Elkhart paramedic and nurse counted among heroes in stage collapse tragedy

Two of the people who jumped in to help when the main stage at the Indiana State Fair collapsed this weekend were a paramedic from Elkhart and his wife, who is a nurse. They were in the grandstands just feet away when it happened.

In the course of his work as a paramedic, Steve Kamp has been trained to handle a lot of situations. The same for his wife, Jaimee, who is an ER nurse.

Both attended the Sugarland concert in Indianapolis Saturday evening, never thinking they'd have to put their medical skills to use when the stage toppled over.

“A lot of people started running and scrambling,” Kamp said. “The rigging came down and people were running and swallowed up by it. I looked at my wife and said ‘We’re going to have to help these people…”

Though he didn't have his medical gear with him, he and he wife did what they could along with many others.

“A lot of people injured, a lot of serious injuries,” Kamp said. “We helped with removing some of the patients out of there, to go to triage, then reported to triage and continued helping with patient care until ambulances arrived.”

One of the first victims they encountered was trapped underneath some speakers.

“All the civilians there, we all helped lift the speakers up and off, helped climb under and assess the patient and realized we had a fatal,” Kamp said.

Kamp said all the paramedics and EMTs did a great job.

 “The state has got a good program going on…everybody was trained the same way, and everybody knew exactly what had to be done”

As a paramedic, Kamp usually arrives at a scene after something has happened.

“Actually being there and watching it is just something you will never forget,” he said. “Nobody [who was there] will ever forget.”

Kamp says he and his wife remained on the scene for about an hour and a half until enough on-duty first responders arrived to handle the situation.