Episode 371: The Best of The Bravest: Lt. Dave Russell (Volume 73)

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

(01:02):
the Best of the Bravest Interviews with the FD and
wys Elite. You know, being a lifelong CONNECTICU guy. It's
interesting because tonight's guest has some pretty interesting links to
the Nutmech State, which I'll talk about with him, in
addition to his career with the FD and Y and
on that note, Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to this

(01:22):
episode three hundred and seventy one of the Mike and
Newhaven Podcast, a seventy third volume of the Best of
the Bravest Interviews with the FD and Wives Elite. If
you haven't checked out the previous episode that was another
volume volume six, I believe you have Volume six of
the Best the Bravest Nationwide are spinoff considered The Law
and Daughter SVU to our original Law and Order that

(01:43):
was with Deputy Chief Tony Bumpadre out of the Philadelphia
Fire Department. He's done twenty years down there. It's currently
a deputy assigned to the Safety Battalion in Philly, and
guys had a very, very long and distinguished career. He's
an author too, and we talked about that. So that
was a lot of fun. Special thanks to my cousin
Jose Perez, also a chief down in Philly, also in
the Safety Battalion, who connected us and allowed that interview

(02:03):
to come to Fruition. Hope all, if you are doing
well out there, another beautiful day here in the Northeast
for most of us at least again hanging on to
summer while we still can. And you guys know the
drill by now. Any questions that you may have, of course,
fire him away in the chat and we'll highlight them
now I did before we run the usual ads. We
got a new one that will run tonight. Yeah, just

(02:26):
I wanted to make mention of this because this really
affected me. Over the weekend, a former guest of this show,
friend of mine, passed away, and that is Judge Jerry Garzulo,
and I'm sharing the screen there so you could see
his obituary online. Jerry is the father of Joel Garzulo,
who was a brilliant entertainment reporter for WABC seven in
New York City, formerly of NBC New York. And I've

(02:46):
had Joel in the program. Joelle as a friend and
she's helped me out a lot in my media journey.
And you know, when I found out her father was
involved in the legal field and had the distinguished career
that he had, I said, you gotta, you know, connect us.
I would love to interview him. And I must badger
of the poor woman endlessly to secure that interview. And
she was nice enough to connect us. And Jerry came
on almost two years ago, and boy was he great.

(03:07):
And one of the things that I can tell you
for sure about Jerry that has stuck with me and
I felt this way as the producer Victor at the time.
We're not just saying this now because he's gone. He
was an absolute gentleman and he was a riot. He
was genuinely one of the favorite interviews that I've ever done.
He was not only a gentleman, but on top of that,
very forthcoming, very engaging about his career in law. And

(03:28):
I am producer Victor, and all of us that tuned
in that night learned a whole heck of a lot
about not only his career but the legal field at large.
I mean, this was a man who was a prosecutor.
He was a defense attorney, and finally, for the last
sixteen years out on Suffolk County, Long Island, a judge
in the Suffolk County Supreme Court, handling many notable trials,
including the opia Opie Oi trials rather that came to

(03:49):
involve New York State and New York City as a whole.
He died over the weekend, suddenly. He was seventy four
years old, and he leaves behind not only a wonderful family,
which is what he most cared about, most lit up
about when we talked about it on the program, but
also a wonderful legacy and man, he will be missed,
and I wanted to just send my deepest condolences to
the Garzulo family. Joel, my heart is with you, my

(04:10):
heart's breaking for you, my friend. And what a great,
great life he lit led, I should say, Jerry Gardulo
gone at the age of seventy four, and we are
poorer for it. So again, our deepest condolences to the
Garzulo family. We'll run a couple ads. We'll introduce my
next guest momentarily. First things first, how about a word
from producer Victor in his podcast The Chop Seed Baseball fans.

(04:32):
If you bleed Braves, Country, Red and Blue, this one's
for you. Check out The chop Seed podcast, hosted by
Victor Mignetti's. Every week Victor dives deep into all things
Atlanta Braves and Major League Baseball, from game recaps and
trade rumors to player spotlights and the latest league news.
Rather it's breaking down the lineup, debating pitching rotations, or
talking postseason chances. The chop Sea gives you honest takes,

(04:54):
sharp analysis, and a fans true passion for the game.
So if you're looking for your go to Brave. He's
an MLB podcast. Pull up a chair and join the conversation.
Subscribe to the chop Seat today on Spotify, Apple, Podcast, YouTube,
or wherever you get your podcast. He gives him Braves Country.
There's always room at the chop Seat. Again, subscribe. It

(05:16):
does great work with that. I listened all the time,
especially with the postseason coming up, you definitely want to
do that. And as always, if you need a PI,
you know who to go to. Come on now, don't
go to anybody else, go to Billy Ryan. The Mic
Thing You Have A podcast is proudly sponsored and supported
by the Ryan Investigative group. If you need an elite PI,
look no further than the elite Ryan Investigative Group, which
is run by retired NIP Detective Bill Ryan, a twenty

