Arkansas Police Chief Saves Disabled Man From Fire

A disabled man who had run-ins with a small-town Arkansas police chief ended up being saved by the same lawman.

Kibler, Ark., Police Chief Roger Green pulled James Katzfey, 48, out of his home after smoke inhalation left the man unconscious in his wheelchair on Nov. 21.

“We go down there all the time,” Green told the Fort Smith Times Record newspaper. “I’ve had run-ins with him and he doesn’t like me. Well, today, when he woke up he said, ‘You know, I’m glad you was here.’ That’s the first time he’s ever said a kind word to me.”

Green heard the dispatch call for the fire, about a mile outside of his jurisdiction, but still rushed over to the scene as he was the closest.

“When a life is in danger, boundaries mean nothing to me,” Green said.

Katzfey passed out while talking with a dispatcher. When Green arrived, the police chief said he saw smoke billowing out of the rural home. Green rushed in, following the sound of the dispatcher’s voice over the telephone through the smoke until he found Katzfey, slumped over in his wheelchair near a heater.

Katzfey’s jacket was on a fire, so the police chief grabbed it off the man and threw it to the floor. He carried Katzfey outside, then went back inside to stop the fire from spreading.

Katzfey was transported to Summit Medical Center in Van Buren, where he was treated and released.

Kibler, a city with about 1,000 residents, is 117 miles west of Little Rock.

Information from: Southwest Times Record, www.swtimes.com/