Episode 344: The Best of The Bravest: Joel Kanasky (Volume 63)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Mike Did You Even podcast hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Cologne. You were listening

(01:04):
to the best of the Bridges interviews with the fdny's elite,
you know, as far as Tonight's guest and bob Yalliona
is concerned. It was years ago as an eight year
old kid where I watched the documentary Still Riding, and
that's how I found out about them. That's I found
out about Rescue One, and that's how I found out,

(01:24):
of course, about the history of the ft and why
specifically the rescue companies. And many of you watching tonight,
I've seen that documentary. Some of you are on the
job or want to get out the job. I'm among
them because of that documentary. And there's a quote in
there that we'll talk about tonight. In that quote being
from Tonight's guest, we ride on a big toolbox, which
I think is quite the educational look at not only

(01:44):
the fire service as a whole, but the apparatus which
responds to these emergencies. So this is someone I've been
trying to get on the program for quite a while.
There are some things that got in the way of
that unfortunately, but finally tonight we were able to bring
this episode to you. We welcome you back for this
episode three hundred and forty four of the podcast. It's
volume sixty three of the best of the Bravest Interviews
with the Ft and Wise Elite. We were off the

(02:05):
air last week. We were away. It took a little
break and we hope that all of you out there
didn't miss us too much. We're sorry about that, but
took a little break to recharge. The previous episode was
episode three forty three, which was with Paul Kachinski, retired
NYPD Emergency Service officer. Spent five of his years in
the NYPD twenty in total with the su and Truck

(02:25):
one in Manhattan and also went out to serve in
the Joint Terrorism Task Force, so he had some interesting
stories of some notable investigations on that front. We'll do
a couple of ads real quick. Let me just acknowledge
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(02:45):
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(04:10):
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(04:32):
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a proud supporter and sponsor of the Mike to New
Haven podcast. Proud supporter indeed, and of course one more
shout out Darren Defriese in the live chat he's here,
Joe Maliga as well, and Garrett Lingren, who tonight's guest
knows very well. He's tuning in former guests of this
show as well, formerly a Rescue three and Squat forty

(04:55):
one before they were Squat forty one. My next guest
is spent half the lifetime battling the Red Men, which
you'll tell me about tonight. Across you know, different places.
There was Alexandria Virginia for a time, and there is
also his involvement out on Rockland County with their hazmat
team most notably, however, from nineteen ninety four until twenty
fourteen with the Ft and Y started out in seventeen

(05:15):
truck from ninety four to ninety eight, and it would
be in nineteen ninety eight that he would go over
to Rescue one, where you would spend the next sixteen
years of his career until his retirement in twenty fourteen,
going to different emergencies. We know each rescue across the
five boroughs response to many different things, and there's a
lot of unique challenges in the borough of Manhattan, as
we'll talk about tonight. Finally get to say this, I
welcome for this volume sixty three of the best of

(05:37):
the Bravest interviews with the fd and wi's Elite, the
tired FDNY Firefighter and Alexandria, Virginia Firefighter Joe CANASKI ask
you welcome, How are you very good? Welcome, Good to
have you. Finally, I haven't worked on this for a while,
so that last.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Good apologize for those delays.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Now listen, Like we talked about off there, sometimes things happen,
but we worked through it and as long as I'm
able to get you, eventually works out at the end.
So very glad you're here tonight. And as always for
those of you in the chat, if you have a question,
submit it and at the appropriate time I'll highlight it
throughout our conversation. So just take me through your early
years and where if it began during your early years,
did you first develop a love for the fire service

(06:15):
or just civil service in general.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well, what happened was my father had passed away when
I was like a year old. So I had a
lot of older brothers and they were all volunteer fireman
and suffering New York. So I started hung around the
firehouse a lot and learned a lot about it. I
worked in the camaraderie and you know, just being around fireman,
I saw how these guys acted. And then my brother

(06:41):
in law, my sister got married to another volunteer fireman,
and it made me realize that it was going to
be something maybe I wanted to try. I had a
cousin who was in Bridgeport fire of course in Connecticut
for a lot of years. I just actually had dinner
with him. He was a fireman all the way. It
was a fireman in the Air Force, a fireman in

(07:02):
the Air Guard, and an a farming and bridgepoard. And
he was also a big influence on the decided to
join the volunteers. So it's been a few years and
suffering before I went to the military.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
And that's always a great education. I mean, everybody has
to start somewhere, and I think the volunteers now these days,
it's unfortunate that they don't have and this is a
countrywide problem. The same levels of membership in most places
that they used to, and there's a lot of different
reasons for that, but it really is a great place
to learn the job. And you have a lot of
people that even being on the career side, for example,
a lot of FD and Y guys that live out

(07:36):
in Rockland County or live out on the island, they
still volunteer on the side. So tell me about learning
from those guys, even if they weren't city firemen per se.
Some of the big lessons they talked early on, not
just about the job, but how to carry yourself.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, early on it was it was one hundred percent
when needed, you know, it was whether it was decorating
the firehouse for Christmas decorations or runs drills, one hundred percent.
It was like it was a family. It was just
a real cool part. It was just down to earth,
you know. You could see that their hearts were in it,

(08:10):
and it was a very interesting place. I said, before
I became a member, Like I said, it was probably
fourteen or fifteen before I could become a member, And
they were going to a lot of fires and these
guys were into it and they were, you know, hitting
it hard. There was no nonsense from the yard. They
were doing the job, and it was just amazing to
see and watch and it really made me just want to.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Be a part of it, and that would translate well
into both Virginia and of course, as we'll talk about
later on the FD and Wise is Joel Kanaski, how
Mike Cologne. This is volume sixty three of the best
of the bravest interviews with the Fting Wise leap, and
I was certainly happened to have them this evening. There
was the Core for a while for four years eighty
two to eighty six. Now that's a big leap from
the Fire Service and of course to the military.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
What prompted that, well, what prompted it was it was
I thought, looking and going down the path of life
that I was either going to go to jail or
going to the Marine Corps. Really yeah, I mean it
was you know, I found out about girls in high
school and that corrupted everything. I could have probably have
been a state senator or a congressman or a doctor.

(09:17):
Girls who met for me for sure, So you know,
I decided to go for a career in the military.
I had four brothers who were in the Marine Corps.
I decided to continue on with the tradition, and I
was lucky enough when I joined the Corps. As you
all know, every every member of the Corps is a
true rifleman. But I was selected to be a fireman.
So my time in the Marine Corps was a fireman

(09:41):
and it was it was very interesting, very you know.
You I was a crash rescue fireman at airports, but
all our crash rinks had gun mounts for M sixteen's,
you know. It was it was a mix of both worlds.
It was very interesting.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Oh yeah, and you know I knew certain branches had
their own members of the fire prigrade. I should say,
I don't know the Marine Corps was one of them
until you just mentioned that. So it's something interesting that
you learn every day. Of course, as the old saying go,
as you learned something new every day. Now as it
pertains to that, where primarily were you stationed? I know,
were you stationed in Virginia or were you stationed elsewhere?

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah? I was stationed in Virginia. My first duty station
was Quantico, which is the Presidential Helicopter Unit HIX one. Yeah,
I was at that air station there. It was great,
and they said I thought I would have stayed a
lot of I might have stayed for a career, I thought,
but at the time when things I started to get

(10:39):
towards the end of my career, two things happened. I
got hurt at a fire, and I didn't know if
I could continue my career. It was sort of borderline.
And then on top of that, a lot of the
fire departments in the area were hiring at the time
in Virginia, I mean just like now. I mean you
could throw a softball back then, and every department was

(11:01):
looking for members. So it was very interesting that way.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
Now, as far as the discipline that's instilled in you
when you're in the military, it's kind of similar to
the fire service. They call fire service. After all, many
fire departments, I should say, in police departments paramilitary organizations
for that reason, you know, and I've often talked with
guys that have both backgrounds, where if you could handle that,
you know, the fire academy or the police academy is
a heck of a lot easier. It's not to say
it's not without its own challenges, but it's easier compared

(11:27):
to that. Were some of the lessons you've felt that
the core instilled in you that guided you throughout your
career in.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Like you said, the Marine Corps was very interesting in
the fact that you know, not only to have to
qualify with a rifle, of the gas chamber, forced marches,
pt you know, regular firehouse duties, cleaning the firehouse, working
in the firehouse, going on runs. It was all about
the same, but it was it was very disciplined organization
and the fact that, like you said, you never knew

(11:58):
how hard it was. I said, even just you know,
cleaning your room, ironing your clothes, all those things happened
in the military, so it sort of made you self
sufficient and prepared for anything.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Can get thrown in a chair, right, And I think
that's the way. It's kind of the way you want
it to be. That way, people are unflappable in those positions,
which you definitely need to be if it's going to
hit the fan, which you can in certain situations, as
we'll talk about tonight. One thing I did want to
ask is as far as the response area in the
unit like that as concerned you mentioned going to airports
in case a plane went down. Besides that, what other

(12:30):
areas and type of cause would you go on?

Speaker 2 (12:32):
But what happened there is the air station was responsible
for the air station to aircraft, the hangars, stuff like that.
We would assist the local communities and anytime they needed
a phone mapparatus. As we were crash trucks. We also
had a large water tender and a six wheel drive
brush truck, so we were both of those disciplines. We

(12:54):
would get assigned in the summer months. At the same
time I was a marine, I was also a volunteer
fireman in Virginia, you know, because you worked a twenty
four twenty four off schedule. That allowed me to become
a volunteer in the local community in Virginia. Too.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Very nice, very nice. Now, as far as beginning in Alexandria,
you spent almost a decade there, eighty five to ninety four.
Alexandria one of the more notable cities in Virginia, at
least one of the things that first pop up to
people who may not be familiar with the state, they
at least know that city. Working there seemed like you
enjoyed it a lot. Obviously there were greater things waiting
ahead for you. But when you look back on those
nine years, tell me first where you were stationed and

(13:31):
some of the more notable calls that stand out well.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
I was originally stationed out of the academy. I was
a station in a fifty three truck. It's now called
two of three truck, but fifty three truck. It was
in what it's called Beverly Hills. Surprisingly enough, it was
a real affluent suburban neighborhood with mostly private dwellings. But
the cool part about it was you ran into three
of the tougher neighborhoods in the city with public housing,

(13:57):
so who was a good mix. There were only three
trucks in the city back then, so every fire got
one truck. When him a working fire got two trucks,
so you had a good chance to go into every fire.
I mean, it was the game. But we did a
lot of the trucks didn't do emergency medical work back then,
so we did fire runs basically extrication runs. The most

(14:23):
notable thing I probably did is I had a good
buddy of mine who I served with for a long time,
Kenny Softholder. Him and I were in the three truck
for a long time. We did a trench rescue, the
first probably the first technical rescue. The city ever had
to do. We performed with help from the guys for Fairfax.
Ended up losing the guy that was trapped, but it

(14:44):
was it was It was a good job. I was
at a couple jobs where grabs were made. I got
stuck being the engine show for once. And of course,
the one day you're an engine show for you pull
up the fires roaring out the couple of windows, and
the boys come out two minutes later with a kid.
But I was lucky enough to be able to help
and grab the kid and perform emergency medical work on
the kid, which was good for the engine show. But

(15:06):
the city itself was always very unique. It was very
old school. Like he said, George Washington bought their first
fire engine.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
You did mention that, yes, when you were in Salty.
He just mentioned that, you.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
Know, that was where the first fire engine came from.
But it was a very old school fire department, a
lot of crazy, old school things. I didn't mind him
because I was a marine. You know, there was a
lot of stupid stuff in the Marine Corps you had
to do, and there was a lot of crazy stuff
that you had to do there too. I didn't mind
it at all. I worked for great guys back then.
You know the captain I had. The way it worked
there was there was a captain in the engine and

(15:39):
lieutenant in the truck, but the captain was in charge
of the house. I had the greatest captain ever, Donnie
up Church, What a great guy. We only saw a
difference once and that was at a job. Donnie had
forgot his gloves and he asked me for my gloves
and I said, sorry, cap, I got the nozzle, so

(16:02):
he didn't get the nazzle that day. But other than that,
I mean, all great guys. All my bosses were good.
The only problem with Virginia was they had that you know,
the uh throw the wheel thing About every two or
three years, they would throw the wheel and the bosses
in the office would pick where you're gonna go, so
they would transfer a lot. I got lucky. I never

(16:24):
got transferred. Kenny never got transferred, Our bosses got transferred.
Some guys in the engine got transferred. We never got
I never got hit. So I maybe it was because
I don't know, I had no idea, but that was
a big problem. You know, guys would get uprooted a lot.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah, and it kind of hurts continuity that way too,
especially when you got a city of one hundred and
sixty thousand people. If you got crews that work well
together and have been working together for a while, why
would you want to break that up?

