#68 A Firefighter’s Faith in the Flames - Cheyane Caldwell
Cheyane Caldwell was a young firefighter struggling with how to live for God while living in the world.
When suddenly, while battling a roaring fire he fell through the roof into a raging inferno and immediately knew he was going to die.
The following is a summary of the podcast interview above with Cheyane Caldwell. Many more details are included in the original podcast episode and we encourage you to listen.
Written by Jace Bower
Finding Identity in Strength and Success
Cheyane Caldwell was born in 1977. His mother was an immigrant from Mexico and his father was an African-American man from New Jersey.
Growing up in the American Southwest, Cheyane found a love for football at an early age. While his mom talked about God, Cheyane thought of him more as an afterthought. He became quite successful as a football player in high school.
During high school, Cheyane and his friends would go to parties on the weekend, drink, and get in fights. Cheyane’s life was about success on the football field and finding his identity in his strength and his group of macho friends.
He was accepted into UCLA and the coach placed him on the football team. But shortly before Cheyane moved to UCLA, his father became a Christian and urged Cheyane to accept Christ as well.
Cheyane still wasn’t convinced of his need for God but he was connected to a group of Christian athletes at UCLA. They invited him to join them for Bible studies and after one particular devotional, Cheyane put his faith in Jesus and said the sinner’s prayer.
But even after this conversion, he was still living for himself. He trusted Christ as Savior but was slow to submit his life to Christ’s Lordship.
After a successful football career at UCLA, Cheyane decided not to pursue professional football opportunities. Instead, he became a firefighter, eventually ending up in the Los Angeles Fire Department and achieving a significant promotion.
His faith was still nascent, but in the summer of 2007, Cheyane experienced an event that would change his life and faith forever.
The Fire
The call comes in: a one-story commercial front building on fire. Cheyane and his crew load into their truck and speed down the road, sirens screaming.
They pull up to the building on fire. It’s an auto shop. One external wall is covered in graffiti. Weeds are growing out of the easement. From the back of the building, Cheyane sees a fiery orange glow.
Immediately, he gets out of the truck and starts to put the 100-foot aerial ladder in place. Meanwhile, Cheyane assesses the situation and puts a plan of action together in his head.
He needs to get on top of the roof so he can cut a hole and let the smoke vent out so his team can properly fight the fire. Standard protocol.
Aware of the billowing smoke, he starts his chainsaw before engaging the inferno. Like humans, chainsaws need to “breathe” and they don’t start up well in heavy smoke.
Cheyane climbs his ladder to the roof, chainsaw in hand. He notices the fire captain has ascended the ground ladder to check the situation on the roof of the building as well. This gives Cheyane a false sense of security. He steps out onto the roof. Then another step. And another step.
Suddenly, the roof gives way completely under him and Cheyane falls face-first through the roof and into the raging fire below.
Confusion. Orange. Smoke. Heat. Pain.
With a start, Cheyane realizes where he is. He's in the heart of an inferno.
The first thing that races to Cheyane’s mind is embarrassment. He takes great pride in being a competent firefighter and he knows that now the entire situation has gone from bad to worse…and it’s his fault.
The fire is 2,000°F and is warping the metal-framed building around him.
The flesh on his tendons, arms, and hands is melting off. The pain is unbearable.
There is no way out. This is the end.
The next thing Cheyane thinks is, “I’m alone. Lord, I’m ready to go.” He thinks of his wife, Nohemi, and he thinks about the life God has given him.
Although he has struggled for years with living out his faith and resisting the temptations of the world, Cheyane also knows that he never merited eternal salvation in the first place. It was a free gift from God. Cheyane has lived an imperfect life, but he now knows with perfect clarity that his trust in Christ as his Savior is the only reason he can be at peace with death.
As the room burns orange around him, Cheyane prays, “God, please take me quickly so I can escape the pain.”
A Miracle
Meanwhile, his crewmates are praying for something entirely different.
News of Cheyane’s fall spreads quickly. A rookie firefighter, formerly a pastor, is on a truck riding to the scene. The captain looks back at him and says, “Pray.”
Another technician aboard a separate truck en route to the inferno calls his wife and tells her to pray for Cheyane and pass the situation on to their prayer chain.
As Cheyane lies burning in the melting heat, numerous Christians are lifting him up in prayer, asking that God would spare his life.
The crew at the fire quickly goes to work trying to save Cheyane.
They’ve been trained to never use a hose on a burning victim because the water will turn to steam and scald the person. But the fire captain has an instinct to go against his training. Later he’ll say that God told him to do it, despite not believing in God at the time. He barks an order to the team and they orient a hose to aim right through the hole in the roof that Cheyane disappeared through.
As soon as the water from the hose hits Cheyane, he feels the burning sensation vanish. As he was praying for God to take him quickly, God was orchestrating events to help relieve the suffering that Cheyane is experiencing.
His crew breaks into the building and they navigate through the smoke and fiery blaze to find Cheyane and drag him out. As they cross the threshold of the door, into the open, Cheyane lifts his arms to the sky. He’s out and he’s still alive, much to the shock of his crew. He spent over 7 minutes in the midst of the 2,000°F inferno.
After being loaded into the ambulance, Cheyane is taken to the hospital and put into a medically induced coma for immediate treatment. It’s at this point that God’s protection of him becomes radiantly clear.
Despite falling from about thirteen feet while wearing 80 pounds of extra gear and wielding a running chainsaw, Cheyane has no broken bones.
Perhaps even more shocking, even though he spent seven minutes in the smoke with no breathing apparatus, there is no damage to his respiratory system.
God’s Mercy and Power on Display
Cheyane’s survival and recovery are nothing short of a miracle. Even the exact place where he fell was providential. A few feet to the left, he would have impaled himself on fencing in the shop. A few feet to the right, he would have landed directly on the hard concrete floor, certainly breaking bones or worse.
Instead, Cheyane fell between the two, hitting a horizontal fence pole that broke his fall.
God was certainly with Cheyane in the life-threatening moments in that blazing room. And Cheyane’s experience transformed his relationship with God. He went from believing in Jesus and claiming Him as Savior, to actually following Christ and allowing Him to be Lord.
Cheyane’s miraculous story demonstrates the providence of God and the power of prayer. While Cheyane had given up hope and was praying for a quick death amidst the flames, brothers and sisters around the city were praying that God would save him.
For much of his life up to that point, Cheyane had found identity in things other than his relationship with Jesus Christ: his football success, his masculinity, his strength. But God showed him through this experience that he could only trust the Lord for true strength and power in the face of life’s unpredictable circumstances.
That day in 2007 will forever be etched in Cheyane’s life as his refining moment of faith.
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Jace Bower is a writer with a passion for justice and biblical principles. He writes at jacebower.com.
🔗 Links
Cheyane is an active member of Firefighters For Christ. If you are a firefighter then you can find a local chapter at their website here.
🎥 Video
Cheyane shared his testimony in the short video below.
🎧 3 RECOMMENDED EPISODES:
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