(05:37):
year veteran of the Department who served the majority of
his career in the detective Bureau, most notably in the
Arson explosion squad. So if you need a PI to
handle anything from fraud, legal services, and anything else that
you might require, contact Bill at three four seven four
one seven sixteen ten. Again three four seven four one
seven sixteen ten. Reach him at his website or the
email that you see here. Again, if you need a PI,

(05:59):
look no further than Bill Ryan and the Ryan Investigative.
A proud supporter and sponsor of the Mike de new
Haven Podcast, one of the best loose I know. Man
has been retired since two thousand and four, and he's
still out there getting it done. My next guest is
a fourth generation firefighter who serviced the job as spanned
military basis, city streets, and major airports, from the Air
Force crash fire rescue to a twenty one year career

(06:20):
with the FD and Y, including time in special operations
and leadership roles in the Bronx. He was with Squad
forty one before they were allowed to be called Squad
forty one, as we'll talk about tonight. He's seen the
fire Service at just about every level, and even in retirement,
he's never really left the job, continuing to train the
next generation, continuing to teach through both lectures he's given
and podcast appearances like this one. You remember him from

(06:41):
Getting Salty. He's made his way to Mike the New
Haven and that for this volume seventy three of the best,
the bravest interviews with the FD and wise Elite tis
a man that Tim Hannigan helped me get our mutual friend,
retired FD Andy Lieutenant Dave Russell, who I saw and
got absolutely soaked with on the Getting Salty cruise when
the water guns got the better of us. Good to
see again, my friend.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
How are you you too? My friends? Wow, that's something
often you have either a minister or you're selling insurance.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
But that why not both?

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Why? Amen? That's the best of both worlds.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Uh, you know, buy a house God blessed?

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Well, yeah, put the buttterguards on exactly.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
That's extra. Yes, that's extra, you know. Can I get
an amen to that too? Well? Before we get into
your career. Of course, with everything. As I mentioned the introduction,
just tell me about where you grew up, David.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
I grew up in I was born in Bridgeport, raised
in Fairfield. Like you said, I have a four generation firefighter.
Most people went to daycare. I went to the firehouse.
So that's was how it was, so which gave me
a great advantage in my career. The only other thing,
like I said, I wanted to do was like nineteen

(07:51):
sixty eight, I was ten years old and I wanted
to be a door gunner on a U way in Vietnam.
But you know, I ran out of time, so whatever.
And then I really wanted to be in New York
City farm And when I was ten years old, my
parents always went to Saint Patti's Day. That's where they imagine.

(08:12):
They considered that their anniversary. So we were down by
now I know, four and fifty eight. My father's uncle
was in forour truck, and we used to go to
this place and we went down the street. You know,
it looked like it was a big job. My father
wouldn't walk across the street to see a fire unless
it was like in the city. Long story short, I'm

(08:34):
looking and it was a serious job. And I saw
this one guy. He had a victim, you know, be
a ten forty five now, and the guy was conscious,
but you can tell he was severely burned. Fireman sitting
on his knees, covered in black like he just got
pulled out of a coal mine. It was freezing. It was,
you know, Saint Patti's day. And I saw him giving

(08:57):
the little SIPs of whatever he had there to the guy.
But the concerned look on that guy, even though he
was completely you know, covered in soot and second alarm
snots and everything else. And then he looked at that
and you looked up and everybody else, you know, doing it.
I said, that's where I want to go. So since
I was really ten years old, I wanted to be

(09:18):
a New York City farm.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
And it's funny, cleary guy. We're talking with Dave Russell
here on the best and bravest interviews with the ft
and ys Elite that started out in CT that I've
had on this program that ventured out to the ft
and Y Timmyklett to be Brown and you. And it's
it's interesting, I mean, again, seeing that up close, it's
one thing to want to go into the Fire service
is another thing to want to do it in New
York City. But before that came first to military. And

(09:42):
I've often said, and this is not the diminished the
intensity of a fire academy or a police academy, but
if you can go through military training, which is the
most intensive of them all, I feel like anything after
that is a relative walk in the park. So for you,
before that, your love of the Fire Service is well documented.
Where did your love of the military come into play?