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, And the other problem is the city was very interesting.
Like when you went from Old Town, which was you know,
eighteen nineties buildings out West which was high rise residentials.
The city was complete different. So when you learn the neighborhood,
it was so important. And like I said, they played
that crapshoot all the time. You know, they they mixed

(17:09):
it up, and you know, they would have the detail
thing about every I don't know, one or two years,
the chiefs was sitting in office and I think they
threw dice out the figure where to send the guys
and it always busted morale to But that was the worst.
I said. I'd never got hit by it, so I
was okay.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, thankfully, you know, you weren't impacted by it, although
other guys, unfortunately were. Now I did want to ask
this about the city. Like I said, the populations just
under one hundred and sixty thousand. Sometimes with cities of
that large as size, the population is kind of crowded
into each other. You think of Boston, you certainly think
of New York. Other places is a bit more spread out.
Was Alexandria, one the other, a mixture of both.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
It was a highly densely populated you know. It was
the place where everybody from Washington worked. So I mean
even in the neighborhood where I worked in fifty three truck,
it was all you know, we had the President's private
baker two doors down from the firehouse. You know, we
had we had two or three lawyers in the neighborhood.
We had a ton of stuff like that in the neighborhood.

(18:07):
It was a great place. And then you had the
high rises in the west end of the city where
it was just normal people working people that lived in
high rises. But the city was densely populated. It was
surrounded by courses, you know, Arlington County and Fairfax County.
You know Fairfax County the gods of the Virginia supposed
leader between them and Virginia Beach. You know, they had
that big feud going on all the time. Yeah, they

(18:28):
both think you know, they need passports to go. You
have to have a passport to go from one the
other but there are two big cities. And like I said,
we were starting this thing about when I started Alexandria,
we had I think my first rigg in ninety four
was a sixty four open cab engine in the house
and the truck. The truck happened to be brand new,

(18:48):
but they said, then you had Fairfax next door with
brand new e ones that were ten days old. So
it was it was an interesting mix, uh going on.
Back then. There wasn't as much mutual response then as
there is now now. A city in the street street
in the city may have two Fairfax companies and one

(19:09):
Alexandria company automatically, we'll back before it was h it
would be primarily Alexandria and maybe an engine, but the
trucks would always be from the city. So it was
just different back then.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
And I find in talking with certain you know, individuals
who work with departments that have a similar arrangement, there
is not that the mutual aid is minded now, but
as far as eras back then, how they describe it,
there is a lot of pride in that that it's
our fire, We're going to put it out, We're not
going to ask for any help. If we're asking for help.
Then you know it's hitting the fan. So I mean,
although I can understand now the charters which do help

(19:41):
matters as far as quicker responses getting the situation under control, quicker,
I understand that mentality the bygone error too. I could
see why guys felt that way.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, I mean back then, the difference was the city.
You know, Fairfax County had Warren Isman. He was the
if you researched, and Warren Isman was the first chief
with hazmat any win in the country really, and it
was they were growing metropolis. They had this big forefront,
you know, they were putting well. When I was there,
they had actually taken there. They had had people who

(20:11):
were EMS and fire and then he had decided that
if you were an EMS lieutenant, the next day you
were qualified to be a fire lieutenant. And it was
kind of crazy. But the city was old school. We
had a third service that were paramedics. We didn't have
any transport ambulances. We were just the fire department. We
went on medical runs. The engines did, the trucks did not.

(20:33):
But it was just an old school city and they
said they had a lot of old school rules, rules
and regulations, and I thought it was really good being
a marine. I mean it was good for me to
see that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
And I'll ask you one last note before I get
to New York. Had it not been for New York call,
and I know that was a dream of yours for
a long time, would you have been happy staying in
Alexandria for the rest of your career.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah, I'd gotten well. I gotten promoted to lieutenant and
it was it was a blast. I mean I had
a great cruise. My first signed crew. I had two
senior guys, both had like thirty five years and they
were still willing to go out and drill twice a
day without breaking my chops. Now I did, I would
admit as a young boss I had, I believe when

(21:15):
they went out and drill for me like that, I
bought the meal because I guess I was making a
few shekels more than them. And I had no kids.
A lot of these guys had two or three kids.
But it was I would have stayed there probably forever.
Were Actually my wife and I had just started looking
before New York called or property a little further south
than when we lived. I didn't want to leave my

(21:36):
Volunteer Department. Then my volunteer department in Virginia was OWL
was about four hundred and fifty members, firehouses, a lot
of work. It was spectacular. I mean we went to
crazy things, a lot of fires, a lot of emergencies.
But we were looking to move a little further south
and get some land. And then the rench got thrown
into that whole thing, like magically. I got a letter from.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
New York finally, which preeces into Nightete ninety four. Actually
before I get there, a couple of acknowledgements in the
chadow highlight. One common now is Seth Blaney's a Knoxville,
Tennessee police officer. He says, via LinkedIn, Joe, thank you
from the bottom of my heart for your service to
a country of the City of New York. Joe Gonosa
orgin noos tuns Joe, thank you Joe for tuning in tonight.

(22:19):
And Dave Norman, retired NYPD SU cop out of truck one.
John Norman's brother, of course, says, great guy.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
So he's John Norman spoke to a couple of my
good friend.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
J Yeah, yeah, Dave certainly did. I've heard that story.
And of course Chief Norman is a former guest of
this show. I had a good fortune interview she probably
a little while ago. Yeah, Captain Dorman, it is good
to see it.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Dave.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Thanks for tuning in tonight. Hopefully I can get Dave
on the show soon for the ESU mini series. So
nineteen ninety four is interesting because you get to the city,
Like I said, it had been a dream of yours
for a while. And just tell me about the academy
from the standpoint that you're in there, the investigators that
hired you know your background. You're coming in pretty darn qualify.
You've been a fireman in the Marine Corps. You'd been

(23:03):
a fireman of course in Virginia and a boss at that,
but you got to learn how to do things in
the FD and a hy way. So tell me about
being a prob all over again at such a different stage.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
You know, I think because of my Marine Corps training,
I learned to be quiet and in the back and
answer right, listen and answer, and I tell you what
it was. It was very interesting in the fact that
I think what changed the first right off, the first
week was when they set us up in the Proby
Academy and said Okay, figure out who you're gonna drive with.

(23:33):
I met three or four guys from Rocklain County who
lived close to where I lived when I grew up,
so that set the pace there. It was very interesting
in fact that like a lot of the things I knew,
I mean I knew, but I didn't say a word.
I tried to keep it totally under wraps. I didn't
tell a word to anybody. I never mentioned to anybody,

(23:53):
but someone found out. I don't know how they found out,
but someone found Of course, right always was. But the
academy was interesting in the fact that I remember I
was a little older than most of the recruits. I
was thirty one at the time when I joined the FDNY,
so you had a lot of these young kids. But
probably the worst part of mine was the fact that

(24:14):
I had been a firement for ten years outside of
the Marine Corps, where you're not as healthy and pete
and as much as you were, So I wasn't on
the top edge of pt either. But because of my
military background, they made me a squad leader, which helped.
I was able to help a lot of guys in
my squad with They were all go getters, but I
was able to, you know, because I could stay home

(24:36):
at night and I knew what type of few cards,
the right things, the right to help us out. We
had a blast, I really had. I had a great
time in the academy. I really did. I was lucky
enough at the end of the academy to graduate as
a valed victorian. Nice and I told that story once before.
I did not I was not the valedictorian, I can
guarantee you. There was another young kid who I knew,

(24:58):
whose father was on the and I think his name
was the Male. You know, I'm getting old now, so
I forget names. But I think his name was the Male.
And him and I were within one point of each other.
So on the final exam, I threw two or three
questions that I knew right off the bat I threw him,
and who knows what happened somewhere in the back room,
I guess and ended up I was the valedictorian and

(25:21):
he was a solitary. But it was a blast. I
had a great time in the academy. You know. It
was interesting was I went from a recruit school in Aleexandary,
which is the biggest they ever had at the time.
Of like twenty one people. That was the biggest they
had had in the years. Wow. And then I went
to the New York City Academy and I think we had

(25:41):
one hundred and seventy one and eight hundred and ninety,
but we were in the rock where you only had
the tiny locker room. It was. It was brutal that way,
but it was a big change. But the recruit school
there was I think it was more fun for me
because I wasn't afraid of anything. Nothing was really new,
so it was just it was enjoyable. I had good
time every day, you know. I ate my bacon and

(26:02):
egg sandwich from the food truck outside the gate every
day and I had a blast.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
And people, oh, sorry to mean to cut you off there.
It's funny how many people have gone through that. It
doesn't matter where I have gone through the academy. And
when they look back on it, was it daunting at
the time, yes, because you're one step closer to beginning
the job, but you still have a lot of hurdles
in the academy and go through. But people looking back
say it's often the greatest time of their life. It
was the greatest three months they ever four months they
ever had, and it sounds like that was the case

(26:28):
with you. I'm sure it was scary at the time,
but looking back on it, you look back by it finally,
which is nice to hear.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
It was funny too, because Alexander, I think at the time,
was twenty six weeks and I got my my twenty
six weeks got cut short because I was a medic
already when I got on the job, because in the
Marine Corps they made me an EMT and my volunteer
department made me a paramedic, so it was I didn't
have to go the full twenty six weeks. I went
twenty one or twenty weeks, and then they put me

(26:54):
in the street because I didn't need EMT school. And
then I came to New York and it was seven
and a half weeks of and here you go, You're
going to the great largest city in the fire of
bart and center and a half.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Weeks and they run it longer now yeah, now, yeah, yeah,
And it's I mean, it's incredible to think about the
training that goes on. But when you go down the
rockets I've had the good fortune to do, you see why.
I mean, it's very extensive, but it's good. You know.
It molds them and prepares them, you know that way.
As we talked about earlier, much like the Core, they're

