Columbia County Sheriff’s bodycam video shows sheriff’s deputies evacuating occupants from a fire

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Bodycam video released Tuesday by the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office shows two sheriff’s deputies evacuating occupants from a residence during an early-morning fire in the building on Route 7A on Aug. 18.

While Deputies Timothy Gladwin and Cody Falkner were on routine patrol at about 2:13 a.m. in Hillsdale, they heard Columbia County 911 dispatch the Copake Fire Department and Community Rescue Squad to a working structure fire on Route 7A in the town, according to a written statement from Sheriff Donald J. Krapf.

Gladwin and Falkner immediately responded to the location of the fire and found one of the bottom-floor apartments in a two-story apartment building engulfed in flames, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

“They [the deputies] quickly started helping to evacuate the occupants, even assisting people out of a window,” according to the Sheriff’s Office.

In addition, the deputies asked the building’s residents whether anyone else was in the building, and one tenant from an upstairs apartment mentioned they had knocked on the door of the other upstairs apartment when leaving, but no one responded to the knock. However, the tenant believed someone may have still been in that apartment.

In response to the tenant, Gladwin and Falkner entered the building and went upstairs to the apartment, where the other person was believed to still be inside.

“They knocked on the door, didn’t receive a response, and immediately forced entry into the apartment,” according to the Sheriff’s Office. “They located a lone occupant asleep in his bedroom and helped him out of the apartment and down the stairs to safety.”

After the deputies confirmed no one else was in the building, Gladwin and Falkner ensured that emergency medical services personnel on the scene treated any occupants needing medical assistance. They also assisted one of the elderly occupants with contacting family members to come and assist her, according to the Sheriff’s Office.