Centralia Firefighter Run Over By Car Says He's Fortunate

A volunteer firefighter is back home after his leg was broken in three places when he was hit by a car while fighting a wildfire last week.  

Centralia Volunteer firefighter Jeff Mueller was near Highway 60 on Thursday helping fight some of the wildfires when he was hit by a car.

He knew instantly his leg was broken.

Mueller is having a hard time getting around or even getting comfortable.

But he feels fortunate only to have suffered a broken leg.

“This could have been a whole lot worse,” he said. “If it would have been a full-sized vehicle instead of a small car, I probably wouldn't have survived it."

The fire in Nowata County was the third fire of the day for Centralia Volunteer Firefighters.

He parked a tanker truck on the highway away from the fire, but conditions quickly changed.

"It was flying across those fields,” Mueller said. “So I thought,  ‘I need to move my truck, this is going to be a danger spot very soon.’"

Mueller was standing by the truck and loading hoses.

“Then all of a sudden, I feel the collision and I knew immediately I was hit by a car," he said.

He tried to get up.

"I realized my leg was broken and there was no way I was going to get up, so then my thought was I need to get out of the middle of the highway, because if another car comes they are going to run right over the top of me,” Mueller said.   

The driver stopped and helped Mueller get on to the trunk of the car, driving him to other firefighters on the scene.

Mueller was flown to a Tulsa hospital, where  X-rays showed he had a few broken bones.

He went through surgery and had a rod inserted in his leg.

He hopes his experience is a wake-up call for drivers who may encounter a fire.

"If you can't see through it, don't drive in it because you don't know what you are going to find in there,” he said. “There could be a disabled vehicle in there and you get stuck and then become a casualty of the fire."

Mueller is facing an eight-week recovery, but says once he's healed, he'll be back firefighting again.