UTAH STATE PRISON — Mike Lindsay was crouched under a tarp Wednesday with five firefighters, getting ready to eat a snack and wait out the devilish storm pounding the Stansbury Mountains west of Tooele.
"Next thing I knew they were shaking me, 'Are you OK? Are you OK?' and that's when the nightmare started," Lindsay said.
Dazed, he looked around and noticed a fellow firefighter lying on the ground.
"I saw the look on his face, and I snapped out of it," Lindsay said.
Lindsay administered CPR until his head hurt from blowing air and his arms ached from pushing on the man's chest.
"It seemed like a week," Lindsay said. "You're expecting something and nothing comes."
Despite Lindsay and others' efforts, 27-year-old Michael Bishop and 26-year-old Rodgie Braithwaite died from the lightning bolt that struck their crew of six firefighters. They were members of the Utah State Prison's respected Flame-N-Gos firefighting contingent. The lightning strike left Lindsay unconscious for a moment.
Little more than 24 hours after the deadly lightning strike, Lindsay, 34, sat in a conference room at the prison's Lone Peak Facility trying to put into words Wednesday's harrowing ordeal.
"Right now there's a lot of heartache and hardship in our crew, but we've had a lot of good times," Lindsay said.
The Flame-N-Gos was formed in 1978 under an agreement between the Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands and the prison. Flame-N-Gos are model prisoners who are hand-picked to join a crew that can travel all over the U.S. fighting wildfires.
The outside world may see them as prisoners, but to their friends, family and co-workers, they're firefighters first.
"As a team they're unbeatable," said Ben Vanzant, a corrections field officer who works with the firefighters. "These guys earned the right to be here. The two that died; they were two firefighters doing what they loved, and they believed in what they were doing."
Lindsay admitted he and his comrades made mistakes in the past. Prison records indicate Bishop was scheduled for parole in October 2002 after being sent to prison in 1993 on an attempted murder conviction. Braithwaite's parole date was July 2001 after a 1997 automobile homicide conviction.
But in the face of 30 foot-flames and thick smoke, labels like "inmate" and "prisoner" disintegrate like dry tinder under a match.
"We regard them as some of the best-trained firefighters we have, and we're happy to have them in our ranks," said Glenn Foreman, state public affairs officer for the Bureau of Land Management.
Flags at BLM stations around the state were lowered to half mast Thursday and eight people from the Serious Accident Investigation Team arrived from Boise to investigate the incident, Foreman said.
Lindsay said Wednesday started out as a normal day for the Flame-N-Gos. They arrived on Stansbury Mountain in the morning, with some clouds in the sky. By early afternoon, rain, hail and lightning were pounding the area where Lindsay's hand line crew was digging firebreaks to contain the 250-acre blaze. They turned off all radio equipment and hurried to the lowest point they could find on the torched earth. As the lightning continued, Lindsay's six-man crew found a rock and crouched close together under their tarp.
"It was crashing down on us all around," Lindsay said.
Edward Mila's crew was a quarter of a mile from Lindsay's and didn't know anything was wrong until his crew boss ran toward Lindsay's group.
"We didn't see the lightning strike, that's how fast it happened," Mila, 22, said.
The strike left Lindsay with a sore back and Flame-N-Gos Ernest Chacon, Anthony Duran and Benjamin Taliulu with minor injuries. All four returned to Lone Peak for a sleepless night without two of their comrades.
Lindsay and Mila chuckled as they discussed their memories of Bishop and Braithwaite Thursday. Bishop was the comedian, Braithwaite the quiet, hardworking type. Both were like brothers to their crew.
Bishop's family was at the prison Thursday and spent less than an hour talking with Flame-N-Go crew members. The family did not respond to interview requests with the Deseret News, but according to Lindsay and Mila, Bishop and Braithwaite will not be forgotten.
"It would have been (easy) for all six of us to suffer the same," Lindsay said.
Roughly 25 percent of lightning strike victims are killed instantly, according to Dr. Philip Dossart, medical director of the emergency department at University Hospital.
"If you survive . . . usually you do fine," Dossart said. "There are a lot of long-term complications but not usually life threatening."
More than his stiff back, Lindsay said his broken heart will be the hardest to heal. He wants to return to firefighting someday.
"I'm too emotionally mixed up right now," Lindsay said. "Not in a scared way — in an empty way in my heart."
The Flame-N-Gos will donate part of their firefighting stipends to a trust fund for Bishop and Braithwaite. Surviving crew members will also be allowed to attend the men's funerals scheduled for Saturday and Tuesday, according to prison officials.
E-MAIL: djensen@desnews.com