I had never known such rage.

There was no conscious thought to exiting the rig and beating each member of this group to death.

Unguided, my hand found its way to the door handle.

But try as I might, the door would not open.

That’s when I started to climb out of the rig through the half-open window, while simultaneously shouting an unbroken stream of the most explicit profanities.

Bearing witness to this unexpected turn of events, Bob, the chauffeur, grabbed my belt with one hand, the steering wheel with the other, and hit the gas while hollering: “No Lou no, it’s not worth it!”

Before the rig travels a block, my fury has dissipated, but I know my days of fighting fires are finished.

I just can’t take anymore.

The madness that laid waste to vast areas of our city during the sixties and seventies had finally consumed itself and now the job is just standard big city firefighting, which is madness with the anarchy removed.

It is 1988 and I am a Lieutenant assigned to Engine Company 96, located on Story Ave. in the Bronx, which is surrounded by numerous “Housing Projects.”

With the passing of clean air laws, the incinerators of all these buildings were converted to compactors and it seems to me that some residents delight in setting these machines afire.

Since they are housed in shafts originally constructed for incinerators, the actual fire danger to the buildings tenants is minimal.

However, the public hallways filled with a foul smelling reek that left its stench behind long after the smoke itself had dissipated.

Meanwhile, down in the cellar, firefighters had to spend significant periods of time removing and extinguishing from the bowels of these machines enormous amounts of soiled diapers, used sanitary napkins, decomposing food and every other type of nauseating household garbage.

We do this so frequently and became so proficient at it that our firehouse is known around the job as Compactor College!

Another pain in the ass is the extremely high rate of false alarms transmitted in our response area.

Do not get me wrong, 96 had their share of real fires and they were good at fighting them.

But the large amount of bullshit was wearing me down.

I just don’t realize it.

It is close to 4AM, and we’ve been running all night.

As the rig pulls up to what we all know will be simply another false alarm, I am compactor and false alarmed out.

This time, however, instead of the usual no one in sight, there are half a dozen denizens of the night, populating the sidewalk alongside the alarm box.

Rolling down the window I inquire, where’s the fire?

One of these mutts locks eyes with me and says, “Fuck you, fireman.”

Haven’t we all seen this headline in the newspapers?

CRAZED GUNMAN KILLS SIX THEN SELF

Coworkers say, HE JUST SNAPPED

Fuck… you… fireman.

Those three words give me insight into the psyche of the crazed gunman.

Simply put, it’s the concept of the last straw.

The rational half of the brain says: I cannot deal with this shit any longer.

I’m going for a coffee break.

Control of the body is then taken over by the wicked half of the brain, whose only rule is Fuck everybody.

I’m going to shoot them all and someone else can clean up the mess!

This is when violence erupts and it does not cease until there is only one, wild-eyed, blood-spattered, howling at the moon person left standing.

At this point, Mister Rational returns from his coffee break, sees what Mister Wicked has done and says, Oh Shit, I’m screwed now.

Then he puts the gun barrel into his mouth and pulls the trigger one last time!

Upon returning to quarters, I begin looking through our copy of The Department Orders, searching for what we call a day job while contemplating what would have happened if the door on the rig had opened and why it had not.

The DOs are to the fire department what a local newspaper is to a small town.

They are of interest to everyone, because everything published in them affects you or someone you know personally.

The information contained includes among other things, hirings and firings, changes to the rules and regulations, and requests for personnel to fill jobs other than firefighting.

Within a month, I find a day job with the Bureau of Training, where I finished out my twenty-seven year career filling a variety of roles, never again setting foot upon a fire truck.

If given the chance to live my life a second time, I would not become a firefighter; it just took too great a toll.

Physically my liver, lungs and legs have taken quite a beating.

Psychologically all the horrible situations I ever encountered still reside in my brain.

I never know when they will commandeer my attention, as they often do, returning me to places I’d rather not be.

Nevertheless, I would not trade a minute of it because…it was one hell of a ride!

A former New York City fire fighter, Thomas R. Ziegler is now a flight attendant for jetBlue Airlines

Yesterday as a firefighter I carried an axe and fought fires; today as a Fire Marshal I carry a gun and fight crime.

In most departments around our country, the title Fire Marshal denotes a person who performs inspectional duties.

In NYC, that title identifies an arson investigator with full police powers.

The task of the Bureau of Fire Investigation is to inquire into any fire declared suspicious by the firefighters who extinguished it.

A team of marshals is dispatched to figure out the cause and origin of these fires and if it is determined to be arson, a criminal investigation is initiated.

It was during my tenure as a marshal that the most subtle yet horrible act of violence I have ever witnessed took place.

It wasn’t a multiple murder in some run down shit hole of a tenement, rather it was a medical procedure in a municipal hospital emergency room.