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, I wasn't I know. It wasn't a college material
and obviously my dreams are playing with the giants. Went
down the toilet. So and to take the test for
the FD and Y he had to be twenty one.
So at seventy six, I was eighteen. So I figured
I'll do four years crash rescue blah blah blah, then
I would get out. Well, you know, God left at

(10:23):
your plans. I ended up doing eight years active and
I worked out. It was you know, awesome, But towards
the end I was missing a class. I took the
I think I took the written in eighty two. I
guess it was about forty forty five thousand people took
the test, and you wait and see like everything else,

(10:44):
and the next thing you know, my list is coming
up in eighty four, and I was gonna be in
the class before that, but I was sent to a
place that doesn't exist. So when I got back to
the States, they had lost my paperwork to get discharged
between two thefts in the same office. So my father

(11:06):
knew a Congressman, Stewart McKinney, the Defensive Appropriation Bill, the
reserve unit. I called and I wanted up and stew
a dad old room blah blah blah. Called my dad
on Monday Friday afternoon. I was in my poor man's
Corvette Chevy Bega, being a dog head North and I
was place chased. I had I had owe them four

(11:30):
years because I over the two, and miraculously they had
a spot for me in the one five. So I
got discharged in November of eighty four, and I did
my first thrill in December of eighty Every even had
a great Then we brobi school my career. I've been

(11:50):
very lucky, I said. I took my first classes in
training in seventy four, and if I was lousy, I start.
My father was not gonna let me ride again. Have
the rigs. Seventy five to seventy six, I was a
paid call fireman in Fairfield. Back then there was no
over time. Just like you got a tour, you got
another tour. Oh, no time and a half. Nothing. So

(12:14):
a lot of guys like everywhere else, if you're pulling wire,
hanging piper, doing something to make more money on the
side in the pits, so they couldn't hire anybody, go
have worked the engine of the truck, usually at once
and re rowed two times. You know. It was awesome.
And when I was in the military, I my timing

(12:37):
was perfect. I had seventy six. All the guys that
taught me were Vietnam guys, and I had Jack McCarthy
and Probe school. He was in some pretty bad baby
was at ben Wall when the place blew up Dynan.
They called it r rocket City for a reason. And
what I liked about these guys and I toord it
was they could tell you ten to a ways to

(13:00):
do the same job, and under situation. You know, some
of it was built when they were the swamp, the snow,
the desert, jungle, blah blah blah. This aircraft's coming in
this way. You got this type two seater, four seater,
whatever else. These guys just everything that's not in the books,

(13:22):
you know, And that was awesome. And then the same
thing when I got to Bushway two seventy seven and
one to twelve. It was me with guys up to
thirty six years and you were into the job. They
would take you under the wing and show you everything
that's not in the book that's going to keep you alive.
So you know, I've been very blessed my career with

(13:46):
people that I was attached to. And they actually the
opening was two eyes, two years of one mouth, shut up,
pay attention, how you get dressed, and everything else. They
keep you alive, you know, and yeah, you don't need
God bring this. It was just everything. So it was

(14:07):
you know, I had fun. It was absolutely fart department
in city in New York was like high school with
no homework.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
It was awesome, you know, absolutely technical chronicle tonight and
this is, like I said, volume seventy three of the best,
the bravest interviews with the Ft and wised Elite. And
that was you know, again, the military provided you with
a good baseline with what you learned in air force,
crash fire and rescue. But that right there is a
hell of a way to start. That's where you spent
the first four years of your career, which I think

(14:35):
laid the groundwork pretty well for everything else. Because Bushwick
back then, and I covered this with guys before that
came out in the eighties, is it the same famed
period as the Warriors? Know? But you know, even though
people defined the Warriors as sixty four to seventy eight,
it's not like the fires just went away after seventy eight.
Plenty of work to go around, particularly in Brooklyn, particularly

(14:56):
in places like bad Stye and Bushwick. So being there
during those four years, I'll tell you, I mean, it's
a gritty era to be there. You described it perfectly
and what you just said, but considering what would come
later when you got promoted. Not that I'm gonna skip
over anything, but just you know, kind of a little
peek ahead. Are those the guys that made you want
to be an officer someday?

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah? I mean I looked at it. I mean I
had everything. Roger Rowlan, who was a tunnel rat in Vietnam.
You ain't messing with him. You know, we had non
guys Tommy Dunn, first Marine recon walking barefoot around into
the North Vietnam to pay a little silent visit to
some of our enemy people, you know. And Larry McCarthy

(15:39):
was in one twenty truck and one twelve truck his
entire career. You know, there's so many guys that were there.
I mean, the senior guys were there. You showed what
you wanted to do and they would just do it. Plus,
you know there's plenty of fires. Bushwork at that time
was the number one crack area in the city, all
five Burroughs. Yeah, we had aids and crack. You know.

(16:03):
So I never have to see the zombie movie because
we were living with him and walking him in the
streets and stuff. You know, I haven't thought of this story.
We had an unconscious male upon Palmetto and there's this guy,
white guy, laying on his back, face up, and it
looked like somebody dumped the bucket of livers around his head.

