A firefighter returning from her husband's funeral on Tuesday donned his gear to help out at a crash scene near Ronkonkoma.
Fred Kleppsattel's, an ex-chief and longtime volunteer with the Kings Park Fire Department, died of cardiac arrest on Sept. 23. His death was not related to an emergency.
Roseanne Kleppsattel, Fred's wife of 17 years who is also a volunteer, joined colleagues for a ride back to the station from the cemetary in a pumper, according to Newsday.
They got stuck in traffic and came across a multiple car crash on the Long Island Expressway.
"By divine intervention, or I’d like to think it was Fred’s intervention, we were in exactly the right place at the right time,” Kleppsattel told the newspaper.
She grabbed Fred's turnout coat and wore it over her blouse and skirt as she staffed a hoseline while other firefighters extricated a crash victim.
“When I looked over and saw Roseanne manning the hose line and wearing her husband’s turnout jacket, it was just like Freddy was right there with us,” Captain Frank Pino said.
