Report From Engine Co. 82 - Dennis Smith [3]
Now think of the constant turmoil of an inner city where the sirens of fire trucks fill the air like a turbulent wind, where computers project how many fires could occur today and how many people could be injured or killed. Think about the firefighters riding on those trucks and the questions they’ll face at their destination. What is the construction of the building? How is the fire traveling? Are people trapped? Has someone been shot or knifed? Does he need to be cut loose from a mangled automobile? Has she had a heart attack, or a drug overdose, or an epileptic seizure? Or is it simply a false alarm?
These are the questions that determine life and death, and these are the firefighters I have written about—representative of every firefighter you’ve ever seen, met, or read about.
They are regular human beings, like you or your neighbor. But something separates them from the norm, something I hope you’ll discover in the pages of this book. In the end, what is most admirable about firefighters is their reliability: When they are called, they come.
New York City
September 9, 1998
1
The Late, Late Show is on the television and most of us are sitting in the kitchen when the bells start to ring. I take a last sip of tea as I count onetwo onetwothreefourfive one onetwothree-fourfive. The kitchen chairs empty as the last number comes in. Box 2515. Intervale Avenue and Kelly Street.
We can smell the smoke as the pumper turns down Intervale, and hands automatically start pulling boot-tops to thighs, clipping coat-rings closed, and putting on gloves. The pumper stops in front of a building just before we reach Kelly Street. We’re about to stretch the hose when there is an anguished scream from inside the building. A boy is running out of the doorway, his shirt and hair aflame.
Ladder 31 and Chief Solwin are right behind us, and one of the ladder men goes rapidly to the boy’s assistance. Willy Knipps takes the first folds of the hose and heads into the building. Carroll and I follow, dragging the rest of the hose with us. Royce and Boyle are still on the sidewalk donning masks.
Lieutenant Welch is waiting for us on the second floor, crouched low by a smoking door. There are four apartments on the floor, and three of the doors are open, their occupants fleeing. Chief Solwin arrives, stops for a moment at the top of the stairs, and then rushes into the apartment adjoining the rooms on fire. He starts kicking through the wall with all his strength. The smoke rushes through the hole, darkening the apartment and the hall. Knipps and I are coughing and have to lie on our bellies as we wait for the water to surge through the hose. Carroll has gone down for another mask. He can tell it’s going to be a tough, snotty job.
Billy-o and Artie Merritt start to work on the locked door. It’s hard for me to breathe with my nose to the marble floor of the hall, and I think of the beating Artie and Billy-o must be taking as they stand where the smoke is densest, swinging on the ax, hitting the door with the point of the halligan tool. The door is tight and does not give easily.
Captain Frimes arrives with Charlie McCartty behind him. “Give me a man with a halligan,” Chief Solwin yells, and Captain Frimes and McCartty hustle into the adjoining apartment.
“I’m sure I heard someone in there,” Chief Solwin says.
Charlie widens the hole in the wall. The Chief and Captain Frimes are on their knees as Charlie works. After furious hacking, the hole is through to the next apartment. Charlie tries to squeeze through the bay—the sixteen-inch space between the two-by-fours. He can’t make it. Not with his mask on. He turns to take the mask off, but before he can get it off