(16:24):
There was that much blood and crap coming out of him.
And you know, when you well, I don't know if
for that, but in your mind, this guy's done, he's gone.
Just looking at him pasty white, the amount of blood
and coagulation eriting. And then he sat up. I put
mud in my underwear almost. I'm like, what the when

(16:45):
you did? And then a guy pops out of this
occupied vacant on the second floor, big black guy, just
wearing a bathrobe, screaming. I told him not to touch
my shit on the second floor. This guy hit the
guy on the ground with a small black and white
TV headscot, you know, and I think he was a

(17:07):
left him surprise. Steinbrenner didn't sign him up for the Yankees.
But it's just that weird stuff all the time. It
was like, when you thought this guy was dead, he
sprung up. It was like a Creature Features movie. But
that's just stuff, you know. And Bush what we called
that Tuesday, you know, it was always no short of entertainment.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Absolutely, And that's you know, one of the things that
I wanted to touch on with you as well, is
that back then. I mean, I'm just picturing by the way,
the guys sitting up like the Undertaker or something. As
a child that grew up markedly wrestling, you know, boom,
it just pops up like nothing. You learn to acclimate.
I mean, granted you were in the military for a
little bit, so you know, again culture shock, I don't
want to use that term, you know. And again Bridgeport,

(17:49):
I know was pretty gritty back then when you were
growing up. But nevertheless, working in a neighborhood like that,
seeing stuff like that early on, did it take you
a little to get used to it or were you
able to just kind of hit the ground running because
of your background.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Well, like I said, the old adage was dad, when
I grow up, I want to be a fireman. Well, son,
you can't do both. But I mean I started my
you know, street or learning was in Fairfield, right, you know,
you know that's you. We had great senior guys that
could name a ton of them. And these guys would

(18:22):
show you things that are not in the book. And
we'd go to the fires and my first fatal fires
with Fairfield up in up Greenfield Hill is a farm
area and you know, we this lady will old lady.
She was, you know, beat up pretty bad and you know,
one of those ones you grab and the skin comes
off in your hands, it hits the floor. But that

(18:43):
was my first one. But you know, going in there,
my first tour, I walked in and got Gary, Yule
and Dahalson at the house watch study for the pending
lieutenant's test. So I come in and I salute, and
Probationary Russell reporting is ordered, Sir go upstairs to the officers.

(19:05):
So my first tour, I'm in early four point thirty
for a six o'clock change. I meet Lieutenant Roger rolling
in the office and he's sitting down and I'm gonna
date myself. He's typing on the typewriter two pieces of
paper with carbon paper inside. Nobody even remembers that he's typing.
So I come in, reporters ordered, Sir Roger pushes back

(19:26):
from the desk with his chair. He looks up at
me and goes, let's get something straight. You can call
me lou or lieutenant. You got that? So what do
I say? Yes, sir? He jumps up, gets right in
my chest. He's Jesus Christ. Did your mother have any
kids that lived? I can do automatically that he's a

(19:46):
military guy. Get downstairs. So I go downstairs, and two
seventy seven and one twelve is the only firehouse in
the city where we were front and back, no double doors,
no white in and out It is like a Japanese
suicide's up in and out. No room compared tight. Whoever
got back first went in the back, and nowadays they'd fire.

(20:10):
I mean our kitchen was right there. You could walk
off the back step of the engine, step in our kitchen,
doors open. The diesel exhaust between the two companies would
be nothing. Thirty thirty five runs between both companies, and
you know everything was shiny right up to your locker,
and that was just basically your exhaust. Tony Lapari showed

(20:31):
me the back of the rig. Tommy Hoy comes out
of the kitchen. Tommy did forty years in one twelve.
Tommy had that flating, floating norad. I you can never
sneak up on him his first life. I think he
was a flatfish or something. So Hoy comes walking up
and Tony Lapari we're looking down, and Tony punches me

(20:53):
in the chest and he goes and Tommy's eyes floating
back and forth, and he goes, is he looking at
me or is he looking at you? I looked at
howiy Ago. I think he's looking at both of us.
How he walks away laughing. So seven point thirty it's
a beautiful spring day. You know, six thirty quarter to
seven tones go off. We're first though I can hear

(21:18):
the dispatcher saying something later on. I didn't know what
they were saying with the rig star, but you know,
seventy seven one twelve, pull your boots up, you're going
to work. Numerous phone calls. Truck pulls out, and everybody
on the trucks all seeing your guys. I just see him,
look up, get on the rig go we pull out.
I look where they were looking, and there's a head
her in the horizon, a couple of blocks central to Wilson.

(21:41):
I can't remember. We pull up and truck goes in.
Always got this, and I remember Gary Parrish had the
nozzle and we're going up the stairs. It was like,
I hate to compare like, but it was he with GiMA.
The stairs, the steps, the treads were completely filled with
plaster and laugh. There was no way to get your foothold,

(22:02):
and we're trying to get up there. We come back
down a little bit up. Roger's standing at the top
of the stairs, leaning over the railing face piece hanging
going get that fan lining up here. Now, if he
stood up, he would have burned his head. Both apartment
doors were open. That's blowing out. So we get up
there and Gary's hitting on backing them up and we're

(22:24):
hitting both apartments, trying to control the hallway, and then
two eighteen came up. There was second two and Rogers yelled,
get the left apartment. Five six rooms were right front
the rear. Two eighteen took the apartment on the right.
We go in, we're knocking it down and like, you know,
it's different. It's not an airplane, but you know, going

