UPDATE: Both firefighters sustained fractures and will need some time to recover, but they have been released from the hospital.
Early Sunday morning at 1:19 a.m. the Cedar Rapids Fire Department were dispatched to Westdale Court Apartments in southwest Cedar Rapids after a reports of smoke alarms going off and smoke in the kitchen of an apartment.
According to a media release from the city, when firefighters arrived to 3919 20th Avenue SW, they found a moderate amount of smoke in the stairwell leading to the second floor of the two-story complex. A fire crew then entered the apartment and began combating the fire but lost water pressure in the hose line. Around the time of the lost pressure, at 1:35 a.m, there was a catastrophic failure of the hose line that caused blunt force trauma resulting in serious injuries to two firefighters that were outside of the structure. One firefighter was struck in the head and rendered unconscious , while the other was struck in the chest an