation Safety Board\u00a0confirmed the\u00a0March 24, 2023, blast was the result of a natural gas leak.<\/p>\n

Now that the\u00a0NTSB\u00a0has issued a final report in the incident that claimed the lives of seven workers, officials said they felt it was appropriate to recognize the extraordinary actions taken by members of their respective departments that afternoon.<\/p>\n

Rick Shartel, a former\u00a0Spring Township\u00a0deputy chief and current member of the support staff, delivered prepared remarks before the awards were presented by representatives of the respective departments.<\/p>\n

Captains\u00a0Jeremy Conner\u00a0and\u00a0Matthew Risell\u00a0(then a technician) and Firefighter\u00a0John Christian\u00a0of\u00a0Spring Township\u00a0Fire Rescue Services were given valor medals by their department.<\/p>\n

Captains\u00a0Dean Yeager\u00a0and\u00a0Adam Sites\u00a0(then a technician) and Firefighter\u00a0Raymond Okonski\u00a0of the\u00a0Wyomissing Fire Department\u00a0were given meritorious service medals by their department.<\/p>\n

Shartel summarized their actions as follows:<\/p>\n

At\u00a04:58 p.m.\u00a0crews from both departments were dispatched to\u00a077 S. Second Ave.\u00a0for an explosion at the chocolate factory.<\/p>\n

Their crews left stations in under a minute and arrived at the south side of the factory in under five minutes.<\/p>\n

Their initial assignment was assisting with fire suppression by deploying a hose line and aggressively progressing on a fire fight. During the fire attack, a live victim was found in about 5 feet of debris at the base of the damaged north wall of a five-story warehouse.<\/p>\n

As life preservation is the top priority of rescue personnel, crews paused the aggressive fire attack, gathered additional tools and began conducting lifesaving rescue operations. Personnel from\u00a0Spring\u00a0and\u00a0Wyomissing\u00a0carefully and methodically lifted and removed debris to gain access to the buried victim.<\/p>\n

While performing the rescue operation, the captains recognized the need to divide tasks and resumed the fire attack in an attempt to protect the rescuers and victims from a rapidly growing fire.<\/p>\n

The crews successfully removed the victim within 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

A respected veteran of the\u00a0Reading Fire Department, Second Deputy Chief\u00a0Thomas Rehr, who arrived right after the explosion and managed the crews that flowed in after he arrived on the scene, saw the\u00a0Spring\u00a0and\u00a0Wyomissing\u00a0crews\u2019 actions during rescue operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cChief Rehr described how the crews were in extreme personal danger as they had to contend with pockets of gas igniting in the immediate area and the danger of additional collapse of the five-story north wall of the warehouse,\u201d Shartel said.<\/p>\n

The crews exceeded expectations by sacrificing their personal safety to save at least one more life during the tragic event, he said.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2025 the Reading Eagle (Reading, Pa.). Visit\u00a0readingeagle.com<\/a>. Distributed by\u00a0Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the\u00a0Spring Township\u00a0and\u00a0Wyomissing\u00a0fire departments have been recognized for putting their lives on the line to save workers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-53128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-reading-city","9":"tag-reading-city-headlines","10":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}