(22:44):
in going out, So we knock it down. We get relieved,
We go sit on the backstep and you got the
second alarm snots hanging down like that. Roger comes up
to me. The lieutenant goes, do you know why we
took the apartment on the left, And I'm like, well,
because there was more fire in there f two eighteen
So I said, all right, there was more fire air

(23:06):
that's where he wants to go. And Roger was one
of those guys that if he lifted up a manhole
cover and told you to stretch a two and a
half down there, I would because he was just that guy,
you know. And that was my first tour. A couple
hours into it. Later on that night, there was the
annual Brooklyn fifth Alarm at the Navy Yard, and every

(23:28):
time they asked for a you know, another alarm, like
when do we go, We're never going third alarm. When
we got doing that going fourth line, fifth alarm, you know,
everyone got annoyed at me. Of course, your first tour,
you're standing you and sleep. You don't do nothing. Make
twenty two pots of coffee cleaning one spoon you clean it.
Pop pop pop. So I'm sitting at the house watch

(23:51):
it's got to be one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning,
and all of a sudden, here one twenty give a scream.
In ten seventy five they got a job and it's uh,
right on Broadway in Gates. He stands up, well, that's
our box. Next you know, we're going out and H
one twenty truck was coming back from the Brooklyn fifth

(24:12):
alarm and they just strolled across the job. So they
called it in. They were the first to tower ladder
one twelve a second do we got a line up
there and it was an occupied vacant right up Broadway
by the Yell train and you can't get a stick
up there or a bucket. So we did everything with
the hand lines and everything else. So that was my

(24:33):
first tour, you know, nice first do all hands and
then a second alarm, you know, and we missed a
job while we were at the job in Broadway. The
relocators came in and they caught a job. So then
you know, it was just a normal night for us.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
And that was the things to come, you know. And
that's the thing too. I was going to ask you
during that four year period, given the makeup of the
borough and it's still kind of like this now, even
with the gentrification, would you say ten? I mean, besides something,
the Navy Yard tenement fires were kind of the bread
and butter of a company back then.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Well, we had a lot of road frames too. You know,
some of the original unicitations went from two to h
two gates to two twenty gates because that cock loft
it ran the entire block. And then we would have
a couple of vacants occupied, vacant occupied, and what they
would do sometimes is gas the vacant ones and then

(25:26):
you know you'd have the whole thing going, you know.
I mean we used to carry a hook sometimes so
we could get in because we did. We had more
engines than trucks. So if you didn't get that ceiling
down as it's roaring across you going to the next building,
you didn't get the ceiling down, that fire already bypass it.
So now you got that building going, so we'd pull

(25:46):
the ceiling. No ladders are nothing, guys are just not
furniture over we'd just stand on dressers and stuff and
just start hitting the living hell out of the cock
lofts and stuff, you know. And a lot of our
vacant buildings over on stan Hopeen's Stockholm were occupied vacants.
You know. We had a lot of squatters in there,

(26:06):
crackheads whatever else. Sometimes before we did a drill in
our drill site, which is an old law tenement, we'd
search walk through and make sure we didn't find any
da somebody od' or something that was Saturday. That's what
we did. But I had pictures. But you know, when
you get a chance Bushwick when I was there, you'd

(26:27):
go for an outside rubbish fire and you would see
rubbish in the back of the building up in the
shaft up to the first floor window sill. So if
you went for an outside rubbish. You could end up
catching a nice job and it being a shaft And
you know when you're pulling in difference between a rubbish

(26:47):
fire and a shaft fire, just by looking at the smoke,
you've got a straight column going up. That was a
shaft fire. So you could actually have fire two different
buildings on a couple of different floors. Especially this time
you're at the windows open. There's nobody had air conditioning,
and there's no thermal pain windows back then, you know,
So I mean, those are the days when either the
window fails in the heat or you could take a

(27:09):
window with your helmet. Not now with this thermal pain,
you'll end up eating your helmet trying to take a
window with your helmet with this stuff. So it's you know,
I have a picture somewhere or doing bi We're on
a four story building looking down and there's two vacants
side by side, and there's holes in the roof staggered,

(27:32):
and when I took a look close, there's nothing but
pocketbooks on the roof. So when the scales would mug
somebody or are running from the cops, they would run up.
It was like an obstacle. Course they knew where the
holes were, so run left, run lefth you know, and
just go through the pocketbook, then hit the ball khead
of the rear fire escape and hopefully disappear, you know.

(27:53):
But you know that's back in the day when you
know the cops. Cops are cops. You know, wall to
wall counseling was legal. You know, you screwed up, you
geta end up swallowing your teeth. But then again, nobody
was throwing stuff at the cops. You know. It was
a total respect that we were in the confines of
the eight three. And man, it was awesome again, you know.

