METAIRIE, La. — What you are about to read is a story of survival. As told by the men who bear the scars, both visible and unseen. No one emerged from this fire unscathed, but they are all still standing.
They’re a testament to an epic tale of rescue and recovery.
To understand what makes Danny Ziegler tick, you have to wind back the clock. The third of five boys was born into a blended family of service – cops, firefighters and soldiers.
It’s how Danny started. First in the army, then the marines, then the front lines of fighting fires in Detroit.
“Growing up in Detroit kind of makes you not afraid of anything,” Ziegler said. “It’s such a tough city.”
Eventually, three of the four brothers moved to New Orleans where the family has roots. They all wound up in the Jefferson Parish Fire Department.
On this night, Danny was assigned to Engine 188. A raging fire erupted in Old Metairie at a condominium for senior citizens.
“I just went to the store to get groceries,” Danny remembers. “The alert went off for a second alarm and then we responded.”
Known as a roof man, Danny volunteered for the dangerous job he was so good at.
“I said the chief, maybe we should get on the roof and cut holes,” he said. “See if we can find the fire.”
Armed with his ax, that’s just what he did. For a split moment, he saw a familiar face just beyond shouting distance.
“I saw him on the balcony talking on the radio,” Danny said. It was another district chief. “I saw him for one second, but I knew he was there.”
Danny started to pick at the roof, chopping away when without warning his heart sunk – right after his feet.
“My right foot started sinking in and I was like, ‘oh boy, I better get off the roof,’” he said. “It wasn’t a second later the whole roof collapsed.”
It’s a memory seared in the minds of everyone who responded that night.
“The first physical thing I felt was my knees buckle,” Chief Dave Tibbetts remembered. “A firefighter going through the roof of an active fire is almost a complete death sentence.”
As Tibbetts raced to the scene, Jefferson Parish firefighters began a frantic search.
Billy Haas was on the third floor searching for residents when the mayday came out. He had no idea it was his dear friend who was missing. No name was ever mentioned.
“I landed on my hands and knees,” Danny said.
He remembers with perfect clarity what anyone would rather forget.
“I tried to climb out and I burned my lower back,” Danny said. “The flames went up the back of my fire jacket and burned my lower back."
The sweat inside his gloves turned to steam burning his fingertips to the bone.
He knew he had to escape, but the only way to get out was to go deeper into the flames. He noticed drywall between the attic rafters.
“I kicked it and my foot went right through, so I jumped in the air and jumped through and made it,” Danny said.
Lt. Haas was on the floor below when something stopped him in his tracks.
“We started hearing moaning,” Haas said. “A moaning sound.”
It was Danny.
“Everything in my head had been burned, my eyes, my ears, my throat,” Danny said. “I just started walking.”
“It was luck of the draw,” Haas said. “We ran into the first apartment door we saw and that was it. There he was.”
Lt. Haas had no idea who he was searching for and no idea who he’d found. Even then, face-to-face with one of his best friends, Danny was burned beyond recognition.
“All I could see was the shape of an air bottle and I smacked the air bottle and it was my lieutenant,” Danny remembered. “I said, ‘get me outta here!’ and they carried me out.”
Danny Ziegler was alive, but now the task was keeping him that way.
“I opened my eyes when I was in the ambulance and then I lifted my hand and the skin was falling off and at that point the paramedic knocked me out,” Danny said.
Chief Tibbets met him at the hospital, but when he asked about firefighter Ziegler, the nurses responded "which one?"
Remember that familiar face Danny saw from the roof? The district chief on the balcony? That was his brother, Capt. Billy Ziegler.
After hearing about Danny, Billy suffered all the symptoms of a heart attack. Both brothers were rushed to hospital.
Matt Shoder, the youngest fire fighting brother was off that day and out of town.
“My phone just started blowing up,” he said. “There’s just four of us … it’s a call you never want. I just feared the worst.”
And he had every reason to.
With Billy Ziegler now stable, Chief Tibbetts went straight to Danny.
“Brutal,” Tibbets described, choking up. “I didn’t think he was going to live.”
The images are so very hard to look at and yet a reminder of all Danny sacrificed to help save those elderly residents. There he was, the man who walked out of flames, on his back, tethered to machines both keeping him alive and in a medically induced coma.
His brother Matt got there the next day.
“It was something I never want to remember,” he said.
Danny was bathed in antibiotics and blanketed in bandages, but as bad as it looked, Matt said there were initial signs of hope… false hope.
“The first week after the fire, he was up, alert and moving around,” Matt said.
That was only until the complications set in. MRSA, lung infections, kidney problems, Danny was placed back on a ventilator and into a coma. His brothers remained at his bedside until one day it looked like the end was in sight.
“We’re at this point where it may not get better, it may only get worse,” Matt said holding back tears.
But Dr. Carter, who the Zieglers credit with saving Danny, had not quit in him either. He suggested physically flipping Danny, life support and all, to try to get the fluid off his lungs. It’s as risky as it gets, but Matt didn’t think twice.
“I was begging them to please, please save his life,” Matt said. “And they did.”
With just hours, they saw improvement and within days, real hope.
Using revolutionary “spray skin” that seemed to erase Danny’s scars, doctors treated Danny’s burns while his brothers, both those who share his blood and those who share his badge, fed his spirits.
Danny hopes to return to his ladder in six months.
“If I would let him, he’d be on this truck right here and he’d be at a fire tonight cutting a hole in it,” Tibbetts said.
Danny’s chief looks forward to his return and so do his brothers.
His big brother, the one who landed in the emergency room with Danny, still can’t talk about it. But actions speak louder than words and he’s still standing.
“I know he needs to be back here for himself,” Matt said. “And I’ll be here with him.”
A family of service. A man of valor. A warrior. A survivor. An American hero whose story has already inspired the next generation.
“I can tell you that when my dad said a firefighter fell from a third story, they told me to pray so the next day I went to church and prayed,” a young girl wrote to Danny. “And I guess you can say my prayers worked. I will always stay strong like Ziggy.”
If you would like to help the Ziegler family by contributing to Danny's ongoing medical expenses, visit their GoFundMe Page here.
Previous Coverage:
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.