(27:23):
unflappable when they get on the street, exactly William sixty
three of the Best, the Bravest. Joe Kanaski's our guess.
Warren Whitley's tuning in via Facebook. He says he Joe
sentence regards.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Warren the best gut our player in the world. He
made it the chiefs. I can't talk to him anymore. Ah,
he's retired now, but he made the chief And he
also married a spectacular, super hot female firefighter that I
knew for a lot of years. A good guy.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
All right. Good to see a chief that, Thank you
very much and all the best to you in your
career as a musician. On top of that, seventeen trucks
out in the Modhaven section of the Bronx. Now you know,
this is no knock on the other boroughs. They're busy
in their own way. Each borough is unique in terms
of like we said before on the show, New York
City's really five cities merged into one. So no emergency
is ever going to be the same and you know
that better than anybody. But Mondhaven's busy, and you're busy,

(28:12):
particularly when it comes to fire calls or emergency calls
in general in the Bronx, in Brooklyn and certainly in
Manhattan as well. And that's no disrespect to Queens or
Staten Islands, they're busy too, But just being in a
place like that during the mid nineties, the city's starting
to rebound, but there's still a lout of work to
go around between the emergencies and the box alarms. Tell
me about the education that that.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Was, well, you know it was. It was amazing. It
was completely different than what I was used to in
a elegarary. I mean completely different. Just the firehouse culture,
the neighborhood. You know, I had never worked in a
neighborhood where you might park your car and look around
before you walk into the firehouse to make sure you're
going to make it into the firehouse. You know, the
South Bronx area, you know, seventeen twenty nine, forty one

(28:55):
fifty five, that neighborhood. Even in the revitalization of the city,
he never changed, you know, they said, I told them
the last podcast, we had a chicken joint next to
the firehouse that never sold a piece of chicken, and
it was a numbers joint. You know. We had two
bodegas in a liquor store. But there was never any
revitalization in that south part of South Broms. You were there,

(29:16):
you helped the people that really needed help there. It
was a great house. The house again had a lot
of senior guys, which was amazing. I got lucky when
I first I went out on Alexandary. There wasn't a
lot of senior guys in my companies. But when I
got to New York in seventeen truck, we had Tom McDowell,

(29:37):
Billy Larson. We had guys that were just rock solid.
They didn't even blink an eye when it went to
a job. I had a boss that changed chased a
pit bull with a vacuum at a fire to get
him out of the way so we could go and
do the searches. Wow. And I'm like, I said, here,
I'm this new guy. You're thinking I'm going to die here?
You know, because you still if you're a fireman and

(29:58):
you go to jobs and you're not worried about going
in the job, there's something wrong with you. Right. You know,
you got to always have in your mind that this
is dangerous ship. Excuse me, but dangerous. These guys were.
They were hardcore, great fireman. The firehouse itself had the
culture at the seniority. It had everyday events, you know,

(30:20):
the meals were perfect. It was just a great house
to go to. And like I said, all the bosses there.
My first boss who was there, the Captain John Vaughan,
who was an old Irish guy. And I don't think
I understood a word he ever said, but he said
I worked with him. And Ray Callanan were the two

(30:40):
bosses that worked all the time. And he said, thank
God for Ray because at least Raymond told me to
do something. I knew what he was telling me. The
brogue I had no idea what the brogue what he
was saying most of the time. But both great bosses
and you hold on to my coat, well, you know, boy.
And that was the way it was taught there. It
was it was learning experience that way. It wasn't a

(31:03):
you know, in some departments with three man response, even
on day one, you know, you're by yourself basically because
the bosses has to do a job. In New York.
It's not that way. You know, in New York, the
boss is looking out for the men. That's his job.
You know, he was looking out for you the whole time.
It just made it made it so more relaxed than
anything I'd ever experienced.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
It was really cool, right, especially when you're newer, you know,
when you're going into it for the first time. Even
if you've been trained, there's nothing like the street itself.
The academy's one thing that's important, but the street is
where the real education, the real learning begins. So having
someone by your side like that on that first job,
really a first couple of jobs until you get the
feet on you, it's a big, big plus.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, seventeen truck was a tower ladder, a special call
to a lot of conflagragations that weren't going to go
the way you wanted. But the companies around seventeen eighty
three and twenty nine, seventy five forty one, they were
fifty nine to thirty from the Harlem all great companies,
great guys. I mean, when you got detailed somewhere, you

(32:05):
were treated like a king, and you knew everybody there
was watching out for you. It was spectacular.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
It's a good place to be. And to what you
mentioned earlier about the danger component again, I go back
to Still Riding, and this is the line that I
mentioned before Billy Lake, the late great Billy Lake from
Rescue Too, and when this wasn't even in the in
Still Riding. Actually in me correct myself, it was in
the Bravest television series which you were also in, where
he talks about you know, listen, I'm paraphrasing. We hop
on the big red truck, everybody waves, everybody likes us.

(32:32):
But you go down to headquarters and there's some blacks
of names and many guys who died doing this job.
And if it's not in the back of your mind,
you're kidding yourself, as he said, and you're not being
honest with yourself. So I'm glad you said that. Not
that anybody needs to hear that from the standpoint that
they don't already know, but it's good to say it
out loud, to keep it in mind, because it doesn't
matter how many years you have, you never know what.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Can happen, I think, and that's one of the problems
we have in the fire service. Guys that you know,
the only one I admit that. Look, I went to
this job and I was scared. I still did what
I had to do, but you know, it was a
scared and you know, the outcome was okay, or the
outcome wasn't okay. You know, sixteen seventeen had I think,
you know, I hate to say, I should have probably

(33:12):
asked somebody, but I think when I went there, there
was six or eight plaques on the wall. Wow, you know,
and that was hard hitting and a lot of guys
had two or three guys killed at one job. Wow.
And you know, you can never forget that. It's it's
a tough, tough, tough job. And if you I think
that's part of the problem I having the fire service
today is guys don't talk in the kitchen and say, hey, look,

(33:35):
I don't know about you, but I was ready to
leave there until you said this to me, or I
was ready to Like I said, it was pretty scary
to you. You know, I heard your voice, and those
are the things I think to keep guys crawling around
the hallway.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Right, I'll just do this, Oh the openness and I
go back. This wasn't nefty. Guest I had. His name's
Jeff Oberdere he's a retired n YPD bomb squad detect.
If he was talking about his approach to, you know,
approaching suspicious packages, that maybe and he told me, and
this is a direct quote, and I appreciate it in
saying it, then he's still right now. The fear keeps
you honest. It keeps you honest. If you acknowledge that fear,

(34:09):
it's okay. You're supposed to be fearful. You're not supposed
to be completely you know, stone faced and and you know,
completely lacked, devoid of, I should say, of any sort
of nerves when you're approaching situations like that. If the
fear overwhelms you, that's not a good thing. But if
you have a little bit of fear to begin with,
that's good. It keeps you honest.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, I think I said, you know, when it was
back back in the rescue rig around seventeen truck, when
somebody would go, hey, what could possibly go wrong?

Speaker 1 (34:35):
A lot?

Speaker 2 (34:36):
You know, that was always the thing, it was. You
just jobs are always different, even in the projects, which
you know, they used to call self cleaning ovens because
they said you go to a project for once every
couple of weeks, you know, and it's a room and contents,
it's a brick building. It's not going a lot of places.
But still for the first few minutes getting in the
hall way, till the door got opened, or till the

(34:57):
lying out in place, you know, it was it was
a situation, you know, in the South Bronx it was
different though, because usually when you were crawling on the
halliday was some little old lady or a little man
walking past you going the fires two doors down on
the left, because they've been through so many fires in
their life, you know, right, experience that some firemen never
get a chance to see it.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. And
talk about people that are inflappable there. You know. I
don't want to say something's wrong with them, but those
are people with nerves to steal. It's because they're like, ah,
you know what again, all right, whatever, you know, But
it's a good point. A lot of guys don't see
the same things that they do having lived through with
their whole lives. Nineteen ninety eight, we'll get to rescue
one now, I know Terry Hatton was previously in rescue

(35:40):
for as I believe the lieutenant. Was he a captain
at rescue one By this point what happened.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
Was John Norman was the captain, but he's going to
get detailed to the captain's mentoring program where they had
to ride in the back seat behind the chief, tell
the chief what to do type of thing. I don't know.
So Terry had gotten I had interviewed with John Norman actually,
and that was my interview, and then Terry had gotten it.

(36:05):
He was covering there. I guess why Norman was in
the chiefs mentoring program, so that I had two captains
sort of when I first started my rescue career.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Pretty unique spots I have. I mean, you have Terry
on one hand, who's been through a lot. I think
he was the Rescue three guy as well John Norman.
He had the benefit of both being a firefighter and
the rescue and an officer.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
A boss all the way with Terry was a fireman
and rescue too. I gotta correct that because otherwise, yeah,
should KANASKI get up here? But yeah, So Terry was
a fireman and rescue two Boston Rescue four. Uh, and
he was also in four truck which in midtown right
the rescue thing one he was a lieutenant rescue in

(36:48):
four trucks, so and then he was in Rescue one.
Now John Norman did the whole gamma, you know he did.
He had the punishment of he went to Rescue three,
he got assigned to the new asthma unit.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
He was a asbad guy, yet he got.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Punished for that, and then he finally got back to
the rescue and then the time and Rescue two is
a boss. But these are these are incredible captains. I mean,
you know, guys that saw everything.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
I'm sorry about that. I see Garrett Linger in the
chat and I automatically since he was a Rescue three guy,
got jumbled up there. So Terry was a Rescue two fireman.
Remember reading that in The Last Men Out by Tom Downey,
of course the late Chief Rate Downey's Nephew, which is
a great read for those of you that haven't read
it yet. And once again for those of you the chat,
if you have a question, please admit it to highlight
of the appropriate time throughout our conversation. Our guest tonight
is Joel Canaski's volume sixty three of the best of

(37:37):
the Bravest Interviews with the xt and Wives elak as
someone in the chat points South Manhattan gets a little
bit of everything, And that's true. As I mentioned the introduction,
it's not just the fires. There's plenty of those. They
just had a third alarm the other day, for example,
a six alarm not too long ago either. You know,
there's a lot of accidents, a lot of constructions going
on on top of that, so you get accidents in
that regard as well. If someone can fall into something,

(37:58):
get stuck into something, even animals can get injured. So
there's a wide gambit. And as Paul hashag And quoted
Mark Twain and still writing, New York City would be
a real nice place they ever finish it, but they
never will. As far as that first year ninety eight
into ninety nine, you know, stranger to fire duty by
this point, but being in a rescue company like that,
what are the calls of the incidents that stick out

(38:19):
just from those first two years along.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
It was just it was totally amazing. Like you said,
my time in Virginia, I had actually become a state
technical rescue instructor, and as part of Alexandria we did
rescue stuff, so I had trained in all the aspects
of technical rescue for years and talk, but when I
got to rescue one. Every other day I got to

(38:42):
go to some kind of emergency that was a technical rescue,
whether there was a hangover where you actually use ropes,
confined space. We had a guy in a steam generator
at a content plant. We had a trench job. I
think my first year we had probably four or five
dive operations. I mean, it was just berserk with EE.
And I think when I was blessed to be asked