(28:17):
We we just had such a great time with the cops.
I mean, I always exaggerated to a point, but I
came out of my baseball one then and I'm like, hey, lou,
we get one more cop at our basement. Were officially
a precinct, you know, and that's how it was. But
we took care of each other, you know, and a
lot of fun. Fourth of July the cops would come

(28:38):
to the firehouse sometimes and give us half a trunk
of fireworks that they confiscated all during the day, so
then we would have fireworks wars with the locals. As
we're going byers like Mogadishue, we'd have small pipes shooting
bottle rockets at then they'd be shooting stuff back. But
I mean it was not like we're trying and get
this guy's eye. It was just you know, I went

(28:59):
you were going by far to go to fires. You know,
the dispatching would tell you you see a four story
vacant going. The best thing is the locals are pointing
as we go by, and that was a slim green
rig back then Helen Calder could see us coming and
we go on by and they're looking at us like yo,
and we're going to a fire that you know, occupied

(29:21):
or whatever else. So it was awesome going by fires
to go to fires. I remember one fourth of July,
I heard the dispatcher tapping the alert boom, boom, boom,
Is anybody anybody ava available in the borough of Brooklyn crickets? Nothing? Yeah,
you were going by there was Queen's Companies and are
in Brooklyn Bushware, you know, we had Manhattan Companies. It

(29:44):
was it was just insane. Giuliani screwed that up when
he became everybody shutting down all the fireworks and everything.
But you know, I know, you know, but it was fun.
It was absolutely fun. And you know, we would watch
skellevision on the most of the firehouse and you just
it was free entertainment. You know. We had across the street.

(30:06):
We had a nacho. He had a chop shop, slash
butter repair. And I've watched guys would a kids swing set,
heavy duty chain block and tackle got the car up
pulling a motor, a V eight motor with a transmission
together and for safety they're using plastic milk rates in

(30:27):
case the car comes down, I mean in the bringing
swing sets bone, but they would get the whole thing
up in one shot. You and I tried that we'd
have to have somebody coming with airbags to get us
out from underneath the car or something, you know. But
that's how it worked.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
And that's just the first four years of your career
to where I think back, I mean considering granted, cool
things came later, but if you could have stayed there,
I'm sure you would have for your whole career. So
tell me about how you went from that. And I'm
not knocking has Matt much respect to the hasback guys.
I've had hashback guys on the show. But going from
that to has Matt one in eighty nine, that's quite

(31:06):
the turnaround.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Well, I had done Hatsman in the military. We did,
you know, the weapons, missiles, all that crap. So I
figured try it. So myself and a guy named John
Dory from two eighty we went over and took the
detail and I just wanted to see, you know, what
it was like. And has Matt even back then two
eighty eight was still an engine so it's a couple

(31:28):
of weeks ago. It was like the Navy. We could
do the five Burrows in the day tour. You know,
we'll go out to Staten Island for an acid spill.
Then we're going to Kennedy for something in a hangar,
go to Manhattan and you would see, you know, a
mercury spill from an elevator, go back to the Bronx,

(31:48):
come back to Queens, and then you go out to
stat And it was awesome. I mean, the guys were great,
but you know what, I still had the radio and
the scanners in the house and listen and you know,
you hear to a battalion transmit in the second alarm
for a first two box for seventy seven and one
to twelve that was like swallowing tax, you know it,

(32:12):
God damn. So but a lot of work, you know,
there was a lot of fires. We got to do
a lot of weird stuff. And my first rum with
John Dory was I forget the hotel downtown Manhattan and
we're on the sidewalk. We're the dcon guys. And for
the first five minutes we stepped off the rig. We
saw more hot women in five minutes, and I seen

(32:35):
my entire career in Brooklyn. I mean one was like, Holy,
this is awesome. So just alone, that was worth the
price of admission. You know. Plus we got the training,
we got the search and all that. But you know,
we got to do some weird stuff which came to
help me later on in four when I was overseas

(32:55):
at the beach and we were working with the first
Calf sixty ninth chemical company wearing Level a's in Iraq.
Great weight loss program. Absolutely you know, sweating like r
Kelly and Family Court. But you know it's awesome, and
but it was, you know, it was different coming back,
like some people aren't comfortable with it, and you know

(33:16):
we're doing the showing me I eds building collapses, showing
them how when we leave, they're going to be making entry,
trying to clean up our mess, their mess, everybody's mess.
So it came out that way. But you know, that
was a year. But like anything else, it's like this year.
I mean August, this year was like a week long.

(33:37):
Now we're you know, now we're already past nine to eleven,
you know, coming up on the twenty fifth year next year.
That's hard to believe in itself, you know. But the
guys in Hasmad, you know, I had Lieutenant Buell. He
got you know, if you knew half of what he forgot,
your brain would be full. You know. John Hopkinsenior was

(33:57):
our chauffeur. I mean, this guy, could I have that
first piece like a subaru under the yel in and
out of the pillars, you know. And but you know
then but I still miss the fires. And I said,
all right, and then what's my next step?