Earlier that summer Saturday evening, two marshals arrested a suspect for arson.

Immediately upon being handcuffed, the suspect started complaining of difficulty breathing so his next stop became a well-known city hospital for medical evaluation and treatment.

The triage nurse took one look at the prisoner and knew he was full of shit, which put him at the bottom of the list to be seen by a doctor.

This was exactly what the perp wanted; he’d rather spend this Saturday night sitting on a chair in an air-conditioned emergency room people watching instead of watching his back while sitting on the floor of a sultry cage in Central Booking.

For a dedicated watcher of exotic people there is no place that can compete with a city hospital ER on a summer weekend night, but after six hours of waiting the two marshals had had enough of people watching and just wanted to get out of there for a while and get a bite to eat.

Enter my partner and me, we are the meal relief.

It’s our turn to people watch now.

Circulating around the room is one seemingly normal individual completely garbed in hospital-issued patient attire, slippers, pajamas and bathrobe.

He’s smiling, shaking hands and chatting with anyone who will listen; it appears to me that he’s campaigning to become mayor of the emergency room.

Spotting us, he approaches.

Hello police.

Hello patient.

Looking at our prisoner he asks, what did he do?

Before I can answer, a nurse is standing beside him and she says, “Time for your injection.”

Instantly he turns pale and begs… No, oh please no, I’ll sit down, I’ll be quiet, I won’t move, please, please no.

With a barely discernible nod of her head, she summons two large orderlies who take hold of the mayor, one on each arm and then lead him towards a an unmarked room. She follows.

Looking back over his shoulder at us, I see his soft begging is now accompanied by tears as the door closes behind him.

Moments later the door opens, the orderlies reappear and depart the room, the nurse emerges next and she holds the door open for the mayor to exit.

However, what comes out of the room isn’t what went in.

Moments earlier the mayor was a human being, he was smiling and talking, then he was terrified and begging but he was alive.

What came out was…a walking corpse.

The nurse guides him to a chair, seats him and walks back into the treatment area.

Curiosity has gotten the better of me so I go over to the mayor and ask him what happened; he just stares straight ahead as if I wasn’t there.

Now I had to know, tracking down the nurse I ask what had just taken place. She replies, “He does not like the police and he was about to give you trouble, I will not tolerate trouble in my ER, so I stopped it before it began.”

How did you do that?

I shot him full of Thorazine.

What’s that?

With a big smile on her face, she says, “We call it liquid straightjacket and it works every time!”

How can you get away with that?

Have you ever heard of medication over objection?

No.

Well, once admitted to a psychiatric institution and a doctor proves to a judge that a patient is incompetent to make a decision I get to make his decisions for him, and I decided it was time for this guy to sit down and shut up!

Holy fucking shit!

In the Soviet Union, this type of treatment was called psychiatric imprisonment (psikhushka), and was used to segregate political prisoners and then break their wills.

Shortly thereafter, the arresting marshals return and my partner and I bolt for the exit.

Taking a last look back over my shoulder I see the perp grinning at the world, he has played the system and beaten it.

I also see the mayor, who, staring intently at nothing has become the latest victim of the same system.

As the door pivots closed behind us, I realize that the movie One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest…isn’t just a movie, it’s a documentary!

I am the first member of the night tour reporting in for duty and a quick call to the dispatchers’ office solves the mystery of the empty firehouse.

Earlier in the day the entire house B-14, E-60, L-17 and my company L-17-2 had responded to and were still operating at a fire in the railroad yards, so we of the night tour will be traveling there to relieve the day tour.

Shortly after 1800 hours, the division messenger van arrives at quarters; we climb aboard and are driven to the fire scene.

While en route, I realize I’m not the junior man for a change, that dubious honor goes to Russell.

Although we are both 24 years of age, he’s still a proby with only five months on the job compared to my almost two years.

Arriving at the scene we discover that most of the companies had already “taken up” and those that remain are in the last stages of overhauling.

The van pulls up alongside our day tour guys who are taking a break, they’re drinking coffee and eating cups of New England clam chowder alongside the Salvation Army canteen truck that supplied this hot chow; they are filthy, exhausted, wet, cold and very happy to see us.

After recounting to us where the various tools and ladders used during the operation are located, they climb into the messenger van and wave good-bye.

Jonnie is a senior man with almost twenty years on the job; he is also a fantastic human being who has taught me a great deal, not only about fire but also about life in the eighteen months that I have had the honor of knowing him.

He had worked the day tour on a mutual and now he’s continuing on duty with us.

Having responded into the fire on the initial alarm, he tells us of the large three-story warehouse that had gone to a third alarm before being brought under control.

About this time, the chief in charge issues two orders.

1) Restore electrical power to the yard.

