From hospital bed to Myrtle Beach-area firefighter

Twenty-one-year-old Jasonn Russell took one step closer to his dream of being a fire chief on Friday when he graduated with 14 other men from the Myrtle Beach Fire Department’s training academy.

“One day I want to be a fire chief and run my own station, but for the first 20 years I want to be a firefighter,” Russell said Thursday sitting on his screened porch in Pawleys Island. “It’s the best job in the world. Some of us like the excitement of running into burning houses.”

Russell and the recruits spent hours on physical fitness and 556 hours during the last 13 weeks training to get their certifications and helmets, but for the always smiling young man the years before the training were not easy, either.

“It was a lot of struggles to get here,” Russell said. “I deal with pain every day.”

At the age of 16, Russell spent 17 days at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston recovering from severe cuts to his chest, broken ribs, bruised legs and a severe brain injury.

“I remember watching a movie before we were walking to the beach. I was walking backwards with my friends in the grassy part of the golf cart path,” Russell said. “The next thing I remember is being moved from one side of the hospital to another [about a week later].”

His injuries and lapse of memory were caused when Russell was struck by a car that sped away while he was walking with friends about 11 p.m. Aug. 29, 2010, along Litchfield Road.

“The people involved in the rescue who helped save my life that day helped determine my path today,” Russell said. “I want to make a difference in somebody’s life. I get enjoyment out of putting a smile on somebody’s face and being able to save someone’s life will put a smile on their face.”

The crash was terrifying for Russell’s family. They were told he might not fully recover from the brain injury.

“I remember crying a lot for that first week. That was definitely the hardest thing I had to go through,” Russell’s father, Klaus Russell, said of his oldest son, who left the hospital that September with poor eyesight, underweight, barely able to walk and stuttering.

“I’ll take that accident over not having him,” said Klaus Russell, who got teary-eyed Friday during his son’s firefighter graduation. “Jasonn has come a long way from there. He’s a healthy young man.”

The crash also impacted another young man’s life, the driver of the car – Thomas Gallagher, who was 18 at the time. Russell said he and Gallagher had been at a mutual friend’s graduation party, but they didn’t know each other.

Gallagher was arrested Aug. 30, 2010, and charged in the hit-and-run, according to authorities. He pleaded guilty on June 30, 2011, to hit and run with great bodily injury.

A judge sentenced Gallagher under the Youthful Offender Act to a prison sentence not to exceed six years, but suspended that to three years probation and that he remain enrolled in school, according to court records. Gallagher’s probation ended in January 2014.

Gallagher could not be reached for comment about this story.

Russell said he received an apology letter from Gallagher’s grandparents, but he’s never spoken to the other young man about the crash.

“If I held on to anger that would have held me back,” Russell said.

He does agree the crash has had a prominent impact on his life, but the injuries and aftermath are behind him.

“I don’t think my injuries held me back at all. I believe this is just the start of my future,” Russell said. “Becoming a firefighter is going to be my top achievement.”

He continues to have a tingling sensation in his shoulder and the nerves in his chest don’t feel the same, Russell said, rubbing a thumb over a scar that looks like a claw mark down his chest.

“I refused to take any pain medication because I’ve heard too many stories about people getting addicted to it,” Russell said. “Every day for the past five years, I’ve had to deal with pain. After a while you tend to block out the pain and it becomes a part of you. I’ve come to enjoy pain. ... I work harder when I feel the pain. That way I know I’m still alive.”

Russell has a tattoo of the grim reaper on his right shoulder and says “I dodged death” as his hand glides over it to the scar on his chest. He turns slightly and a gray-scale colored wolf shows on his left back shoulder, which he said is for his family.

With emergency sirens blaring in the distance Thursday afternoon near their Pawleys Island home, Russell’s mom, Olivia Russell, said she always worries about her sons – Jasonn has a 20-year-old brother, Kyle, who is in the Army. Jasonn Russell wanted to join the military but was told his injuries prevented him from serving.

“For me this is all bonus. For me to hold him back because he might die again is not what I want to do,” Olivia Russell said. “When he came home he said ‘I need to deal with this pain I don’t want to be on medication’ for the rest of his life. He was in pain, but he just powered through it. He’s a powerhouse now.”

After he returned to high school, Russell graduated with his class and attended some college before getting into the fire training academy. He’s a volunteer with Midway Fire, but he hopes to make it a career with a permanent job with an area department.

Myrtle Beach Fire Battalion Chief Shawn Pratt, an instructor at the fire academy, said they didn’t learn of Jasonn Russell’s crash until about halfway through the training that included ocean rescues, auto extrication, emergency vehicle driving, hazardous materials and basics of firefighting in addition to physical fitness.

“He’s a quiet individual, very happy, very energetic and pleasant,” Pratt said. “He’s a hard worker. There were things like the rest of the recruits he struggled with and he overcame them like the others. He’s overcome a lot of things and he seems to be doing really well now.”

The toughest part of the training for Russell was not the hours of running, pushups, sit-ups or learning how to battle a growing blaze and safely remove someone from an unsafe situation.

“My worse fear is falling backwards and heights,” he said and noted he successfully repelled down an 80-foot tower and completed his ladder training 75 feet in the air.

After Friday’s graduation, Jasonn Russell’s dad gave him a Saint Florian badge and his mom placed it around his neck. Jasonn’s brother, Kyle, pinned his firefighter badge on him during the ceremony.

Afterward, with a smile across his face, Jasonn Russell said, “It feels great. I am now known as Firefighter Jasonn Russell.”

This story was originally published April 11, 2015 at 7:00 AM with the headline "From hospital bed to Myrtle Beach-area firefighter."