Speaker 1 (34:16):
I would be enhanced engine forty one at the time,
because that's that's the interesting point. And I remember talking
about this with Garrett Ningren when Garrett was on a
while ago where they weren't and it was something weird,
something political. Ultimately, with the neighborhood. They were not allowed
to be called the squad. This is well before ninety
eight when they officially became one, but unofficially they were
pretty much a squad well before July first of ninety eight.

(34:38):
But that back then, that kitching, not the title was
enhanced engine.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Oh, I know, it was awesome though I didn't care.
I said, I'll pay my hooks pink. We responded to
the South Bronx and harl Chances are we're going to
see someone or do something. And now, like the squad stuff,
we were not really tied down to all the tech rescue,
rope dope stuff and all that crap. We were going

(35:02):
to fires and collapses, I mean, you know, so it
was just going from one building fire to another and
we would come in. And when we first started, it
was the chiefs like, first of all, another slim green rig.
Two rigs in my career were slim green, so you're
not sneaking up on anybody. And you know, we would
stand in and they're like, what the hell, give me

(35:23):
another truck. And as it progressed and things, you know,
we we had great bosses. I mean, you know, we
had John Keereran and he was awesome. You know, I
had Patty Brown as a lieutenant. You know, I can
name some of the famous guys. Jack Leehouse, ye oh

(35:44):
my god. You know, the first time I ever climbed
a fire skate on the outside of the building was
with Jack Cleehouse and I looked down as coach open
and I'm like, holy shit, I'm with Batman, I mean,
and this guy he just he just looked. He did
his thirty second size up in twelve seconds. He knew
exactly what he wanted where we're going, and it was

(36:06):
absolutely just awesome. I mean, the crowd there Keenan. For
a while, we used to call him Captain Collapse because
it's like every third fire we went to, the building
fell down, it was you know, sor right. It wasn't
our fault, you know, but once you got there and
you know, the battalions were looking for you, and you know,

(36:26):
we would split the company. You know, we'd go to
Harlem and an engine needs help getting the lineup, so
we would get the line. We would do whatever. My
analogy of forty one was we're doing truck work, but
we never gave up the nonsen. So you know, we
had that we can do whatever you need to do.
And a couple of guys like this is you know,

(36:48):
because one day we would go to a battalion, the
next day we would It was all politics, Like you said,
it was to save the forty one foundation, and the
ed Kocha at that time was you know, it was
not very happy with the fire department after you got
boot out a metal day. So you said, you can
put anything you want in forty one's quarters except an engine.

(37:12):
So you could put Rescue three there, you could put
another truck there, you could do whatever, not an engine.
So that was part of the ropen dope stuff that
you know, he made it the enhanced engine because you know,
Marty Rodgers and those people got that company open and
there was I forget how many deaths in a time
that forty one and forty one's first do area. I

(37:33):
want to say twelve or fourteen, I don't know, if whatever.
And so they had the right, you know, and they
worked hard with the Chief O Roar to get that
place reopened, and you know eventually it was going to happen.
But you know, response there was tremendous, you know, at

(37:54):
the Harlem from one hundred and sixteenth Street to one
hundred and sixtieth Street, and even south of Florida, you know,
out the Hunts Point and everything, so there was still
plenty of work there. I attribute my career to being
a cowboy in the late eighteen hundreds or early nineteen hundreds.
As far as you could see in the west was Buffalo,

(38:17):
and then one day they were gone. New York City,
as far as you could see was vacants, and then
they were going the gentrification and everything else. You hear
about the truck company get in trouble for cutting the
roof on a vacant because somebody bought it, and now
it's like what you know. I mean, the vacants were
awesome for just drills, and you learned how to be

(38:38):
a fireman when they were on fire. You know those
stairs and the interior marble steps you're using either stepping
on the risers to get up to the metal well
hole stretches, rope stretches, you know, bringing an attic ladder up,
go up the attic ladder, bringing up and pull it up,
use the rear fire escape. It was just, you know,
it was just I wish I was there a little earlier,

(39:00):
but you know, at the same time those guys were
showing you. You know, I didn't make it the non
but those guys showed us how to stay alive and
make sure our guys stay alive. And that was very
helpful when I, you know, screwed up and got promoted,
so you know, and.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
I'll get into that momentarily, And of course you're promoted
in nineteen ninety four, but I think it's interesting to
note to your point. There's a sign that we have
over in the center District in West Haven at the firehouse,
and it was given to us by Squad forty one
after nine to eleven. It's a few of the guys
from West Haven went down to help and on it
it says Bronx Harlem Squad for the logos forty one,

(39:39):
Squad forty one the best of both worlds and it
really was. Yeah, two boroughs that had a reputation for burning.
If there was ever a time and place to learn
how to be a fireman, this is still true today
for any of the guys that are in forty one. Now,
it was there. That's no knocking where you were in Bush,
but that was the hell of a place to learn too.
But going to not just one borough but two, and
again the type of fires they were having in both
of the time, that was quite the learning curve. And