(39:04):
to where I wanted to possibly go after seventeen truck,
A lot of guys in seventeen were surprised they didn't
ask to go to rescue three. And the reason I
asked to go to rescue one is I was really
into emergencies too. I like fires. I mean fires are cool.
If you if you ever get sick of going to fires,
is something wrong with you because they're sort of like

(39:24):
and I know this the Family Show, but they're sort
of like sex. Right. You never know what's going to happen,
how long it's gonna last, It's going to be good
or bad. Fires are cool, but emergencies. I was in
the emergencies and they said the emergencies we got to
go to in Manhattan. I mean the first year I
probably had at least one or two of every aspect
of rescue, building, collapses, confined space, rope jobs, water emergencies

(39:49):
for sure. We did a ton of scuba operations. So
the first year was just eye opening. You know. I
got lucky in ninety eight. They were all the guys
in the rescue I think had been there for at
least three or four years before I got there. Most
of the guys Joe Angelini had twenty one at that time,
he probably had seventeen or eighteen years, and the rescue

(40:10):
after twenty years in one truck. So, I mean, all
these guys were senior guys. You know. Now, usually in
most companies in New York, the chauffeurs are all senior. Right,
we'll see you guys. In Rescue one, the chauffeur was senior.
Davy Williams, Paul Hashagen, all these guys were senior Lloyd
infans On, they were all senior guys. But in the

(40:31):
back two of the four guys were senior guys. So
it was you never had to really if you had
a question, they would answer it. You always had to
do is follow. That's all you had to do. You
didn't have to think. You followed, and they had you
right on the right track.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
And you had Al Benjamin and you have to pay
you know. Yeah, Patti, we'll keep as well.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Kief all those and they said these guys weren't the Chauffers.
They were int back. Al Benjamin spent twenty years in rescue.
One in the back.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
Take Joey Angelini didn't They never wanted to drive. Actually
out he did great driving forward. He just couldn't back up.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
And those narrow streets is hard.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
I keep uh, I'll be, and I keeping pretty good contact.
We see each other once twice a year, I'll be.
It was probably one of the greatest see you men
I ever had the benefit to work for. Besides Paul,
Paul was just legendary. I want to tell if he's listening,
I want to tell me his new book sucked. I read
it in like two days. So if he hears this,

(41:32):
I will deny it to the end.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Yeah, we'll scrape it. We'll swap it from the record,
we'll edit it in Layah. That's a Paul good in
front of the show and a good friend. Of mine
on a personal level as well. Uh, you know, and
any end a heck of a chauffeur and the rescue.
On top of that, if you see Alb next time
you see Alber, talk to him, give him my number, please,
because I've been trying to get that guy in the
show forever.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
He'd be other I will. I will ride him like
a pony. I'll see him probably in mark Rid like
a bone.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Appreciate it very much, you know he's and he's active
on Instagram to sharing anecdotes rescue one from previous years,
which is always great to see.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
I don't think it's all because I don't think he's capable,
So it's got to be either or one of his
nieces or nephew. Is somebody doing it because it's.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Not out Oh well maybe maybe. And and for those
of you that want to research it. When Now got
ready to retire, NBC New York did a great feature
on him. It's still up in their archives. So go
up and type that in just type of now Benjamin
w NBC and that'll pop up there to get an
amazing story on him sometime. Yep, very very a good

(42:29):
guy in the heck of a fireman on top of that. Now,
as far as officers go, I mentioned Captain Hat and
we'll talk more about him in a bit, But you
had Dennis Mohican rescue one. He was a rescue two
guy on top of that as well, and the heck
of a boss. What was it like to work for him?

Speaker 2 (42:42):
All my bosses when I got there were rescue you.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Guys really, yeah, Terry Moheka, who else Penna?

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Mike Penna, Yeah, and John Kieran in the haulk they
all rescue you guys all. Dennis Moheka was He was
just amazing in the fact that he had that ability
to talk to chiefs to make them think they were
thinking of what, ha, do we do? He had the
ability to steer them again. These bosses never got excited.

(43:13):
You know. I was at a third or fourth along
with Mohka, and I had a kid, so I was
standing behind him and the chief was like, what are
we going to do? And Dennis was simple, like, We're
going to put the fire out.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
You know.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
He was just a down to earth guy. I think
that that rescue two thing brought a lot out of them,
the fact that they never got disheveled and they always.
You know some bosses don't remember this, but you always
got to keep the company first, no matter what. You

(43:47):
got to watch out for the guys and the reputation
of the company, because a great company, a great reputation
can be made in a couple of years, but you
could lose it in one night. And I mean Dennis
was one of those guys who was always on top
of things, always had an interesting drill to do. Just

(44:08):
down our den Spoht, Yeah, and John carn in the Rock.
Those two were the Halk, Mike Pennett, all great guys.
I mean, all my bosses. I didn't in Rescue one.
When I went there, you did not mind working on
mutual with someone in the other groups, worrying about who
the boss was because they were all top nine. Now,
paperwork wise, in the office wise, I think the only

(44:30):
one that had any clue was Pennett. He did he
probably did all the paperwork in the whole office, because
I know Terry didn't do much paperwork because he never
spent much time in the office. Right, I don't think
Dennis knew any paperwork, And for sure Karenan the Halk,
he didn't know any paperwork, so he said the paperwork.
I think Mike Pennant did all the paperwork where we
were there, including payroll and anything else.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Right then, I had I had the good fortune to
having Mike on some time ago. I've had Mike on
the show twice and again just the wealth of knowledge,
wealth of knowledge, super guy, and again it buries. I
think he did some work with FEMA too. On top
of that, he.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Did he did both Homeland Security and FEMA retired. You
know now they were talking about Mike. You know, Mike
was the only boss we had left after September eleventh.
That's true because uh, Karenan had went on. Uh he
had destroyed his shoulder at a Collier's mansion about in

(45:27):
July or August, so he was off and on the
way out, Terry was killed and Mohica was killed. So
we had we only had Mike Pennant. That's all we had.
Mike rebuilt the whole company. I think that's why Mike
retired early is I think he had he had more
weight on his shoulders than most humans could ever take,
which we deal with families, funerals. Rebuilding the company Mike
Pennant did. He did just about everything you can imagine

(45:51):
and another great boss. But the key to Mike penn
was his dad was a fireman in the South Bronx
for a ton of years, right, mhm forty eight and
I forget the eighth section of the Brox at forty
eight truck but crazy. But Mike Penno was another incredible boss.

(46:11):
They never got excited, you know, he was and good
because I didn't do very well with streets above fourteenth Street.
I had, you know, those number of things are good.
Once you go below fourteenth Street, it got kind of crazy.
But you know he was always good with that, right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
It's funny because I remember asking him him, like, if
not for the tragedy of that day, how longer would
you have stayed? He's like at least five more years.
He didn't want to leave in two thousand and two,
but like you said, it's understanding a lot of good
guys left, you know, to understandable because after going through
something like that, somebody wants to leave and they got
enough time in. Who could blame them? You know that
that was a big was a burden.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
I mean he was the background of the company for
a year or two.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Yeah, yeah, but I'm glad we could talk about him though,
like and if he's watching, shout out to Lieutenant Pennell.
Like I said, I've had the good fortune of previously
interviewing him twice, you know, and when it when it
came to lieutenant well, he gets funny. Another still riding quote.
And I talked about this with Tommy Richardson when he
was on the show a little while well where you
know Paul Hashegge again said he never was one to

(47:13):
yell and scream. He would just sweat a lot.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
That was he'd be sweating in the kitchen note for dinner. Yeah,
he sweated a lot. He was definitely drinking a lot
of water and sweating guy. But he never raised his voice,
never got crazy nothing. I mean, that was the best
part of it. It wasn't even like you were like
two inches from death. It were just common cool.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
That's what you want, you know, because call like we've
talked about before and guys have told me, and it's true,
calm is contagious, so is chaos. Which one are you
going to pick at the job?

Speaker 2 (47:45):
You know?

Speaker 1 (47:46):
And if you pick calm, well an operation smooth out
because and this is something one of my captains where
I work in West have even mentioned a while ago too.
The people that are calling you rather be the police
or rather be the fire department, they are naturally upset
and they're naturally chaotic because they don't have the tools
to deal with the situation.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
You do.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
So therefore, yes, be cautious. If we talked earlier about fear,
there's a little bit of fear there as natural, but
you have the tools to fix the problem, So therefore
why be chaotic? And I've always thought about that, you know,
And it's true, especially in a company like that, especially
in Rescue One. As far as and this was you know,
another component of working in a company like that, as

(48:25):
far as the media attention, there's a lot of it
to go around. We talked about still riding, we talked
about the Bravest. There's obviously the local news stations that
want to do features on you guys. And there was
a great feature Company of Heroes that was done after
the eleventh on Top, but even just before the eleventh
this year, volume of attention Rescue One would get was incredible.
What was that like to deal with, because that's that's

(48:46):
unlike anything anybody's ever dealt with.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
You know, I think chief down his nephew. That was
probably the most relaxed right along as we ever had
because you know, personally, I had made a couple of
very bad booboos while they were filming, and he made
sure they were editing, you know. And uh, but the

(49:09):
media thing was constant. Like you said, you always just
had to know that you were Again, the company was
number one you had. You don't want to do anything.
It's gonna bring the company down because it took years
for that company to make the reputation. You could ruin
it in a few minutes. But the media was always around. Uh.

(49:31):
You got to know that you had to treat you
had to treat the media with respect too, because that's
one of the reasons they didn't abuse you if you
treated them well. You know, some of these guys get
you know, I don't want to talk to you. It's
the wrong way to go because then they're gonna harp
on you. They're gonna look for that little thing you
did wrong. But if you if you, if you treat
them right and you treat they have a job to

(49:51):
do it like you're doing. You treat them that way,
things always go well. They always put the best out there,
you know, but uh, the bravest would chief down, nephew.
That was It was a crazy, crazy filming crew. You know.
They rode day and night, twenty four hours and uh
they got to learn the fire service. It was, you know,

(50:12):
out the door in two minutes, and anything that got
on the edge, they made sure that they previewed it. Back.
We had a they had a screen set up in
the firehouse and they could have watched them minutes to
see if you wanted to be shown that way, they said.
I yelled at a lady who's threatened to jump out
of like a second or third story window. The fire

(50:33):
was blower, but she was threatening to jump, and I
yelled like, you know, hey, b don't jump your ass
out the window because you're gonna die. And it really
looked bad for a Savilian and he edited that out,
which was good because she ended up jumping you know,
both ikes, compound fractures, you know, terrible. She wasn't burned.

(50:54):
The fire was on the second floor, she was in
the third. She could have stayed there for a long time.
You know. I tried to convince her, you but but
he was very good with that. The news crews were
very good to us, and they always did uh the
right thing, by the way. Yeah, the media attention, it
was sort of like the visitors from Rescue One people,

(51:14):
and if in Rescue One in a day you would
have between five, ten, fifteen visitors a day, and I
would tell every guy the way I was told, these
guys are here to come to see the company they
think is one of the greatest companies in the world.
Show them, be nice to him, and it'll work out.

(51:35):
You know, it really worked out for us, and we'll
get to that, I guess later on by September eleventh,
remind me it really worked out for us though.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely, and it was good to see what
I love about that documentary and the Bravest did a
good job of it too. But really what it comes to,
still Riding, is it showed life before nine to eleven,
because unfortunately we only know about most of the only
all about these heroes from that day and of course
the way they die, but it's imperative to show how

(52:04):
they lived and what they did every day before they
ended up making the ultimate sacrifice. So when it came
to filming the Emergencies, I think there was a construction
accident and you're seeing Captain Hatton walk the men through that,
you see the guys over and Rescue too, handling a
fire where there's a report of an occupant trap. And
that was in early March two thousand and one. You know,
you get certain jobs that were showing in June of

(52:26):
two thousand and one, a different blaze here, an accident there,
and it was great. We even got to see Terry
Hatton running drills, which was amazing. And it's a small glimpse,
but that was every day as you said earlier, and
Rescue one and Lieutenant o'hega was on hand for a
great rescue of two scaffolding workers where you know, he
asked the gentleman. This was a lighthearted moment. Thankfully everything
ended well are you hurt? And the gentleman shoots back
on the radio, no, just my pride, to which Mohica says,

(52:49):
we could help with that. So I really do love that.
And for the families too, as Bob Galiana and I
talked about, it's great to hear their voices again. You know,
it's great to hear the good to the archive. That
one person I did want to ask you about before
we briefly talk about the eleventh. We're actually two Billy
Henry another character, someone who did security as well, and

(53:09):
then the characters and all characters, mister Dave Weiss the
pack at those two guys. What was it like working
with them?

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Buddy Love was the most interesting guy ever because he
was like the fireman's dream off the job and on
the job. He was the one who traveled like Columbia,
South America, Europe. You know, he come back and tell
us all the stories. But just a down to worth guy.
And even in the kitchen he was meticulous. Like when

(53:39):
we were prepping the meal, if he had a way
to wash chicken, it got Every single piece got washed
the exact same way it was. But uh, just a
down to earth guy. I said, Billy and I still
have a strange following together. I think he still visits me.
Right to say this, He used to visit me in

(54:01):
the firehouse all the time after the eleventh, but now
every now and then he still visits me where I am.
So's he's not a bad guy. He's a good guy
and knows where I am. But Billy was just down
on earth. He would help you out with anything. He
was always out there. Even though he was one of
the senior guys. When we were out there checking rigs
or cleaning the floor, Billy was always with you. But

(54:24):
Billy was a buddy love, I mean, just a down
on earth. Now his mother is still alive, I believe
as of today, probably in her late nineties. She still
makes Rescue one sweet potato pies for Christmas every year. Wow,
she is a heavenly angel. Now Billy's sister passed away.
She was another God said. She used to come by

(54:45):
the firehouse and see Billy. She passed away from cancer
a few years back.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
I sorry to hear that.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Yeah, another good, good woman. She was married to a
h You see the corrections are a PD guy. He's
actually been to my island here to die with me. Wow. Yeah.
So it's a good family, great family, buddy love. Now
let's get hit the crazy one, the Dave Weiss. Yeah,

(55:12):
that dude, Like I said, every minute of every day
he was ready with a comeback or a line or
I think I told the story that the last company
medicals we had were in August of two thousand and
one bat Manhattan, myself, Joey, Dave Weiss, and it was

(55:34):
one of them, maybe Thor Johannesson so Joey. When he
left headquarters or left Brooklyn, he went home on the
train they put him. That's how he got to signed
the socker. He got put off duty.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Yeah, he was like do you remember that?

Speaker 2 (55:50):
Yeah? Yeah. The doctor said, you know it's sixty three
years old with you know, smoking twenty packs of cigarettes
to day, I'm not putting you back to you get
some tests. So he had to go for all kinds
of tests. So I think it was Terry myself. It
was either Jerry Nevins or thora Johanneson and Dave Weiss. Well,
David drove to the medicals. We had all taken the subway,

(56:11):
so the way home and goes I'll drive you home. Well,
he had a Crown Victor Ford Ltd. With undercover lights
and a siren. So the whole way from Brooklyn to
Rescue one, he's in and out of traffic. I was like,
I can't, We're gonna get arrested. But it was Dave Wisse,
like I said he was. He was a class act.

(56:33):
When when they interviewed him, like during these shows it
in filmed this, he always had the line. He was
always the true instigator. Now he had a son and
a daughter. The son I still stay in touch with someone.
He's a mariner, so he spends three or six months
on a ship at a time. So he's hardcore like

(56:54):
his dad. Dave wives was also a local forty guy
iron worker. Yeah, he was the job banging rivets and
the lifted steel beams with cranes. He was right on
top of it. But he always was on top of everything.
I mean he had a comeback for everything. In the
back of the ring, he kept at jovial every minute

(57:14):
of the day. Two great guys.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
My favorite Dave Weisse's line is and I think this
was in the Bravest when they interview him in the
back on the way to a job and rescue one
where he's like, I'm born for firefighting. I'm a legend.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
Man.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
He would have been a treat. Yeah, he would have
been a treat to have on this show or on
getting some.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Sorry about him. Now you heard the story how he
got the rest of it right?

Speaker 1 (57:39):
No, actually I haven't it well.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
So he was coming home from the ironworker job on
the East Side and the car in front of him
drove off into the river.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
Oh yes, this story. Yes, gentleman had a hard the river, he.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Got the guy and he's swimming back toward shore. Well
truck won from ESU shows up first and offers him
a life reserver. He throws it back at him, so
he wouldn't take any help till the after you guys
got there. So if you ever, if you have any
chance at rescue one. When you look at his cartoon
on the wall from Hashigen, it has him with the

(58:12):
life preserver, the guy and a sledgehammer. Dave Weiss, what
a character.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
Yeah, great character for sure. You know he was a
classic guy. And here was another interesting one where they're
going into a restaurant. This is at the end, still
rioting and he's pointing to a colleague of his. I'm
not sure who was. I can't remember off the top
of my head. He's like, you have the fire department
hunk's calendars, where the fire department chomps will be in
the jumps calendar. So he was very self deprecating that way.

(58:41):
To another one he was.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
He was a musclehead with tattoos everywhere. He was a
true muscle head.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Oh yeah, he was a strong guy. He definitely, he
definitely wrote hard least too.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
And like you said, though, I did watch Gary Geidel
choke him out in the TV room my second night
tour on Rescue one. He said the tour, we're back
in the.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
Kitchen Gary too. Garry was marine as well, and I
think was hardcore.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
He was probably one. Patty o'keef and him were probably
two of the toughest guys I've ever met. Joey was
tough in his own way, but those two guys were
like hardcore tough. Garry was like rock. You could see
if they said he drank a few beers and ready
to kill you with a rifle like you had to.
He was hardcore.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
I've heard, I've heard, and it wasn't. Jerry Neffan's a
farmer when he wasn't on the job.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
Well he he wasn't. He wasn't a farmer, but he
raised pigs for the firehouse. And and uh so you
would you would buy a piglet. I think it used
to happen in the spring. You buy a piglet in
the spring, he would raise him and then he would
have him slaughtered for you in the fall.

Speaker 4 (59:47):
Mm hm.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
But Jerry was the king of the three dollars and
sixty cent meal. Jerry. Jerry prided himself on bringing in
the meal that he could bring under like four bucks.
You know, he was he would shop with coupons or
whatever he had to do, but he was. He was
there and his brother, I don't know if you know
his brother, Steve, was in charge of special operations for
New York State Police.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
I had no idea.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
He was also in charge of the Governor's security detail
after a while. He's retired since, but he was at
another hardcore go get him guy, and he actually is responsible.
After September eleventh, when we lost all the scuba instructors
who were killed, the New York State Police came and
trained our Scooba instructors and Jerry or Steve was responsible

(01:00:32):
for that. And Steve was one of the first guys
I met on the nine of the eleventh. He came
looking for Jerry when we were we would we had
had down and had a company meeting, and I Steve
was one of the first guys I met.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Afterwards, before I get to the aftermath of that day,
William Cooney in the chat has a question for you.
We mentioned Joe Angelini, his son Tragedy was also killed
that day as well, and he says a question for
Joe what is your favorite Joe Angelini story? Thank you
for coming on tonight. Joel cheers from Wisconsin.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
So my phara one by far is they're doing the well. First,
Joey never answered the radio, so he would he would
look at the radio and shake his head, but he
wouldn't answer it. So for the last couple of years,
haddon't had the Joey watch position, so Joey would have
the hook, and whoever had the irons had to have
the Joey watch position to make sure he answered on

(01:01:23):
the radio. Because he never answered, Cavin call him. He
would shake his head and act like he was answer.
We wouldn't answer. But my best one ever was they
were checking out the extrication equipment one day and one
of the rams blew up and it sprayed hydraulic fluid.
Two guys, I think one guy went to the hospital.
Joey went to the back room and had coffee. Yeah,

(01:01:45):
Joey was hardcore in that way. And then the fact
that joe used to go home. He worked straight towards
for twenty years. He never worked twenty fours, so he
worked his two days it's two nights. When Joey needed
it day off for like a family thing or something.
He would then and go, hey, you're working this day
and I'm working that day. You were okay, Joey, no problem.

(01:02:07):
But on his day tours, in between his day tours
or his night tours, he would go home in the
morning on the train the Long Island. His wife would
meet him at the train station. They would have a sandwich,
a thermos of coffee, smoke three packs of cigarettes. He'd
get back on the train and come back to work.
Joey was a true family man. His sons were all

(01:02:30):
you know, his poor son and four truck. His other
son was a port authority cop mhm. He was in
fire patrol before that, the other sun. So a good
hardcore family. Yeah, Joey was. He was an act like
I said, and he carried if if we had like
I said, we had assigned tools for every type of
emergency went to or fire type of bilding. So let's

(01:02:53):
say Joey had to carry the hook and the halligan,
Well he would add the hook, the halligan and suzzle.
Where you come off with two extra tools. Joey had
always come off with everything and then one more good
Joey story. We were doing a duck fire in one
of the restaurants in Manhattan, and I was with Hatton.
I had to can Joey had the hook, of course,

(01:03:15):
as that's all Joey had. So we were I was
cutting into the duck with a saw and I finished
cutting the duck. We pried it open and we're gonna
let the engine going with the line. All of a sudden,
you heard something inside the duck. So Hatton goes hold
on and say what the lion? So what is it?
Here comes Joey crawling inside the duck and it looks
out the hole we just cut into, probably from forty

(01:03:35):
or fifty feet from the kitchen. Joey Angelini superman, they say,
in his twenty years and one truck was when one
truck was probably the busiest and most dangerous truck in
the head. Yeah, it's just a hardcore guy. I always
loved our chests. He loved cooking.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Yeah, good guy, it does, it does. And thank you
for William for submitting it, thank you for answering it.
And I was I'm hearkening back to something Dan rather
asked Tony to DESHI or you know, he's sharing some
anecdotes about Joe Angelini after the fact. And they had
a conversation apparently where Tony Deshi asto Joey agelady, if

(01:04:18):
not for the age limit where you have to leave
by sixty five, how long would you stay? And I
remember apparently Joe shot back and said, I'd like to
do fifty years, and Tony's like, I just want to
make it to fifty years. Yeah, Joe wanted to do
fifty years in the fire department when he came on
the job. I believe Kennedy was president, you know, and

(01:04:39):
that was he was more one of the more knowledgeable
individuals on the job across the whole city and another
one of those tragic losses that day. We know the
story of that day. It's been told a lot. You'd
like to focus, of course, how these gentlemen lived, and
we don't gloss over what they did that day. It
was incredible, even if it came at unfortunately, very devastating cost.

