Christian Cooper reconnects with Hoover firefighters who came to his fiery crash

Most paramedics don’t get to follow up with patients they treat and take to the hospital, but firefighters and paramedics at Hoover’s Bluff Park fire station today had that chance.

Christian Cooper, a 25-year-old Hoover man who suffered burns over 80 percent of his body in a fiery crash on Interstate 65 in February, dropped by Hoover Fire Station No. 5 and ate lunch with the firefighters and paramedics.

Three of the five paramedics who responded to Cooper’s crash were able to reconnect with him — under much better circumstances.

Chuck Banks, the station captain, said he had kept up with Cooper’s story of recovery through a Caring Bridge page Cooper’s sister had set up. Once Cooper returned home to Hoover from a burn center in Augusta, Georgia, Banks called and invited him to come have lunch with the firefighters.

He wanted his men to have an opportunity to meet one of their patients who had a good outcome and see firsthand how their work had an impact on somebody else’s life, he said.

“A lot of times, we don’t get the follow-up,” Banks said. “We treat them, stabilize them and once they get in the hospital, we never hear from them again. Having somebody come by and visit us like this — it’s great.”

Banks said he has been a firefighter for about 35 years and has seen a lot of people whose burn injuries were less severe than Cooper’s injuries but didn’t survive.

“Seeing him that day, I knew he was going to have a very tough road ahead of him if he survived,” Banks said.

It has been a tough road. When Cooper was first taken to UAB Hospital from the wreck, doctors gave him a five percent chance of surviving through the night and said if he did survive, he would never walk out of the hospital, his father, Earl Cooper, said.

Cooper spent five months at the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Georgia, undergoing multiple surgeries and skin grafts and battling infections and other difficulties. He came home in late July but has continued with physical therapy and more surgeries. His 61st surgery is scheduled for this Thursday, his father said.

While at the Bluff Park fire station today, Banks showed Cooper a picture on their wall from Cooper’s wreck scene. They talked about what happened that day from their different perspectives.

Banks said as soon as they got on the scene and saw bystanders carrying Cooper’s body over the guardrail on the side of the interstate, he told his men to forget about the fire for the moment and focus on Cooper. Once they got Cooper stabilized, they turned their attention to his car that was on fire down a ravine.

Banks said there were three things that contributed to Cooper’s positive outcome that day: God’s grace, Cooper’s strong will to survive and a lot of bystanders who were willing to help.

Read more about Cooper’s account of the wreck and recovery here, as well as an account by one of the bystanders who helped rescue him.

Cooper in August was reunited with an off-duty Birmingham firefighter who was one of the bystanders who helped him that day. He said today he wants to thank as many people as possible who have helped him along the way.

“These guys were very instrumental in my progress of where I am today,” he said. “It’s great to come back and meet these guys.”

The firefighters at Station 5 presented Cooper with a Hoover Fire Department hat, two T-shirts, a coffee mug and Hoover Fire Department challenge coin.

“You’re just a miracle,” Hoover fire Chief Chuck Wingate told Cooper.

Here’s a video of Cooper’s Aug. 8 speech to Hoover school employees as they started the school year at the Hoover City Schools Institute at Hunter Street Baptist Church: