Today we are sharing another story from the “Minneapolis Police 150th Anniversary” book published by Acclaim Press (currently out of print).
“August 2, 2017 was an idyllic morning. Staff members at Minnehaha Academy were busy preparing for the school year ahead and Officers Dean Milner and Greg Kosch were cruising through the 3rd Precinct. Moments later, a large explosion at the school demolished the entire middle section of the building. The staff members ran out and MPD officers went rushing in.
“You see somebody lying there and there’s rubble all over him and he’s trapped. There’s fire everywhere; you can’t leave him lay there. You have to go do something, so there’s no decision actually,” Kosch would recall.
There was a concrete wall on top of the school’s soccer coach. The officers did all they could to break that wall, while smelling the gas leak and watching fires spread.
“All I could think of is “Boy I hope my kids understand why I did this” because I was ready to go. I thought it was our last day because I figured there would be a secondary explosion,” Officer Milner explained.
Officer Vicki Karnik also rushed in to help. “I saw the rubble down and the gentleman buried and I just went to work, didn’t even think about it. When I got home, my son, who had watched the live coverage … he hugged me like eight times, and he’s a teenage boy! It meant a lot to me.”
At the same time, Officer Dante Dean was carrying the school’s president away from the fires and rubble, her interview with a job candidate had just been interrupted by the devastating blast. The school lost two staff members that day. A few weeks later, they would invite the heroic officers back to the academy to honor their courage and selflessness. The soccer coach was among those in the massive crowd.
Officers Kosch and Milner couldn’t forget what the coach had said to them in the intense moments after they somehow broke apart and lifted that wall. “He looked at us and said, ‘Guys, thanks for saving me.’ That’s kind of when all this hit home for me — I was just doing my job,” Officer Kosch concluded.”
Photograph from Sergeant Tidgwell’s book shows Minnehaha Academy President, Dr. Donna Harris, being rescued from the explosion by Officer Dante Dean