(01:04:59):
And that goes for not only Rescue one, but all
the Rescue two, Rescue three, Rescue four, and Rescue five.
Rebuilding the company is not easy because you can never
replace these individuals. But as far as staff and goes,
new officers are needed, new members are needed. It's not
just the rescues that are decimated. Really, the entire Special
Operations Command, if you count the squads, if you count

(01:05:19):
someone like Chief Downey, has been hit so hard. I
believe the final statistic if I have this correct, and
I remember Chief Norman mentioning this a while Captain Norman,
excuse me, where of the three hundred and forty three
firefighters who perish that day, about ninety seven or so,
if not a full one hundred were from the Special
Operations Crazy. So sometime after that comes Rex Morris, and

(01:05:44):
Rex of course is still active on the job. He's
down in Connecticut now in Stanford, so right outside the city,
a half hour outside Manhattan. And there was someone with
the very unenviable task. He's coming in during a very
dark time. And on top of that, he's replacing someone
in Terry Hatton, who, like we said, can never be
replace but he made his own stamp on Rescue one
and really helped guide the company through and get the

(01:06:04):
company back on track after such a devastating event. When
it comes to restaff and having a boss like that
even though we all of course wished that the event
didn't happen in the first place. How much did you
enjoy working for.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Rex Rex Finalo. But just to correct, we did have
a captain before Rex, Freddy Lafermina Freddy.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Oh of course Freddy was a squad guy too, right.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Yeah, he was a squad one guy. He was a
rescue four guy. He was the captain. We actually had
somebody for a couple of days it didn't work out,
and then we had Freddy and rebuilding wise, it was
it was pretty crazy. We remember we only had eleven
guys left from the company because we had lost eleven

(01:06:45):
so I mean we only had eleven left. So the
first couple of weeks after Freddy had brought three great
guys to the company that really made a difference. It
was Sean ash Cosmo Diyorio, one guy from thirty four truck,
one guy from five truck, and oh god, I'm gonna

(01:07:10):
feel like an ass he ended up getting hit by
the taxi.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
John Walters, we.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
Guy with John Walters, Mike Schuck from forty four truck.
So these three guys came in and made it so
we could at least have three shifts, and they stepped up.
They took a detail in a time when all the
companies are hurting. They stepped up. Freddy brought him in.
But now let's talk about Rex. So here's a guy

(01:07:40):
who had a choice to stay at the premier company
in the fire department right twenty eight truck. He was
the captain there for years. He came down when Freddy
got promoted. I guess John Norman and maybe the chief
of department had asked him to come take rescue one,
you know, and he could cruise through his career going

(01:08:01):
to fires in the ghetto. But instead he came down
to a company where he knew he had to drill
every day because we had all these new members. Now
you know, we had to drill three or four times
a day sometimes. But down the Earth guy. And you know,
another point in him was he never ever ever raised
his voice or got mad with the guys. He was

(01:08:23):
always just a company officer. And if we had a
problem in the company, he was the guy in the
morning who put his class that he's on and go
down the headquarters and get it straight. I mean, he
is assault of the Earth. I got two of the
greatest bosses ever, I got to work with with Terry
Hatton by far Bobby Morris. I had no bad bosses.

(01:08:49):
I mean he was a great captain, hard charging. I mean,
you talk about the guy crawled on a hallway, Mike Penna.
All these guys are great, but Terry Hatton was unusual,
very unique. He was sort of like me in a
lot of ways. And I hate to say that, but
he was like me. And what he didn't have kids
at the time. Our department was his life, and that

(01:09:10):
was me. I didn't have a side job. My side
job was Rocking County has been how many times? Is
Rocking County? Has my grind in here? Five seconds? So
I mean, I didn't really have a side job. So
my life was, you know, the New York City Fire Department,
and that's way Terry was. And then a chief more sir,

(01:09:30):
can't call it chiefs. That's terrible. Capt Morris came to
the company and he would drill guys two or three
times a day. He would look for a way to
change things. If you had an idea, he would test it,
work it. If it worked, he was on the rig.
It would be with their company. I was never you know,
I'm the boss. You're not the boss. Just a down
to earth guy. And like I said, I went through

(01:09:54):
a couple of hairy jobs with him. One the four
collapse maybe ten minutes after he pulled us out. He know,
being rescue guys, we would have stayed forever. And when
I heard him say, Joel, it's time to get out,
I was like, I've never heard those words before. Like
you said, ten minutes after we made it back to

(01:10:14):
the stairwell, the floor collapsed. Wow. Just a down to
earth guy, really assualted earth. I a little disgruntled that
he became a chief of department because you know him
and the chiefs always didn't see eyd I. But now
he's the.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
Chief, Yes he is. They love down Stanford too. Have
heard nothing but great things.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
That department is so lucky. A man that can see
forward can see he understands tradition in the same token
he looks the next day to see what we can
do next for changing. He's that way. Here's a guy
got fired. He got fired during the layoffs. You realize that, right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
I did not know that about him.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
He did. He was in sixty engine and he went
out front to ask the guys what to do because
they were protesting out front on the picket line, and
the Daily News took a shot, so the fire department
fired him because they thought he was on the picket line.
But he went up front to ask the guys a question.
But it all worked out in his favorite he got.
You know, he worked in some classic places forty two truck,

(01:11:11):
forty two engine, sixty twenty eight engine or twenty truck,
all great places. Just a down the worth boss, never
a bad word, always looking for the next step too.
That was the best party.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
And there was a dicey situation with him early on
which we saw on another documentary where he was almost
killed that I believe it was an underground incident Carbonnox.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
That incident a subway job. I was there. I broke
my finger, a hit job because I got stuck in it.
What happened was it was about a six hundred foot
crawl from the entrance, maybe eight foot crawl to where
the fire was. And we had made it to the
fire with search ropes, and when we got to the fire,
he had sent me back. He said, go get the

(01:11:53):
engine and tell him to follow the rope, bring the
line and we'll put the fire out. I said, okay,
cap So I went back. I got to the engine.
I told the engine to start crawling that way, and
my cylinder went low, so I went to change my cylinder. Well,
in the time that the engine was crawling down that way,
Captain and the canman were making their way out and
they ran out of air and uh the truck that

(01:12:15):
followed the engine and found the two of them laying
on the ground. They would have both died. I think
it was five truck they found him in the called
the may Day. We went. I went down the stairs.
I grabbed the stokes and went down the stairs. We
got to the captain as they were trying to drag
him out, to continue to drag them, and my finger
got caught in his SCBA harness in the back. And

(01:12:36):
of course, when when you're dragging the brothers out, there's
no holding back, right, I was dragging and everybody else
was dragging. So they drug them well past what my
capabilities were, and my finger got caught in there. I
broke my finger there, but Morris had a lot worse.
But here's a guy right unconscious, being bagged ventilated. Six
days later he's back in the fire house.

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Yeah, two years off of that six day.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Yeah, he was just hardcore.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
I would go to fire with him any day, even
now that I'm not capable, I would.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Toire, oh of course. And that's the thing that you know,
And it transitions a little bit into what I wanted
to ask as it correlates to your career, to where again,
we wish the circumstances were better, that we didn't have
all these losses. But it's not just the losses of
that terrible day, it's also the retirements. For example, Paul
retired in two thousand and three, and now you're a

(01:13:33):
little bit more senior just by the way things worked
out at that time, you get more time. On two
thousand and eight, you hit ten years and rescue one.
You get to pay it forward. The same way guys
treated you when you first got there in nineteen ninety eight,
now you could do the same for the newer guys
coming in. So growing into that senior man role, beginning
to share your knowledge not only tradition, but how things
are supposed to be done in the company. What did

(01:13:55):
you most enjoy about that? And who are those that
you took under your wing that you saw really possible.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
Oh Man, Well, the cool part about Rescue one was
Rescue one was all about procedures. We had a procedure
for airthing. Whether it was cleaning the firehouse in the morning,
that there was a procedure for that. You know. The
roofman went to the top floor, the floor aboff team
went to the middle floor, the canman went to the
kitchen where the fire was, the chauffeur went to the ring.

(01:14:22):
So even simple things like cleaning the firehouse, it was procedures.
So it made it very easy. We're bringing new guys
in that once once you drilled into them, if you
learn the rig and you learn the tools, you can
do anything here. So I mean that was probably the
most important part is learning tools. Rescue one had an A,
B and C for every emergency. If we were cutting

(01:14:43):
a piece of steel, we had to jump off the
rig type tool. We had a next attempt type tool,
and then we had the long term type tool. So
whether it was a saws all to a partner saw
to a torch, you always had a B and C
pre set. So once the guys learned their tools and
were able to use the tools, and it was just

(01:15:05):
simple as can be. To bring guys along. I mean,
there's some guys in rescue on right now. There's two
or three guys left that I work with that are
the salt of the earth and hard charging. You know,
they just they stepped up and answered the call. I

(01:15:28):
think a lot of guys don't realize. We had a
lot of guys come to the company that went home
in ninety days. And it wasn't because we said you
had to go home. Is because they looked at it
and said, no, I just I can't deal with emergencies.
I can't deal with not knowing. I can't deal with
all these tools. I can't deal with drilling three times
a day. That's usually what happened. But uh yeah, we

(01:15:52):
had a lot of great guys. I mean I got
the only bad part that I disliked about after the
live was I got stuck being a show for too early.
So it wasn't in the back with the idiots all
the time, you know. And the idiots in the back,
I'll tell you what, if they put their minds to it,
a lot of times, we can probably get cured cancer

(01:16:12):
because these guys in the back, they could come up
with a plan when you were driving to an emergency
and the boss was yelling them in the back they'd
have a plan even though the boss was in charge
and had a plan already. They'd have the next plan
ready to go. But all good guys, I mean, I
don't think I ever had a bad guy on rescue,
one that stayed. You know, some guys that left even

(01:16:34):
weren't bad guys that just weren't ready for the job. Yeah, no,
I mean all good guys really well.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
Yeah, that's a good, you know, fortune and to have
because there's a lot of people in any job, not
just a fire service, I can't say the same. You know,
you encounter some people that are great, but then you
encounter some people it's like I wish I never met you,
but you know, you didn't have that problem, which is
a blessing, especially working at a company like that where
you know, I think and was it it was Pete
Romeo that said in regards to rescue too. And he's

(01:17:05):
another one I've been trying to track down again on
the show for a while.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
He's still alive. He was a hard charger.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
Yeah, yeah, I've been trying to think he's out on
the island somewhere. You gonna see if I can get
in touch with him where he said, in general, we
don't always like each other. But if you're going to
charge down the hallway and paraphrasing and go into these situations,
you better love the guy a little bit. It's true,
it's true. You know, there's a lot of love there.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
One of the young kids before I left, who just
came there. It was Renault Jean, a young black kid
from Brooklyn, hard charging truck guy. But he had the
passion for the tools and the rig like I had.
You know, when I was doing I had done the
inventory for about six or eight years, you know, my
little computer capability I was, I do the rig inventory.