2) All remaining companies are to take up.

Only the second order reaches us.

Before we can take up we must gather together and return to the rig all of our equipment.

Tom and I retrieve some tools from the far side of the warehouse and return them to the rig.

From there we start walking back to the warehouse with the intention of lowering our thirty-five foot aluminum extension ladder and replacing it on the truck.

As we approach; to our great delight we spy Jonnie, Russell and a member from an adjoining firehouse who’s working with us tonight on overtime, already in the process of lowering the ladder.

I say great delight because the thirty-five footer is the largest portable ladder in the fire department inventory and rising or lowering it is a bitch.

Tom and I stop spontaneously several yards away to watch the guys perform this difficult task.

In order to lower an extended ladder you must first push it away from the building it’s resting against until the ladder is perpendicular to the ground.

Then while two members hold it steady the third pulls on the rope lanyard to extend the top section a bit further thus releasing the locking mechanism and allowing the top section to retract.

On the ground is Jonnie on one side and Russell on the other each grasping the ladder.

Up on the buildings loading dock the OT guy pushes it as far upright as possible before letting go of the ladder and grabbing hold of the rope lanyard.

They are poetry in motion right up to the moment the ladder becomes electrified by the eleven thousand volt overhead power line and our world turns to shit.

We watch frozen in place as Russell and Jonnie, their muscles contracted by the electricity that locks their hands to the aluminum ladder, stand fully erect and shake violently as the juice courses through their bodies and into the ground.

In what seemed like minutes but in reality could not have been more than several seconds, the fireman on the dock with great bravery and presence of mind uses the rope lanyard to pull the ladder clear of the power line.

Freed from the current holding them to the ladder Russell and Jonnie collapse straight down like puppets whose strings have been cut.

We run over, Tom to Russell me to Jonnie.

Neither of them has a pulse nor is breathing, we start CPR.

Urgent radio transmissions are sent requesting immediate assistance as someone joins me in working on Jonnie.

Fuck, five months ago, Jonnie and I were dancing alongside each other at my wedding, now he is lying dead in the dirt and I’m kneeling by his head trying to breathe life back into him.

Trying, but because I had failed to establish a good airway instead of supplying air to his lungs, I fill his stomach with it.

You can only load a stomach with air to a certain point before it must come back out and back out it came, filling my mouth with clam chowder puke.

I spit it out, turn his head, clear his mouth and resume, this time with a good airway.

In response to our urgent calls for assistance Rescue Company 3 arrives on the scene and immediately I hear a commanding voice order, “Load ‘em aboard, we ain’t waiting for an ambulance, we’re going now!”

As we continue with CPR while packed together in the back of Rescue, I am vaguely aware of a wild ride as we speed towards Lincoln hospital.

Upon arriving, we scramble from the rear of the rig down to the sidewalk where medical teams are awaiting us.

They take over the resuscitation attempt but I attach myself to the stretcher and don’t let go until we are inside the emergency room.

There I stand against a wall out of their way but in a position to observe everything that occurs.

Just as they were in the rail yard, Jonnie and Russell are still side-by-side here in the emergency room, a separate team working on each.

Their turnout coats, boots and clothes are rapidly cut away and discarded, everything humanly possible is being done to save them, but it is not to be.

They are eventually pronounced dead and as the medics move away from them I observe where the electricity had exited their bodies; it must have had something to do with the steel tips of their boots because all twenty of their toes are horribly burned and burst open.

Someone leads me to a chair in the waiting room. I cry. Time stops.

Its hours later and I am back in the firehouse, how I got there I still don’t know, when someone asks if I have called my wife and if not to do so immediately.

She’s crying when she answers the phone.

You see the radio and TV have been broadcasting for hours that two firemen from Ladder 17-2 had been killed in the line of duty.

Since she has not heard from me she was convinced that I was one of those killed and that this was the dreaded notification call from the department to inform her of my death!

As I hang up the phone, a thought hits me, if instead of going to the far side of the building to gather tools, Tom and I had first gone to lower the ladder we would have been the ones killed.

The only reason I can think of for us still being alive is… it wasn’t our turn!

The ghettoes are burning and there are more fires than there are units to fight them.

If TV stars and politicians resided here, you could bet we would be operating with a full second alarm assignment but here in Hunts Point we will be lucky to get two engines and two trucks.

It’s a top floor fire in a five-story tenement, Rod’s got the roof and I’m the OutsideVentMan.

He starts the saw, cuts a quick observation hole into the roof and the red devil pops out to say hello.

This tells us that the fire has entered and is burning inside of the cockloft.

The cockloft is an open area above the top floor ceilings and beneath the roof that encompasses the entire length and width of a building and contains as much wood as a small lumberyard.

