Decorated 35-Year Veteran & Father of 11 Suffers Heart Attack Two Months from Retirement

BOSTON (AP) - The city's most veteran firefighter died of a heart attack as he returned from the scene of a small fire, making him the 170th in department history to die in the line of duty.

Joseph R. Murphy, a decorated 35-year member of the department, died Friday as he backed a fire vehicle into a station in the city's Roxbury section after returning from a call in the neighborhood, said department spokesman Steve MacDonald.

Murphy, 64, most recently served as an aide to the department's District 9 chief. He was set to retire in March, when he would have turned 65, MacDonald said.

''He was a pretty low-key firefighter who just went about doing his job everyday for 35 years. It seems kind of cruel that two months away from retirement, he's gone,'' MacDonald said Saturday. ''He'll be missed. It's just a tragic loss.''

Murphy, who lived in East Weymouth, was married and had 11 children, including two who are firefighters and one who is a paramedic in Boston.

In his career with the Boston Fire Department, Murphy was commended for heroism three times. In 1967 and 1969 he was honored for working at fires while off duty.

In 1985, he received an award for pulling people out of burning building in the city's Jamaica Plain section, MacDonald said.

The department's last death in the line of duty was December 1996, when a firefighter died of massive trauma after being hit in the head with equipment while responding to a call.

Murphy will be buried with full department honors Wednesday morning at St. Gregory's Church in Dorchester, MacDonald said.

Related Site:

• Boston Fire Department - Official Web Site
  
• Related Story in the Boston Globe