(01:17:51):
And he watched me and followed me and corrected things
and did things, and I knew he was going to
be the shining star. Just a he's one of the
chauffeurs now. But we want to talk about a young
man who came from Again, when you work in a ghetto,
coming to emergencies in Manhattan, big difference. You know, Yeah,
you went to a fire and ghetto. All those people
there were hey, hey, you know we've been through this before.

(01:18:12):
It's a fire, But go to emergencies.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
Different ball game, and there's a lot of pride in that.
Like Jeff Cole and I had this conversation some time
ago as well where we were like listen when people
throw the term around, and he brought up a great point,
ghetto fireman. It's not said with disrespect, it's the complete opposite.
There's actually a lot of pride in that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
And like I said, in those people when I worked
in seventeen truck, it was not a person whether there
was a kid coming to get his air filled for
his tire on his bike, a guy ask him for
fifty cents out front of him, There's not a person
there that didn't respect and need fireman to the fullest.
Know Manhattan, there's a lot of people care less you're
a fireman, go save my stuff, you know. But in

(01:18:53):
the South Brox it wasn't that way. Never the people
we were coming to help, but it was always the
people standing around him, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
And there is a story I want to ask you
about as it pertains to Manhattan with Patio keep in
a moment, but in the chat real quick hello to
Nick Palombo. He says good evening to us both. Don
Calarusso says Joel's one of the best. Learn so much
from him over the year. Is a great guy and
a friend.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Thank you very much. Donnie is you know Donnie is
a stand up guy. He may be from Jersey, you know,
we gotta hold that against him, but stand up guy.
He's helped out them. And I know he doesn't want
me to tell you this, but he's helped out a
lot of the families. He still supports a lot of
the foundations with his business. Just a down earth guy,

(01:19:34):
even though he's from Jersey.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
We'll let that go. We'll let that go. Brian Keller,
Hello to you, and Mike Clark is watching, He says,
Joels solid, great.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
Career, Joel to my old WL guys, I.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
See you, Mike, thank you very much for tuning in,
and thank you to everybody it's tuning in tonight, mat
that you're watching on YouTube, LinkedIn or Facebook. I very
much appreciate it's good to have you this evening with us.
That moves being too. Twenty fourteen, it had been at
Nick Lumbo, who's a fireman in the Garden State, says, ooh,
the best firemen grow in the Garden State. Igh like that, actually,

(01:20:07):
though before I get the twenty fourteen the Patio Keey story.
I think you said this on Salty, so refresh my memory.
They're going to a fire. I'm not sure if he's
in one at the time or if he's in another
company prior to come in to one. There's an elderly
woman and says to them before you come in, can
you take your boots off? That true?

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
That happened. I think it was an emergency. It wasn't
a fire, okay. I think they had to get to
a window. It was like maybe a window washer or something. Yeah,
he was in one because he came from thirty five truck.
Patty only worked up the block. Okay, but yeah it
was I think it was white rugs or something. Did
you take your boots off? But Patty, again, you talk
about a hardcore dude, I said, I watched him. I

(01:20:49):
came in the morning after. Now Paul and him work together,
and I worked half the time with him, and Paul
came in the next day. His eye shields on his
helmet were melted, his front piece was on, and I
asked him and how did it go? And he said, oh,
Paul and I put the fire out. That's all They said.
I was like, oh cow, that was a high rise job,

(01:21:09):
because seventy six good job.

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
And he had a very He struck me as a
guy and you would know you work with him as
someone with very even keeled demeanor. Another clip by remember
of him is rescue one is going to a job.
I'm not sure if it was an emergency or a fire.
You could hear the siren whaling in the background, trying
to get through traffic, and he's just shaking his head
going Crosstown's always the worst. It's a very very calm guy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:33):
Yeah, just down to earth. Another big strapping dude. Yeah. Again,
none of these guys ever got excited. Never right. I
tell the story about Hash all the time. We were
on the top roof of a building. You know, he
is the show friend, was the roofman. We were up there.
The fire was in the cock loft. It was one
of those federal government buildings, and the fire was in

(01:21:56):
the cockloft, and we cut a hole over the fire apartment.
And then when shifted and it was a membrane roof,
so the fire took off on this fabric roof and
cut us off from the bulk at And this is
like an h R building, so you are getting ladder.
So I'm in sheer panic. I'm like, holy shit, you
know when the fires, I mean it's roaring now, and

(01:22:16):
Hash goes get the life saving rope, and now I
was like, okay, we run to the edge of the building.
I figure, we're gonna put the life saving rope, We're
gonna throw over, We're gonna repel off the building. He
throws off the building and yells to the street. Somebody
hut the holes on that. So you're pulling up to
fight the fire. I I never even thought about it,
and nevery all thing crossed my mind was we're gonna
put rope and we're gonna slide down off this rope

(01:22:36):
to save ourselves. But Paul was ready to put the
fire out. But that's the type guy Pat of you
as too, same way.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
MM have no complaints. Well, listen, if you're going to
be in a company like that, and this goes for
any of the rescue companies or any of the squad companies,
you gotta have a type a personality. Otherwise, you know, listen,
when the moment comes, you're gonna shrink in the moment,
so you know, I can see why they operated that
we can need to after there's nobody else after you, guys,
there's nobody else to call. So you know that's the truth. Yeah,

(01:23:03):
it's rescue or it's nothing. Twenty fourteen twenty years. I mean,
if he count everything in terms of the career side,
it was twenty nine years more than that. When you factoring,
you were re firement in the Marine Corps as well.
But in twenty fourteen you decided to hang it up.
Was there a specific moment that made you say, okay,
time to go, or was it a series of things

(01:23:23):
that made you say, all right, you know what, I
think I've reached my end here.

Speaker 2 (01:23:27):
I think what happened was in May I got sick
of a job and I thought it was my heart.
I didn't want to admit it, so I went to
the doctor off the job. When he checked my heart,
he says, your heart's not the problem. I don't know
what it was, says okay. So I just went back
to work. And then in June again it happened again.

(01:23:49):
I got to the fireflour we were working, I had
to have one of the brothers helped me down to
the floor below. Something was wrong, and so I did
a sideways maneuver. I went through the Trade Center office
doctors rather than the Fire Department doctors. So and then
she told me, she said, look I can. You'll stay
on the job until I do these tests, and if

(01:24:09):
you pass all three tests, you're fine. If not, I
have to put you off, you know. And I did
the three tests. On the third test, I thought I
did find. You know, the guy at the NYU goes, oh, yeah,
you're good, buddy. So you know, one Saturday morning, I
went down to the see the Trade Center doctor. She's
typing on her computer and she says, what kind of
light do do you want to do? I said, for

(01:24:30):
what she said? She says, you're not well. I said,
what do you mean? She said, well, if you were
an eighty year old smoking ten pass of cigarettes today,
I'd say your lungs are pretty good. But she says,
your lungs aren't capable of doing the job anymore. And
I was in a realization that, you know, a lot
of guys try and fight it. I knew I was sick,

(01:24:51):
say it was just time to go. I had a
supporting wife and family, so I mean, I knew when
I came home and told my wife I'd eether going
to be a fireman anymore. It was out question. It
was like, okay, well we'll do something else. And we
did kind of the craziest thing in the world, as
you know. We left the country and moved to a
little tropical island or a Koreban and we live in

(01:25:12):
a place where like twelve thousand people. It's pretty cool. Yeah.
And one if you can see one Dalmatian.

Speaker 1 (01:25:18):
Yes, yes, and yearn that yearn that. I know you
miss it.

Speaker 5 (01:25:22):
I earned it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:23):
I missed the kitchen. You know. I don't miss going
to fires in the way of you know, my body
doesn't miss going to fires, right, But I missed the
kitchen and the idiots. I miss it for sure. I
go at least two or three times a year in
the kitchen. I have dinner with the guys at one.
That's good. I just did in October. I just went
to dinner with them.

Speaker 4 (01:25:39):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
Yeah, right, you know. And you're always gonna be welcome
down there anyway. I mean, you definitely put your time
in there, and your reputation is golden there. Good place,
absolutely absolutely. I took a picture in front of it.
I never been in it. I didn't want to ring
the doorbell that day and bothered the guys.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
Next time I'm in town and you're in town, you
come viserable have dinner.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
Sounds good to me, sounds like a plan. We'll make
that happen. Uh, just before we get to the rapid fire.
And it's been a heck of a conversation. Coming up
on the hour and a half mark, a couple of
people in the chat with some regards. One's a question.
So Jue Maleague is a frequent viewer of this program.
He's a retired correctional officer, and anytime I have a
PD or FT guest on, he asked this question, which is,
did you ever deliver a baby? It's become a running

(01:26:21):
joke between us.

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):
All right, Well, not as an FDN Y guy, but
as a volunteer in Alexander. We were first new medical
right I got. I got to the point where I
was a better catcher than some of the docks in
New York. You know, I worked where I volunteered first
in Virginia was a true ghetto neighborhood. So, I mean,

(01:26:45):
this was her third baby, and she didn't call until
she knew it was time. So when you got there,
she was like, Okay, where's the blanket? You know they
knew the routine. Yeah, and uh, I think I had
five or six there, and one is a medic, so
it was about five is an ante one as a medic. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:27:04):
When I learned, when I learned what women you know.
Of course, being in middle school you learn about it
in science class or whatnot. When I learned what women
have to go through with childbirth, I think I apologized
to my mother. You really should in generally give your
mam a hard time, but especially after you learn about
what childbirth entails, you definitely shouldn't give your mama part time.
So when they hold that over you, you know, I

(01:27:25):
carried you for nine months, it's a legit argument.

Speaker 2 (01:27:28):
It was funny because the first place I was volunteered
down there, they had a two person attack unit which
was like a mini pumper, yeah, and a regular engine
and a rescue truck. So the mini pupper went out
on all the medical calls. So on your night that
you had to be in the mini pumper, you were
doing the medical calls. But anytime something like that, when
you were delivering a baby, you would have him fill

(01:27:48):
the box and send the engine just to piss them off.

Speaker 1 (01:27:52):
Listen to more resources the better at a moment like
that is yeah always by thank you for sharing that,
thank you for the question. The other one is Chief
Joe Jardin's watching tonight be Facebook.

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
I tell you what, true guy. His parents are still
pissed off at him though.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
You know that, right, But why is that?

Speaker 2 (01:28:09):
He's here's a guy who goes he's a fire protection engineer,
one of like it's not many in the country. He's
educated at a University of Maryland fire protection engineer, becomes
a fireman, a rescue two fireman, and like I said,
and then he did the whole staff Chief, He's still
in my heart, he's still Fireman Joe Jarden or TfL
Joe Jarden. I did a lot of or ustar responsib

(01:28:31):
with him. He was a he was a really good
task force leader and I s t leader. We had
I forget which hurricane it was in Puerto Rico, but
we lost two floors of the building and the basement
of the building during the storm. We were in a
Cat five and I mean it was pretty crazy. We
were all in the stairwells. But he was a trooper

(01:28:52):
H yeah, Joe Jarden, God bless him. I'm sorry to
hear about his wife. She was another sweethearted military girl.
You're passing away from cancer. But Joe again, your parents
are still pissed off at you. All that money to
go to become an engineer and you become a dumb
fireman and rescue too.