Ladder 48 Roof to Battalion 3 K, we got fire in the cockloft. With that radio notification made, it’s time to cut an initial 4’ by 4’ main ventilation hole directly over the seat of the fire in the apartment below. Rod is cutting; his attention totally focused on the carbide tipped saw blade slicing through the roof at 6,000 RPM.

You cut a hole by bending forward at the waist, inserting the blade into the roof and then walking backwards while doubled over, your eyes never leaving that blade.

I’m his safetyman, his eyes and ears while he’s cutting. Holding the back of his turnout coat, I’m guiding him along when Murphy of Murphy’s Law fame shows up on the roof of the building behind us in the form of a dozen or so neighborhood youths who have chosen to make us their afternoon entertainment.

A twenty-foot alley separates the buildings, which places us well within range of their “Fuck you firemans” verbal abuse.

Early in my career, I learned to ignore irrelevant bullshit while operating, so I’m ignoring the shit out of these pricks.

This does not make them happy and it isn’t long after their arrival that the first missile impacts my helmet.

Since their cursing is ineffective, the kiddies up the ante by removing the coping tiles from the roof of their building, smashing them into baseball sized pieces and initiating a game of fuck up the fireman.

This ain’t some kind of sporting event where we can call a time-out; we got guys moving into the fire apartment; if the roof isn’t opened, they’ll cook.

Retreating out of range is not a viable option.

Ladder 48 OV to Battalion 3, urgent K.

I explain the situation to the chief and he acknowledges the transmission.

Our cutting and their bombardment both continue.

Wack! Square in the back, that one really hurt.

They are having a grand old time.

Finally, the hole is cut and opened… time for us to run away!

At exactly that moment, the roof door of our attackers building explodes open and out surges a flood of blue uniforms with badges removed.

PAYBACK has arrived and we got front row seats.

I have never seen so many nightstick swinging cops in one small place in my life.

Here is a bit of information about nightsticks.

They are used to enforce compliance through pain.

You do not hit someone on their head unless you want to kill them.

What you do is aim at the knees, elbows, forearms, any bony place will do.

This won’t kill them but it will hurt like hell.

For the next several minutes, Rod and I watch gleefully as these youths learn about nightsticks and bony places the hard way. Then as quickly as they appeared the cops are gone. No collars, court appearances, or bleeding heart lawyers to get in the way, just a dozen assholes lying on a roof whimpering.

Street justice at its finest!

The disembodied voice of the dispatcher booms from loudspeakers throughout the firehouse, “Attention the following units…Engines 83, 60, 41-1 Ladders 29, 17-2 Battalion 14…Respond to…”

The box number and address are given, and then the dispatcher adds, “We are receiving numerous phone calls about a fire on the fourth floor of a five story multiple dwelling reporting people trapped. Be advised, you are responding in to a working fire in an occupied multiple dwelling.”

Our rig is roaring down the street playing “fire music”—the combined sounds of diesel engine, air horn and siren. The old timer sitting across from me starts buckling his coat and pulling up his boots. He says, “Do you smell that… we got us a job, kid.” Moments later, we turn onto the block. He is right. Neighborhood residents pack the street, watching in horror as the terrified occupants of the flaming building swarm down the fire escape, fleeing the eruption of this urban volcano.

The engine pulls up to the front of the building, as we un-ass the rig, grab our tools, and run towards the fire, I realize all my senses are under attack. Sight, sound, and smell are already approaching overload. Additionally, I can taste the primal dread of fire in the back of my throat and a cold fear is clutching my guts. I’m scared! Everyone in that building is running away and we’re going inside, no fucking way!

There are times in life when decisions must be made. These decisions define who you are and shape what you will become. Now was one of my times. Balls calling brains, you are hereby relieved of command; I’m taking over now. And here was my decision, I will fucking die right here and right now before I let these guys down!

The Lieutenant leads the forcible entry man and me to the rear of the building. Back here, the drop ladder has not been lowered and as a result, the fire escape is crammed with people unable to reach the ground.

I follow the boss’s order to lower the drop ladder, and in moments enough people have climbed down off the escape that there is room for us to advance upward.

Between the second and third floors, we encounter a man carrying a console TV. He looks me right in the eyes and says, “Hey fireman grab my kid,” and with a twist of his head indicates a young child maybe 10 years old following behind him.

I look to the Lieutenant for guidance and he says, “Keep moving.” As we reach the fourth floor, the window of the apartment on fire slides upward, releasing a thick, rolling mass of dirty brown smoke. From inside the lethal cloud emerges an unconscious teenaged girl cradled in the arms of the Truckie from L-29 who found her during his search.

He hands her out to the Lieutenant and me as he climbs out of the apartment and onto the fire escape. Holding her limp form between us, I think how peaceful and pretty she looks despite the soot and snot that surrounds her nose and mouth.

