2021 Officer of the Year Award honors heroic actions
Fleetwood police officer rescues resident from burning home
The word “blaze” is sometimes misapplied in news stories about building fires, but the threealarmer that ripped through homes in the heart of Fleetwood on April 16, 2020, most certainly fits the definition of a large, fiercely burning fire.
As reported in the Reading Eagle, crews from 10 fire companies battled the fire that damaged six buildings and several vehicles in the 100 block of East Street, displacing seven residents.
Lost amid the numbers and other facts were the actions of the first emergency responder on the scene. As often happens in fires and other emergencies, it was a police officer who heard the dispatch while on patrol and arrived before fire crews to help residents escape the fire.
The police officer in this case is Angela Arndt, whose actions went unheralded until recently when Berks Lodge #71 of the Fraternal Order of Police honored her as its 2021 Officer of the Year.
Arndt, a Fleetwood police officer, was nominated by her supervisor, Sgt. Dale Ulshafer, currently the department’s office-in-charge.
Joseph M. Brown, FOP president, said the review committee selected Arndt because of her actions in putting her own life on the line to help others escape a life-threatening fire.
As described in the FOP news release announcing the honor:
Arndt was dispatched at 10:46 p.m. for a house fire.
Upon her arrival, Arndt found multiple homes on fire, live wires arcing and several vehicles on fire. She discovered the fire was spreading and that an adjacent home was likely still occupied.
Unable to approach the front of the homes because of the heavy fire, Arndt went to the rear of the residence and banged on the door. After there was no response, and fearing the occupant was in danger of death or serious injury if she did not act immediately, Arndt kicked open the door and entered the burning home.
She found the occupant inside and led him to safety, then continued to ensure occupants of other homes were evacuated.
“Officer Arndt ran towards the danger, knowing that her actions were placing herself in harm’s way,” Brown said. “Officer Arndt’s actions that day were not only heroic but demonstrates the type of police officer she truly is.”
Arndt was recognized in front of her peers at the annual awards dinner Dec. 16 in Temple.
Arndt, said she had no idea she
was in line for an award.
“It was pretty much the surprise of a lifetime,” she said. “I had absolutely no idea. My sergeant just told me I had to go to the FOP meeting but didn’t really say why.”
Arndt, 38, began her career as a police officer in Fleetwood in 2018.
Describing the events of that night, she said she was heading back from the place where officers refuel their cars, right before the end of her shift, when she was dispatched for a structure fire.
“I was supposed to be done at 11 p.m.,” she said in an interview. “I think I had like 10 minutes left. I had just filled the car with gas and was ready to go home.”
Structure fire calls often sound worse on initial dispatches than they ultimately turn out to be.
“You’re never quite thinking it’s going to be a worstcase scenario,” Arndt said. “I started reading the description (on the laptop in her vehicle), and it said multiple people (who were possibly entrapped in multiple dwellings) and I thought, “Oh my God, this is a legit thing.
“Fortunately I was right there in the borough. Coming in on Locust Street, it was dark but I could see the smoke even in the darkness. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was unbelievable.”
In less than the minute it took her to arrive from the fueling station, the fire had engulfed two row houses and extended to the front of a third.
Panic set in and she had racing thoughts. If anyone was inside those two homes, she thought, “It was going to be the worst incident I’m ever going to deal with.”
She kept her wits about her and started gathering information from neighbors who, to her relief, said the occupants of both homes made it out safely.
Her relief was fleeting. A sense of panic returned when no bystanders could account for the man who lived in the third house.
“They said a single guy lives there and they were not sure if he was home or not,” she recalled. “As they’re telling me this, we’re looking at the houses and live wires were just crackling and dropping to the ground. There were cars that caught on fire.”
She put the panic aside so she could think clearly and assess the situation. She decided she needed to try to get the resident out if he was inside.
“I couldn’t get to the front of the house at all,” she said. “It was totally covered in fire already. I ran around the back of the house and pounded on the door, one or two times. I didn’t get an answer.”
She knew there wasn’t time to wait for a response.
“I tried opening the door and it was locked,” she said. “I just gave it a good kick and the door flung open. I was walking in and he was actually walking toward me at the same time, but he had no sense of urgency.”
She asked if anyone else was in the house. He said there wasn’t, but she was struck by the man’s calm demeanor, seemingly oblivious to the life-threatening situation encompassing his home.
“I don’t think he quite realized the severity of how bad things were outside,” she said.
Arndt was relieved to have found him on the first floor and right away because the smoke and heat were such that she would not have been able to go upstairs to look for someone.
“I just I remember seeing him and going, ‘Oh thank God there’s someone here and he’s alive,’” she said.
Arndt said words can’t explain what she felt and heard as she pounded on the back door, coughing from the smoke and feeling the heat..
“That sound — fire definitely has a sound. It’s an absolutely roaring sound,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, let me get into this house.’ Thankfully, it worked out that he happened to be on the first floor.”
Arndt said the experience reminded her that a dangerous situation can arise right up until the last minute or two of any shift.
“In an odd way, that’s appealing about this job,” she said. “That it doesn’t really matter if you work in a city or a rural area or where you are.”
Officer of the Year was one of several awards presented to Berks police officers at the FOP banquet. Because of the pandemic, two years worth of nominations were reviewed for honors.
Unbeknownst to Arndt, her husband, Ben, and their daughter, Kennedy, 7, were in on the fact that she was up for some kind of award. They were sequestered in another room.
At some point, Arndt was called front and center. She gave her sergeant a look as if to say, ‘“What is going on?”
Then her husband and daughter entered the room.
She was overwhelmed with emotion when the award was announced.
“I was trying not to cry like a baby,” she said. “You do this job, show up for work every day hoping in some small way you can make a difference. Most of us don’t go to work looking for accolades. You do it because that’s what you do, it’s what you like to do.”
Arndt said she was just glad no one was hurt in the fire, though she sympathizes with those who were displaced and those who experienced significant property loss.
“I’m just glad it ended with no injuries or loss of life,” she said. “For me, that’s all I needed. We did our job and everyone went home safely at the end of the night. To be honored in this way, kind of early in my career, it’s a oncein-a-lifetime, once-in-a-career occurrence.”