Atlanta firefighter recovering from fall

An Atlanta firefighter was recovering in the hospital Friday after falling from the roof while battling a Buckhead blaze the previous day.

Firefighter Spurgeon Putnam fell 20 feet from a building at the Victoria complex in the 3500 block of Roswell Road Thursday. He was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital.

“No neck injuries, no spinal injuries, no broken bones. He was amazingly lucky,” fire department spokeswoman Janet Ward told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

While Putnam is doing better, he was not released from the hospital Friday, she said.

Another injured firefighter, Josh Martinson, was treated for burned shoulders and released Thursday.

Assistant Fire Chief Chris Wessels said Thursday that the two men were working on the roof during a ventilation operation, which is “one of the most dangerous things our guys do.”

Putnam was fortunate in that he had his fall broken by one of the building’s vestibules, Wessels said.

Wessels said four units of the apartment building, which he believed had 16 units, were damaged in the fire.

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