Unexpectedly a cascade of broken glass showers down on, us and half a heartbeat later, a Halligan Tool drops from the sky. It smashes into and bounces off the forehead of our young victim producing a large profusely bleeding gash. She ain’t pretty any more.

So many horrific events are occurring so rapidly that my mind screams “enough”. I am on the verge of uselessness.

The Lieutenant hands the girl off to our forcible entry man and the truckie who found her and grabs a handful of my coat, pulling me so close to him that I can see the fillings in his teeth. “Go,” he bellows.

Instantly, I am snapped out of my trance. I follow him as he pushes past me and climbs up the fire escape to the top floor.

Ladder 29’s “above the fire team” is searching the top floor apartment directly above the fire, which is the most dangerous assignment there is in an occupation filled with dangerous assignments. One team member reached the fire escape window only to find a padlocked gate across it preventing his exit.

Unable to escape the apartment or open the window, and with nothing to breath but smoke, he took out the glass by shoving his Halligan through it just as he was overcome by smoke inhalation. That solved the mystery of the flying Halligan. Arriving at the top floor we see a gloved hand sticking out of the apartment through the gate and the hole poked in the glass. In the excitement, I had left my hook on the floor below, so without a tool to use the Lieutenant grabs the gloved hand, pushes it back into the apartment, and starts kicking the remainder of the glass from the window. I catch on quickly, and together we kick in the gate and pull out the fireman.

At this point, time seemingly stopped. I remember nothing more of the fire or the rest of the tour. This was a phenomenon that repeated itself several times during my career. Somewhere there are about three hours missing from my life.

The next morning reporting in for work I am anxious about the reception awaiting me, just how badly did I fuck up? Approaching the house watch booth, who’s sitting there but the old timer with the good sense of smell. He’s smiling. Is it a smile of acceptance or that of a shark about to have lunch? I am more scared now than I was on that fire escape yesterday afternoon, when my trail by fire took place.

Last night around the firehouse kitchen table, I was tried in “absentia” and a verdict had been reached. In our world justice is swift. Have I been forever marked as a useless piece of shit, or oh god please, have I been accepted into this brotherhood of “Nobles Oblige”?

He speaks, “Way to go kid, ya had ya cherry popped first day, welcome aboard.”

*

For firemen, there is nothing more startling than a Verbal Alarm–the riotous banging of fists on the firehouse door. It can sound as loud as a stampede of buffalo trying to crash their way in, and it has only one meaning–something dreadful is occurring just outside of quarters.

It’s early summer 1973, and we are having roasted chicken for dinner. As a newly assigned Probationary Fireman, I am expected to eat faster than everyone else, and then get to the sink to do the dirty work. It is there, while scrubbing baked on chicken skin from a roasting pan, that I hear my first verbal alarm.

The instant the banging begins, dinner is forgotten and the kitchen empties. Not knowing what’s occurring (because they don’t teach you this in Proby school) I simply follow along as everybody hurries to the apparatus floor, where they put on their gear and climb aboard the rigs.

My lieutenant runs outside and then returns in a flash. “Proby get the first aid kit and follow me,” he orders before disappearing outside again. Grabbing the kit from the rig and rushing outside, I encounter a mob. I know intuitively that something horrible has taken place.

Where the bush ends and the child begins is impossible to tell, but the rapidly expanding pool of blood in which she lays, face first, cannot be ignored. Holy shit, how did this happen and what in God’s name can I do about it? Think Tom Think, a little voice inside my head speaks. Nothing can be done with her tangled up in this bush. Get her out.

I grasp her legs and attempt to pull her free of the bush and onto the lawn. She doesn’t budge. Now what? I pull harder and still she doesn’t move. It’s almost as if she is nailed to the ground. I force my head among the branches to get a closer look, and the realization hits me like a knee in the nuts–she is nailed to the ground. A branch the diameter of my thumb has penetrated her cheek. I slide out of the bush and kneel next to her. OK Tom, just lift her face a bit and she’ll be free, the voice inside my head says. I try, but to no avail–her face isn’t moving. I exert a little more force. Still nothing. At this point, the voice shouts Stop fucking around and get this kid loose! I stand and reach down, placing one hand on each side of her impaled head. Finally, I yank her free of the branch, which, after going through her cheek, had pierced the roof of her mouth and then buried itself somewhere deep inside her skull.

As gently as possible, I turn her over, realizing as I do that every bone in her body feels broken. I am prepared to start CPR, but when I open her mouth I discover that it is filled with leaves. In addition to her broken body, she is bleeding slowly, weakly, from ears, nose and mouth. She isn’t breathing. Even a Proby could tell this kid was dead.

