The colleagues of a firefighter who was critically injured after being hit in the face with a chair on New Year's Eve during an altercation with another firefighter initially gave false accounts to doctors about how the firefighter was hurt, the city's fire commissioner said yesterday.
The commissioner, Nicholas Scoppetta, also said that the Fire Department is investigating whether supervisors violated protocol by not initially informing superiors about the fight involving the two men at a Staten Island firehouse.
Michael R. Silvestri, 41, of Staten Island, pleaded not guilty yesterday in Staten Island Criminal Court to charges of assault and harassment and criminal possession of a dangerous weapon. He was freed on $1,000 bail and ordered to return to court on Feb. 3.
Mr. Silvestri has been suspended without pay for 30 days, a fire official said.
The injured firefighter, Robert Walsh, 40, was in stable condition yesterday at Staten Island University Hospital's north campus.
The authorities believe that the incident began around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Engine Company 151 and Ladder Company 76 in the Tottenville section of Staten Island when Firefighter Silvestri, coming on duty, exchanged words with Firefighter Walsh, 40, who was going off duty. Prosecutors said that Mr. Silvestri swung a metal chair at Mr. Walsh, crushing his face and partly severing his nose. The incident is under investigation by the Staten Island District Attorney, Daniel M. Donovan Jr., and the police.
Fire Department officials said they were conducting their own inquiry into whether the proper protocols were followed in notifying superiors about the incident. At a news conference yesterday outside department headquarters in Brooklyn, Commissioner Scoppetta said that firefighters misled hospital officials about how Mr. Walsh came to be injured.
"There were conflicting reports what happened to Firefighter Walsh," the commissioner said. "There was a report he'd fallen down the stairs. There was another report he'd gotten in a car accident."
Shortly after the incident, Mr. Scoppetta said, fellow firefighters brought Mr. Walsh to University Hospital. There, doctors treated him for his injuries, which the firefighters initially had said were caused by a fall, according to the commissioner.
A senior fire official identified one of those firefighters as Terrence Sweeney, the captain of Engine 151, whose shift ended at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
According to protocol, when a firefighter is injured, supervising officers must notify superior officers. A battalion chief, who oversees a half dozen or so firehouses, was notified immediately after the incident, a fire official said. It is not clear whether he was told of the extent of the injuries or how they had been inflicted. It was also unclear whether he, in turn, notified a division chief, who oversees several battalions.
At the hospital, a department doctor who, following procedure, had been dispatched to evaluate the firefighter, questioned how Mr. Walsh's injuries were inflicted, noting that they were consistent with blunt object trauma, not a fall. But it was not until doctors said they needed to put Firefighter Walsh into a medically induced coma in order to treat him that the firefighters with him confessed that he had been hit with a metal chair, according to the police.
Fire officials said that around midnight on New Year's Eve, the department doctor called his supervisor to suggest that the firefighters with Mr. Walsh be questioned further.
The matter was investigated for several hours by fire marshals and the Bureau of Fire Investigation and Trials, the department's internal affairs unit, until a marshal walked into the 123rd Precinct sometime between 3:15 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. Thursday, a senior police official said, and informed the police of the assault. Commissioner Scoppetta put the time when the police were informed at 2:30 a.m.
All times in the case are critical in determining whether proper procedure was followed. Police investigators said that the delay in reporting the incident hampered the investigation: the firehouse appeared to have been cleaned up by the time they arrived nine hours later.
The police did note, however, that the journal used by the fire company had a false entry, recording that Firefighter Walsh had been injured in a fall. But a police official said that the criminal investigation is not focused on the firefighters' failure to report the incident promptly or accurately, noting that it will be up to fire officials to bring administrative charges against its members.
Yesterday, Commissioner Scoppetta visited Firefighter Walsh, who was on a respirator. "It would be embarrassing if we didn't investigate it fully and comprehensively and then take appropriate action where it's called for," he said. "That would be embarrassing.
"The fact that you have an incident like this doesn't embarrass me. It's part of a big department and a lot of tension sometimes existing in firehouses where firefighters living in close quarters as we know."
Mr. Silvestri, who has been a firefighter for 15 years, transferred to Engine 151 after working a few miles away in Staten Island at Engine Company 162.
After his arraignment, he went to his home on the north end of Staten Island. His brother, who gave his name only as Bill, said the firefighter would not address the reporters outside. "Of course he feels compassion for him," his brother said. "He's upset. My whole family's upset. No one is violent in this house."
Firehouses can be notoriously rough places, where stubborn egos are softened by a constant barrage of usually good-natured insults. Over time, it has the effect of building camaraderie, a fire official said, as well as trust between a company of individuals who must at times risk their lives and protect their fellow members in the course of duty.
Yesterday, that camaraderie was put to the test as firefighters at the Tottenville firehouse and other nearby companies stubbornly refused to comment on the matter to reporters, other than to defend both Firefighter Walsh and Firefighter Silvestri.
Previously
Janon Fisher contributed reporting for this article.
From The New York Times on the Web (c) The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission.
