Around 2:30 a.m. on a quiet Tuesday morning, Omaha Police Officers Ian Baxter and David Eckstrom were handling a routine task: inspecting an abandoned car near 72nd and Pacific Streets.
Suddenly, Baxter saw an orange glow less than a block east of where they were—a small flicker that rapidly grew into a massive fireball filling the night sky. An audible boom echoed.
“Saw an orange glow, a small one at first,” he told reporters the next day at the Omaha Police Union hall. “Just thought it was a bonfire or something like that, but then it grew extremely rapidly.”
That routine night on June 9 turned out to be anything but.
The two officers rushed to a burning house on Mason and 69th Street and found a family and neighbors outside, screaming about a 4-year-old boy still trapped in the basement below the inferno.
Eckstrom reacted immediately by running to the house and kicking in the glass of the basement window. Kneeling in the dirt, the officer discovered the boy trying to access the stairs to the main floor, directly under the worst part of the blaze.
“He was trying to get back into the house,” Eckstrom said. “I was just terrified for the kid.”
The officer shouted for the boy to follow the sound of his voice. “He came right over to me as I was calling,” said Eckstrom, who couldn’t get in because the window had a dividing beam that obstructed him.
“We had to meet each other halfway. I got in there as far as I could. He did a great job.”
The officer got both his arms around the 4-year-old and pulled him to safety where Baxter treated him for smoke inhalation. The boy looked shaken up but wasn’t hurt.
The next day, Eckstrom held out his forearms to show reporters the cuts he had sustained. He said after the adrenaline wore off he wiped pieces of broken glass from his head and saw blood, but he was otherwise okay.
The incident underscores what officers face every day, he added.
“Our job goes zero to 100 all the time,” Eckstrom said. “You’re sitting for hours typing reports, or you’re sprinting after someone, or you’re kicking a window open. It is just kind of the nature of the job.”
He called his reaction at the scene “100 percent instinctual.”
“I’m a dad before I’m a cop. Every kid I see reminds me of my own kids,” he said. “Just did what I could. It all happened so fast.”
Police said the blaze was caused by discarded coals from a barbecue and quickly spread from a back deck to the house. Omaha firefighters arrived and put out the fire, but the police officers who were already near the scene say they are grateful they were able to act on a moment’s notice.
The next day, the Omaha police department took to Facebook and shared still photos from the officers’ body camera footage.
“Every day, Omaha Police Officers are faced with split-second decisions,” the caption read.
“Officer Eckstrom and Baxter’s quick response to a life threatening situation is just one of many examples of OPD officers putting their lives on the line to protect the citizens of Omaha. We are proud of Officer Eckstrom and Baxter, and all our officers’ dedication and service.”