In the four or five minutes that have passed since I was scrubbing pans, the crowd has grown enormous and angry. Something bizarre is going. Kneeling beside the lifeless body, I look up at the lieutenant, “she’s dead.”

“Don’t move,” he replies, and then walks over to where the Chief is located. After several seconds of discussion, they both return to where I am kneeling and the chief orders me to begin CPR.

“But Chief she’s dead.”

The chief is an old timer. He knows the mob wants to make someone pay for this atrocity, and he’s going to make sure that we aren’t the ones to pick up the tab. Covertly pointing at the agitated mob behind him, he tells me, “We’re not doing it for her, we’re doing it for them.”

Suddenly I understand. We aren’t saving a life; we are simply maintaining an uneasy peace. I am just another actor, performing his role in this theater of the street. Pressing my mouth over hers, I give a breath and in return get a close up view of blood and leaves as they spew out through the gaping hole in her face. Thank God, an ambulance arrives and I do not have to continue the charade.

I join the other firemen who are standing in a cluster several yards away just as a cop begins filling them in on the particulars of what has transpired. Two eleven year-old boys had taken the girl, who was eight years-old, to the roof of the twenty-story project building adjacent to the firehouse. Once there, they attempted to rape her. The girl tried to fight back, threatening to tell their mothers. They all lived in the same building. She knew both of them and their families. They threw her off the roof.

Just then, flanked by cops, the two little killers exit the project building in handcuffs. They are both laughing. I am not. I return to the firehouse and strip off my clothes, which are encrusted with mud, sand, and blood. A long, hot, soapy shower cleans my body but I don’t have a clue as to how to cleanse my mind.

It’s not until years later, after I become a lieutenant myself, that I figured out why the boss chose me, the least experienced man to work alone on this child. It’s simple: he was friends with all the other firemen. I was just a newly arrived Proby. Ask yourself the question, who gets the nightmares? A friend or a stranger?

It’s 1977, and Lieutenant Annello leads the way as usual.

He is simply the best fire officer I have ever worked with.

During the late 60′s when the “Red Devil” first invaded The Bronx and turned it into a battlefield, Anello was there holding the line. Upon his promotion to lieutenant: he didn’t go far, he came to Ladder 48 and we were lucky to get him. I would and did follow that man into places I wouldn’t dare go alone, his bravery covered me like a blanket. In addition to being fearless, he had a sixth sense for finding victims trapped in fires, there are many people breathing today who owe those breaths to him!

The forcible team is Pat and me and we are right on Anello’s tail as he arrives on the fire floor. It’s eerily quiet in this tenement public hallway. Everyone who could get out has and the reassuring sounds of the engine guys stretching a line up the stairs are absent. The only water we have is the two and a half gallons in the extinguisher that Pat is carrying and with what is awaiting us inside this apartment, that two and a half gallons is a bad joke. The only thing giving me the balls to keep going is Lt. Anello leading the way.

I’m guiding the halligan as Pat pounds it with his axe forcing it between the door and the jam driving them apart and in seconds we pop the lock and the door swings inward. The smoke feels solid as it pours out and hits us, day turns into poisonous night and the only sound emanating from the apartment is the devil, crackling its contempt for us.

Inside the door and to the right a hallway runs the length of the apartment with rooms opening into it from the left. We hurriedly crawl past the first two rooms to penetrate and search as deeply as possible. Fire controls the entire rear of the flat and now with the entrance door open another outlet presents itself to the devil and he decides to use it. Pat’s hitting the fire trying to hold it back when his can empties and our forward motion is stopped. The devil now free of any attempt to hold him in check rolls along the ceiling and gets behind us trying to block our only way out.

Unable to go any further and with only seconds remaining before this whole place lights up, Lt. Anello starts to search the room furthest in and I drop back and start into the room directly opposite the entry door. My room is the kitchen and believe me my search was fast, a quick crawl straight down the middle figuring that if anyone is down I’ll bump into them as I make my way to the far side of the room. Since the engine hasn’t arrived yet we don’t take any windows, this fire is big enough without us feeding it more air. Encountering no victims I am already leaving the room when Anello orders us out of the apartment.

Back in the relative safety of the public hallway with the apartment door shut behind us, I’m greatly relived to hear the engine making its way up the stairs and several minutes later after their line is charged and Anello has given them the layout of the apartment we are ready to make our push back in. Reopening the door the fire blows out at us and the engine takes the lead driving that motherfucker back.

Following behind them we enter the kitchen as they continue to push the fire back down the hallway. We can do a better search now that a line covers us and I am taking out the glass in the kitchen window when Anello’s sixth sense brings him to the cabnet beneath the sink where he spots a little arm sticking out.

