He fitted the self-contained breathing apparatuses over the faces of the downed firefighters and covered them with bunker gear. Outside, emergency responders were beginning to torch a hole in the side of the bin.
"After I did the patient assessment, I started feeling the effects, so I climbed back up to the top," he said. "I got an air-pack and went back in. I could hear the saw cutting through the metal."
Eardman secured the injured firefighters away from the wall and at the top of the pile of grain so they wouldn't suffocate once the beans began spilling out of the opening. Just as he headed back up and out of the bin, he felt himself losing consciousness.
Outside, the wall already penetrated with welding torches, the injured firefighters were being dragged to safety. Eardman helped work on one guy before other emergency workers noticed Eardman himself needed assistance.
"I was walking kind of crazy, and then they put me in an ambulance to Weatherford," he said. "I have lost some time in there somewhere, because I really don't recall much until about 4 o'clock Tuesday morning."
Mike Karlin, the assistant chief of the Weatherford Fire Department, said Eardman and Weatherford firefighter, Kyle Nonast, were key to rescuing the surviving firefighters.
"They took the big role in the rescue."
JoAnne Sellars, chief of operations for the state fire marshal's office, said the fire in Hydro has been ruled as an accident, caused by spontaneous combustion of organic material in the bin.
Eardman, who has been at the Hobart Fire Department since 2001, said he has had some respiratory problems since working the Hydro fire, but is otherwise OK.
He said his heart was warmed when he heard that one of the firefighters learned after the accident that he is expecting a newborn son.
"I'm a father; I have a son at Southwestern and I couldn't imagine him growing up without a father."
43° 