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American Morning

Interview with John Rose, Paul Archambault

Aired September 05, 2002 - 07:52   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Now to California, a dramatic story of heroism and luck. A woman there alive and well today, thanks to two sheriff's officers, deputies. As the flames from a spreading wildfire surrounded a mountaintop home, 60-year-old Sigrid Hopson decided she would commit suicide rather than burn to death.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIGRID HOPSON, RESCUED FROM BURNING HOME: I was engulfed from three sides with the fire. I saw trees falling down, burning. And there was no hope, and I wasn't going to leave my animals behind. My greatest fear was to burn alive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Before Hopson could pull the trigger on the gun she was holding, she was rescued by two sheriff's deputies, and they are with us this morning, the lifesavers, members of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, Deputy Paul Archambault and Deputy John Rose.

Job well done, men, and good morning to you in California.

Deputy Rose, tell us this: You arrived at the scene. Describe it to us. The fires and the situation with Ms. Hopson, you find what?

JOHN ROSE, L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: We came to the parking lot area of the canyon that she was in, and she was up a trail between an eighth and a quarter of a mile. And it was completely engulfed in flames, a very, very hot wind, ash and trees were on fire, rocks falling. It was pretty intense.

HEMMER: Deputy Archambault, did she have the gun with her at the time? And if so, how did you talk her out of it? How did you get her out of it?

PAUL ARCHAMBAULT, L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: Actually, my partner did all of the hero stuff. I just did a little driving. He was able to actually trick her into looking one way, and he told her to look for a cat, and she looked away, and he grabbed it out of her hand.

The fire was so close, she was at the end of her rope, and she was going to kill herself.

HEMMER: Deputy Rose, why did she not want to just go willingly at that point, knowing that the two of you men had arrived on the scene? ROSE: I think it was a matter of she had kind of made up her mind that she wasn't going to make it out of there. And she loves her mountain, and she loves her animals, and it was just something that she had decided she had to do.

HEMMER: So you get the gun out of her hands. Now, you get her into the vehicle. You've gotten in. Now, you've got to get out. What happened then?

ROSE: My partner told her to close her eyes and put her seatbelt on, because she didn't want to see what was in front of us. And it was kind of true, because north of us, the road goes north and south. North of us, the road was completely blocked and engulfed, as was the way we had come in. So we kind of sat there for a second. We didn't really discuss it. We knew that we had to go one way or the other, and we just kind of banged forward as fast as we could.

HEMMER: How close was the fire to your car? Tell me about the tires melting. Tell me about the problems you had inside the vehicle.

ROSE: The problems -- there were several problems. The burning debris and rock on the road, the fact that the flames were engulfing the road due to the debris that was on fire and the trees and the rocks that were on fire on both sides of the highway. And the interior of the vehicle was very hot. We had to kind of stay away from the door panels and the windows, because we were actually singeing on the door panels and windows.

HEMMER: Did you guys think you would get out of there?

ROSE: We hoped we would.

ARCHAMBAULT: We had to -- we got up there...

(CROSSTALK)

HEMMER: So you weren't sure, then, were you?

ROSE: There was some -- there was a few times when, especially on the way up and we had to pause because of the flames and the ash and the wind. We were hoping we'd be all right.

ARCHAMBAULT: We wanted to get her out.

HEMMER: What a story. Would you go in again?

ARCHAMBAULT: We had to get her out. We don't leave anybody up there.

ROSE: We hope -- we both, we have talked about this. We both hope we never have to do something like that again.

HEMMER: Job well done, men. Deputy Paul Archambault, Deputy John Rose, L.A. County. What a story. Thank you, guys.

ROSE: Thank you.

ARCHAMBAULT: Thank you.

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