Inside mixed together with the cleaning supplies he finds the two boys, aged five and three who started this blaze by playing with matches while left alone by their mother who went grocery shopping. The little guy died with his arms wrapped around his big brother, who died while trying to save them both by closing themselves inside the cabinet where they sought refuge from the fire. It would have been a touching scene if it weren’t so heart breakingly fucking horrible.

Pat and I each grab one and remove them to the public hallway on the floor below the fire where we hand them off to other firemen who start CPR.

Just then coming up the stairs a bag of groceries in each arm is Mom. Reality hits her square in the face, with her kids dead on the floor and firemen trying to breath them back to life, she drops the groceries and screams, “My babies.”

I got right in her face and hollered, you didn’t give a fuck about your babies when you left them alone did you!

Why did I do that?

Was I angry with myself for missing them and taking it out on her? Regrets are usless but if it were possible to change just one thing in my life, I would take that mother in my arms and console her instead of adding to her torment on the worst day of her life.

I don’t know if those kids were alive when I crawled past less than a foot from their hiding place, but I do know the “What If’s” would have driven me nuts a long time ago except for one fact.

I know in my guts, I gave them my best shot!

While responding to alarms, we always scan the sky for smoke and the streets for crowds because different combinations of these factors can be early indications of what is awaiting us. Arriving at this box, there is no smoke in the air but a crowd has gathered so my brain shifts from thoughts of firefighting to assisting a civilian.

It is 1978 and we are on Edgewater Road, the street made famous in the HBO documentary about the hookers of Hunts Point, one of whom I am about to become very intimate with.

Lying atop the garbage that has been dumped in this vacant lot, she is staring directly at the summer sun. If ever there was a crime scene this is it, so I am thinking bullet hole and not heart attack when I start examining her. In cases that have no obvious wounds, SOP is to start at the head and work your way down. As my fingers probe through her hair it slips from her head and I nearly shit my drawers.

She’s been scalped!

That was my first thought but in reality it was just her wig that slipped off. Let me tell you something, if it is possible to feel relief while kneeling in a pile of stinking garbage, examining an unconscious hooker for bullet wounds, well then I felt relief! It doesn’t take long to find those wounds either. There are two of ‘em just above her right ear, from the size of the holes my guess is a 22. Twenty minutes ago this was a person, now it’s just another DOA to be bagged and toe tagged.

While I am wiping her blood from my hands, one of her co-workers walks over to me and says… Hey FIREMANS, those mother fuckers by that van did it.

Let me ask you something, if you just murdered someone in front of witnesses no less, would you be hanging around the scene of the crime?

Getting on my radio I call the boss.

Ladder 48 roof man to Ladder 48.

Go ahead Tom.

Hey Lou, one of the girls just told me those guys by the van are the perps.

10-4

The Boss relays this info to the PD who is already on the scene.

As the cops approach the van, the assholes realize somebody has fingered them and it is time to leave. Hopping into the van they take off with the cops right on their tail, the chase is on. The sound of the police siren fading in the distance starts to get louder again when suddenly; from around the corner here comes the van. Can you believe this, they are driving around in circles! Apparently, the same amount of planning that went into the crime has gone into the escape. Before reaching the end of the street their way is blocked by another cop car and they are arrested. Just then an ambulance arrives and we take up.

A few hours later, the cops who made the collar stop by the firehouse for a cup of coffee and to fill us in on the details. The six occupants of the van picked up the hooker and after agreeing on a price of $10 each for blowjobs, had a fuckfest. After finishing them off she asked for her money and they refused to pay.

Big Mistake!

For those of you who don’t know, Hunts Point hookers are the great white sharks of prostitution. You do not fuck over a Hunts Point girl without paying a price. She made a fist and punched the closest one of them right in the snotlocker. That is when he produced a gun and she started running away across the lot. She was tougher but he was faster and when he caught up to her…two slugs in the head.

Anyway, in those days the idea of universal precautions was unknown to us. I have been squirted by arterial bleeds, delt with traumatic amputations, even had people puke into my mouth during CPR, hooker blood was just more of the same. At least it was until finding out that I was Hepatitis “C” positive.

So, am I saying I got this virus from a Hunts Point hooker? No. What I am saying is, just liking sweeping the firehouse floor, getting Hepatitis “C” was just a routine part of the job!

We’ve already caught more work on this day tour than any company outside the ghetto will see in six months and the smoke we’re now smelling ain’t from chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Engine 94′s boss comes up on the radio, Engine 94 to the Bronx, 10-75!

Turning into the block we see 94 stretching their line into a five story tenement. As we stop in front of the building I unass the rig to size up the fire, there are no flames showing but we got smoke pushing out from four closed windows on the fourth floor. The Lieutenant, Big John and I are Ladder 48′s forcible entry team and we run past the engine guys as they climb the stairs beneath the burden of their hose line.

