Editorial: When Your Only Choice Is Whether To Live or Die, That’s No Choice

On a day that will be remembered as Black Sunday, Jan. 23, 2005, three FDNY firefighters were killed and 11 injured at two separate multiple-alarm fires. Lieutenant Curtis Meyran, 46, and Firefighter John Bellew, 37, both working in Ladder 27, died at a three-alarm fire in the Bronx. Three other firefighters were critically injured and one was seriously injured. Later that day, while FDNY officials were holding a press conference at St. Barnabas Hospital, the Bronx hospital nearest to the fire scene, word was received that Firefighter Richard Sclafani, 37, of Ladder 103 had died and seven others were injured at a two-alarm fire in Brooklyn.

I have been visiting with FDNY Rescue 3 since 1970. The company covers the entire borough of the Bronx and a portion of Harlem and upper Manhattan. On the morning of Jan. 23, a fire was reported in the Bronx. The fire went to three alarms. I heard over the scanner that several firefighters from Rescue 3 and Ladder 27 had fallen from a roof. Actually, six firefighters were forced to jump from several fourth-floor windows when their escape route was cut off by a wind-driven fire. Two of the firefighters shared a personal rope before they fell. The rope prevented them from falling as far as the others.

I knew two of the Rescue 3 firefighters who were critically hurt, Joey DiBernardo and Jeff Cool; I knew them well. I sat in the Rescue 3 firehouse on the afternoon after the fire, awaiting word on the condition of the members. It was a different feeling than I had after 9/11, when I recall members coming home from the World Trade Center covered in white dust and in shock. That day, not one of the eight firefighters working in Rescue 3 came back alive. During the afternoon of Jan. 23, it felt to me more like 9/12, when I was trying to reflect and put together exactly what had happened. Now, two of the members of Rescue 3, as they were first described, were beaten up and everyone was hoping for their swift recovery.

I invited Firefighter Joey DiBernardo, FDNY Rescue 3, to be a speaker at the 2004 Firehouse Expo in Baltimore. Joey spoke on the topic of specialized rescue. The attendance for his class was standing room only. I asked Joey to speak at the Firehouse World Show in San Diego last month, but he declined because he was close to being promoted to lieutenant and did not want to interfere with his officer training. After I stopped in their quarters recently for a quick visit, Joey DiBernardo insisted that I join the company for dinner. Jeff Cool presented me with a jacket with their “Big Blue” emblem, manufactured just for the present company members (see the editorial “Once in a Lifetime,” July 2004). Since 9/11, with seven members killed and others retired, promoted or transferred, the new members have picked up where the others left off. Jeff was one of the firefighters critically injured at the Jan. 23 fire. This was supposed to be a new beginning, a time to move forward from a most tragic time.

On the afternoon of Jan. 23, most of the off-duty members of Rescue 3 were in quarters or standing vigil with their injured brothers who were taking turns fighting for their lives in two hospitals. Two blocks away, at the quarters of Ladder 27, the members weren’t so lucky. Firefighter Eugene Stolowsky was critically injured and Firefighter Brendan K. Cawley also was injured. The company was hanging black bunting for the other two members who would never return. Our own Contributing Editor Mike Wilbur, who writes Emergency Vehicle Operations, works in Ladder 27 two blocks away. I visit him there quite often.

These line-of-duty deaths were repeated over 100 times across the country last year. It’s a terrible price to pay. It’s my hope that we will move forward and learn from these tragedies. The use of life-saving ropes and systems are going to be tested and a suitable system will be purchased for FDNY firefighters. Other departments should follow suit to protect their members. They say that time heals all wounds, but it just seems to me that lately the clock has been stopping entirely too often. In just the first seven weeks of 2005, there were 19 firefighter line-of-duty deaths.