Speaker 1 (01:29:09):
Chief. It's good to see you in the chat, and
I hope they can get you on soon. We could
talk about your career again. A guy, I've heard nothing
but yeah, I and I've broken bread with the Chief
Jard and we were on the Getting Salty cruise together
sometime ago last summer. So good to see again the
chat to night, Chief, he says Mike. For those of
you listening, Mike, another great guest. Joel was a great
asset as a task force logistics manager and ist locks Section.

(01:29:31):
Chief Wayne and Joel a great team. Go Red all right,
Thank you very much, Chief for submitting that. That brings
us into the rapid fire. I've hit and run questions
for me, vive hit and run answers for you. You could
say pass if you want, and the first one is
like you once said, and still riding. We ride on
a big toolbox, which is what any fire truck is,
especially rescue. Once if you had to pick one tool, yeah,

(01:29:54):
to pick one tool that was your favorite. What was
your favorite tool?

Speaker 2 (01:29:57):
All right, So this is a surprise. A lot of
guys rescue one had what was called the CFR trauma bag.
No other company in the city had it. We actually
allocated it from some special operations medics who helped us out.
So what it was it was our trauma kit. But
it had oxygen, it had suction, it had collars that
had everything you needed when we went to these emergencies.

(01:30:19):
Because all that rescue guys tech rescue guys, he issued
cops everybody else nobody was worried about treating the patient.
They worried, I get no matter what he was in, right,
and they gave up one guy whoever, our guy was
our CFR guy for the night. He gave him the
ability to treat people quickly, which was pretty cold, and
nobody else had it. I believe the company still has it,
but I'm not positive. I will check in March.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
I have to verify that it's actually I'd never heard
about that, so you mentioned that's actually very interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
Only company in the city had auction bag with trauma gear,
suction and everything in one.

Speaker 1 (01:30:49):
I'm gonna switch up the second question a little bit
because he talked about the great bosses that you had earlier.
So I'll switch it up from the standpoint that if
you could go back in time to a certain era
in your career, if you could snap shot any particular
year a couple of years, what era are you going
back to?

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):
Oh my god, it may have to go back to.

Speaker 5 (01:31:09):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:31:10):
Just when I got out of the Marine Corps. When
I first started in Alexandria, I had become a tillerman
and a trackerman on a truck tiller ring and it
was the only truck in the whole east end of
Prince William County. Uh. And we were going to fires,
crazy amount of fires. I mean it was like when
you because there there was duty nights, so you slept

(01:31:31):
in the firehouse like most all tier companies, so when
you came in, you slept in the firehouse from your
six pm to six am or whatever it was. So
we were going to a lot of fires. But more importantly,
that's the place I met my wife. She was on
the ambulance, she was in the MP in the ambulance,
So it was it was just a crazy time. It
was all great people. Ricky Rrington, Mike Clark, John Kneehouse,

(01:31:56):
all these guys just great firemen and surprising enough almost
I would say fifty or sixty percent while we're career
guys to somewhere too, so they still support in the community.
But that was my and Rescue one was always in
my heart. I mean, no advance of Buzz, but that
was the time I would go back.

Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
To if I could not a bad answer. Third best
piece of advice, either on the job or just about
life in general that anyone ever died.

Speaker 2 (01:32:17):
You Terry had the first time you're in a company.
I went up to the office and he said, I
have one rule. You treat everybody that we come upon
like it's your mother or your grandmother. You treat them
like family. Whether it's the poor bum who got ran

(01:32:37):
over by the train, or the mentally ild person or
the person it's burned up and dead. You treat them
like it's your mother or your grandmother. And I rescue
one pride of itself. The most poorest person in the
world in the ghetto got treated the same as the richest.
Donald Trump, we all got treated the same, I mean,

(01:32:58):
and that was the best thing, you know, And my
whole career I tried that always. I never really looked
down upon anybody. But when he said it to me
in my first night, this is the Rescue company one.
You'll treat everyone that gets your mother or your grandmother,
it made a big difference. It really makes you want
to go to the extra model.

Speaker 1 (01:33:16):
Of course, of course, and you did mention that in
still riding as well, and I never forgot that either.
It's from the great line amongst many great lines, the
Captain Hatton hats thank you for sharing that. For this
is one where I give the guests a break because
if you can't pick one, and I understand not being
able to pick one, you can definitely say multiple favorite
bar bars or restaurants in the city.

Speaker 2 (01:33:36):
West Side Steakhouse one block exactly from Rescue one, and
the owners the owner's been there for day one. In
between my day tours, I didn't go home because I
said I didn't have a second job. So in between
my day tours, I didn't want to drive all the
way to Rockland, you know, my wife and where I was,
so I wouldn't drive home. I would I would walk
up the block, You'd have my steak and my glass

(01:33:58):
of wine for me. You know, I'd have a great night.
You had beautiful waitresses. They were always jovio. They always
want to know why the rig went by and blew
the horn so much, And it was just it was
a great little place that got me out of that
mindset for a few minutes and then went back to
the firefront to bed. It was always a great, great
time west Side Steakhouse right on forty third Street there.

Speaker 1 (01:34:19):
You have to check it out when I'm down in
the city the next time around and fifth and finally,
and you kind of answered earlier, I'll have you expand
on here for this final question, the rapid fire. If
you could go back in time and give advice to
a younger version of yourself, what with the Joe Knassi
of now on December sixth, twenty twenty four, tell the
Joe Kanaski of yesteryear.

Speaker 2 (01:34:38):
Well, I would go back to something Paul hashag and
did that I wish I had done, like a dumbass
I did. And I would document from day one of
my fire service career every night in a log book,
because you know, so many things you forget. I mean,
we did a lot of crazy things, a lot of

(01:34:59):
emergency you know, a couple of hurricanes, crane collapses, fires
in seventeen truck, elevators and seventeen truck You know the
boss with the pit bull that popped up. Just today
when I was talking with my wife, I said, remember
Jerry or Franko Grady, the lieutenant. We forced the door.
There was a pit bull there and he was snarling.
That apartment was on fire, but he was still snarling.

(01:35:21):
And it was a vacuum cleaner right there. You got
that vacuum cleaner and started chasing that dog. That dog
ran back into the apartment. But again, if I could
tell any young guy from day one on the fire department,
including in recruit school or prob school or whatever you
want to call it, every day you go home, goot
two minutes about your career, and it'll be well worth it.
So you can look back to your kids, tell your grandkids,

(01:35:44):
and when you get really old, it'll help you remember
the things you did.

Speaker 1 (01:35:49):
Love it very good advice, very prescient advice, and I
appreciate you shared it. This has been great stick around.
We'll talk off air, but before I take it back
to the audience. Any shout outs to anyone or anything
you want to.

Speaker 2 (01:35:59):
Give all my brothers at Riscue one retired working tonight.
You guys are the greatest. Uh hey, I know you
do a lot of police officers. Two great su coups
ready m.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
M hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:36:17):
That God, I trade you how to be a FEMA guy.
And then Bobby Mazoucci is always a damn good guy too.

Speaker 1 (01:36:25):
He's been on the show, Bobby in.

Speaker 2 (01:36:26):
A long time. I hope he's well. They were two
great Truck one guys. Always got along with CERN and
I served a lot of time on FEMA U Star together.
He's just another down to earth guy. It's a shame
they couldn't get five more points on the test.

Speaker 1 (01:36:42):
Bobby's down in Pa. Now he's living down in Pa.

Speaker 2 (01:36:44):
Oh God bless him.

Speaker 1 (01:36:45):
Yeah. Yeah, he was on the show a few years
ago talking about his time in the SU. I know Bobby, Well,
he's a good guy and the other guy I should
get on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:36:52):
But the stern is by far and now he's in
the OEM. I think he's running like OEM. He's a
great guy, just a on the earth guy. I think
he's in Port Washington and report Jeff another place he
goes to fires.

Speaker 1 (01:37:06):
All right, and now I'll talk to Dave Norman about
him since stay probably cross pass with them. And again
shout out to Day thank you for tuning in tonight
in the chat, I appreciate all you watch and thank
you very much, as was a heck of a show.
Like I said, stick around, we'll talk off there. For
those of you that tuned in to night via YouTube,
LinkedIn or Facebook and knows you that will listen to
the audio side, we very much appreciate your support. Coming

(01:37:26):
up next to the Mike then New Even podcast, he
was with New York City EMS pre FD and Y Merger,
came over with the nineteen ninety six merger, stayed until
recently twenty twenty two, finished up as a deputy or
excuse me, a division chief with FD and YAMS and
that for volume sixty four of the best the bravest
interviews with the FD and y's elite is going to
be retired FD and Y Division chief Jay s Withers,

(01:37:48):
so looking forward to interviewing the chief to talk about
his career in EMS, both pre and post merger. A
lot went on in the eighties and nineties for that agency,
and a lot changed certainly when they came over to
the FD in that spring of nineties. Takes under the
direction of that Commissioner Safer, So tune in. That's this
Monday at six pm in the meantime for those of
you listening on the audio side for tonight's outro song,

(01:38:09):
it's from their classic two thousand album All That You
Can't Leave Behind. It's YouTube with walk On in the
meantime behalf of a retired ft Andy firefighter Joel Kanaski
and everybody passed in present from FT and Y Rescue
one and all the rescue companies. I am Mike Coeloh
and this has been volume sixty three and the best
of the bravest interviews with me and wis Elite. We'll
see you next time and have a great weekend. Everybody,
stay saved, take care.

Speaker 2 (01:38:32):
Great, it's pretty easy.

Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
Back, it's all right.

Speaker 4 (01:39:03):
And if the dup nursis to key, oh sir, go.

Speaker 6 (01:39:13):
And if the day life.

Speaker 3 (01:39:15):
Feels like it, along way.

Speaker 4 (01:39:23):
And if you're a glass hot should cry before sad.

Speaker 3 (01:39:30):
Your chump back? Oh no, mister, oh look god, walk on.
She gotick and steal it, n e the me walk.

Speaker 5 (01:39:52):
Walk on snay sake.

Speaker 6 (01:39:57):
Ton We're back in the suitcase for ro place.

Speaker 3 (01:40:06):
None of us speak.

Speaker 4 (01:40:10):
A place that has two people leading.

Speaker 2 (01:40:15):
To be.

Speaker 3 (01:40:20):
Would have flown away.

Speaker 4 (01:40:23):
A singinger in an open cage who will only fly,
only fly for free.

Speaker 3 (01:40:34):
No, loco, loco, what you got it for tonight?

Speaker 5 (01:40:45):
He said? I buy you worcod.

Speaker 3 (01:40:49):
Work to stay safe to night, said far breaks. You
can know, take sob.

Speaker 6 (01:41:37):
Onto knows if you never.

Speaker 1 (01:41:47):
I can't say it is, but that's where it.

Speaker 3 (01:42:04):
Says. All the tap so.

Speaker 6 (01:42:11):
Who that's me di, All the in fashion, all the Jimpy,

(01:42:34):
all the gimp, all the chippy, all the gimmasson, all
the chippy, all.

Speaker 5 (01:42:44):
This ship can leave behind, all the jewey, the all, all,
all the game, all the just, all you think, all

(01:43:08):
you agree.

Speaker 1 (01:43:17):
Mm hm

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Episode 344: The Best of The Bravest: Joel Kanasky (Volume 63)

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