We reach the fire floor well before the engine and go right to work forcing the door.

The job of the forcible entry team is to get the door open, crawl in and search for the location of the fire and any trapped victims. The public hallway instantly fills with smoke as we pop the door, drop to our bellies and crawl into hell. Searching in this apartment is accomplished by feel because sight is non-existent, nothing and I do mean nothing is visible. With all the windows closed, the fire has smoldered a long time producing an extremely heavy smoke condition right down to the floor.

To put it another way, you couldn’t see shit! …and the heat is extraordinary, to stand upright here is an instant trip to the burn center. Our team splits into three to cover the flat faster and my search leads to a crib in a back bedroom.

Getting to my knees I reach over the railing and sweep the mattress with my gloved hand discovering what I did not want to find, a limp silent baby.

Hollering I got a kid: I drop again to the floor and backtrack to the door where the engine guys have started to advance their line into the apartment.

They stop and allow me to crawl across their backs and into the public hallway where I get to my feet and race down the stairs heading for the ambulance that’s hopefully there. It’s a tiny baby.

I hold the head in my left palm, torso on my forearm. His arms and legs flap wildly with each step I take as I perform one-man CPR on the run.

Word has reached the street and as we exit the building a cop grabs my arm and points to an ambulance waiting at the intersection.

Cover the mouth and nose, don’t blow too hard, two fingers compressing the chest, oh fuck live, please live. Reaching the ambulance the baby is taken from me and for the first time since exiting the building, I am aware of the huge crowd that is watching these events unfold. The clutch to my brain is slipping: I can’t get it into gear. Immobilized all I can do is stare back into the crowd and then I lock eyes with a girl of about ten.

Today I can still see the little hairclips attached to her cornrows.

She’s terrified: her eyes stretched open to the size of silver dollars.

She begins slowly backing away then suddenly turns and runs into the crowd. I want to run after her and tell her, BUT I DIDN’T DO IT ! Instead, I head back to the fire, there’s still work to do there. As I pass, a cop hands me the helmet that I didn’t even know had fallen from my head and asks with great tenderness,”Are you OK buddy?”

Yeah, I’m OK.

Re-entering the building, I hear the word come over someones radio, the kid didn’t make it.

I sit alone in a corner where no one can see me as the tears start.

Yeah, I’m OK.

I live 100 feet from Interstate 95 and from my living room window have an unobstructed view of this sea of vehicles. Having lived here many years the sounds of impending trouble are familiar. So when the horns started blaring it was a cue to look out the window and I did so, just in time to see a person rocket thirty feet into the air. This is not an exaggeration: he flew higher than the overhead signs. I am out the door, across the street and over the wall onto the highway in less than thirty seconds. Traffic in both directions is totally stopped.

But where is rocket man, he isn’t on the pavement. I lay down and look under the cars and he isn’t there either. Sitting on the hood of his car in the fast lane, cradling his head in his hands is the poor soul who struck the missing victim.

When I ask, where did he go, the driver stretches out his left arm and wordlessly points at the ground on the other side of the center divider.

There he is, the most damaged human being that I have ever seen, who was still alive.

A quick survey shows a man laying on his back, face up… left arm nearly amputated, held on by a piece of flesh the diameter of a pencil. Right leg folded beneath his back in a manner that would make a contortionist jealous. Mouth overflowing with that thick blood that means the end is near. I kneel down beside him…time to get to work. You are not supposed to move a victims head but in this case if I don’t he’s gonna drown in his own blood.

Lifting and turning his skull I fell the many pieces it’s been busted into grating against each other,but succeed in draining the blood which is now flowing freely from his mouth. The smell of his blood is garnished with alcohol, now I know why he was walking along the center divider of the highway. Score another one for John Barleycorn! His eyes and mine are inches apart and I realize he’s fully aware of the situation. He’s physically destroyed but his reasoning is intact.

Enter the rubbernecking asshole with, “Oh man he’s going to die.”

When rocket man hears this, I watch his eyes as the disbelief turned to fear.

Easy buddy, take it easy.

I wasn’t gonna bullshit him during the last seconds of his life with the usual, “You’re going to be all right.” I had too much respect for his situation to do that. I couldn’t do anything to help him live but god damn it, I was gonna give him dignity. The only thing he can move is his eyes, so I position my face to block his vision of everything but me. His last view of life was not going to be a gawking crowd of ghoulish bystanders whoses immediate entertainment was watching him die! Intently staring into his eyes I witness his pupils dilate and life depart.

The cops arrive.

“Who are you.” Fire department.

“Are you involved?”

No.

“OK we got it.”

Ask anyone about their most intimate human contact and they may speak of love or perhaps sex.

Ask me and I’ll tell you about a broken man on Interstate 95.