(40:02):
I think that sets you up pretty well for what
we're coming ninety four.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Well, we had one in one twelve at the time,
we still had the booth, so right on the outside
was awesome. And there was rocket Ronnie Caratu, who was
a fireman, a lieutenant and came back as the captain
of one to twelve. That says a lot. And Ronnie,
I mean he did the Star Trek theory. The faster

(40:26):
you go, the thinner the rig gets. And I remember
riding in the booth and I'm looking at my coat flapping,
and I'm coming about two inches from a parked cars
side view mirror, you know, And I oh, you know,
because that what you get ripped out of like a
mail bag on a train. They wouldn't even know you
were gone until he got there because we didn't have
all the radios and stuff. But I mean, these are

(40:48):
the guys that you learn from, you know, Bill Nagel,
Ronnie Carratu, Geene Hickey, Howie the engine we had, Patty Sullivan.
He was a human sprinkler. He would go in there.
He was doing break dancing before they knew it. But
he had the nozzle. He'd be on the floor and
he'd take two rooms down like that. Sometimes when we
were in the back of you just fed him a

(41:09):
little bit more and let him go, you know, if
you didn't know any better. Looking at he was having
a grand ball. Seize you. But he's knocking a room down.
He's going crazy, you know. Patty Augliero was senior, you know,
and we had guys like Steve Murphy and just awesome.
It was a great house. You know. When I got

(41:31):
detailed out of there, my first detail was the one
twenty four truck. Six guys in the three story firehouse.
I mean on our third floor, we had nothing but
lockers and an insert shower. These guys you can play
golf up on their third floor, and because you know
they're a quick company, nobody really slept in on the
second floor. I'm walking around there and this guy, Patty Swaggers,

(41:55):
comes up to see what I'm doing. I'm just looking
around like I just came from a cardboard the Taije mahall.
I'm like, this is all for you. Six guys in
this and you got a second flight. Are you kidding me?
You know, we had a shower and a half ass
bathroom on the second floor. Our bunk rooms were there,

(42:16):
the officers were there. They put the truck there temporarily
in nineteen seventy three. Was still there when I got there,
under our old firehouse, and we got floor Jackson in
their condition. Our basement looked like it was a mass
confidence course. But all this, you know, all the jacks
holding it up, and our little recreational man cave was

(42:40):
down there, you know. But you go to these other
firehouses and I'm like, and then they were attached to
two seventy one and the two eight bit time they
never broke the wall because one four didn't want any
possibility of a white hat walking across, and they had
ten times to rule. I was like, this was amazing,

(43:02):
you know. Then you go to other firehouses, Great Jones
Street ninety two and forty four. They got a better
parking lot than Giant Stadium, for God's sakes, you know.
So that's I You know, when I went everywhere, I
was a tourist. I was always looking around, having checking
stuff out, you know. But it was fun.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
It was awesome as well. You should work in a
place like that. And then Dave Russell's our guest here
in the Mikey Dave podcast. This is All You've seventy
three of the best, the bravest interviews with the ft
andized Elite. Now, I don't know if you remember him.
He was dispatching one five to zero former guests in
this program. Jim Raftory says he said this.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Oh yeah, absolutely. I had some good rabbis in the
Bronx CEO. I could call them on the non recorded line,
and we went to a lot of places that we
had no business going to, and we would get in
I'll leave the companies out, but we ended up going.
I was just told I called him up, sounded like

(43:58):
a job was going pretty so he's just get on
a rig. So we start going down the Grand Concourse
and this UH Division six transmits a second alarm and
we just go. And it turns out that I know
it was Chief d Diebonaro, and it's aid at the
time was Crystal Olyssia was in my reserve unit. We

(44:21):
pull up and we got there so quick. We's right
behind the battleship command board. You know, that little half
a bus boy stand there. It's there. Chris is looking
up at me. I'm looking down. He goes, what the
hell you guys doing here? Uh, we're first on a second.
Get in there, you know. Just make it up and

(44:42):
fly with it, you know. So it's like anything else.
If you sound like it's legit, you're gonna, especially at
fire if you're gonna go to work. So that was it.
So yeah, raftery Doc Beef. You know, all these guys,
And it's amazing when you heard in Brooklyn sometimes Warren
and these guys company from the Bronx is going to

(45:02):
two eighty engine and these guys really they're doing in Brooklyn,
and you'd hear the dispatcher go where are you? We'reons
and such and such such. All right, go down two blocks.
You see a white castle in the corner, Take a left,
Go three more blocks to be a Kentucky Fried Chicken

(45:23):
and a car wash there, go down that block. The
firehouse is there. It was amazing. I mean, that's when
we had super real dispatches. These guys. I wouldn't want
to play chess against them because they are eighty steps
ahead of you, you know. And that's when we had
but back then we still had the radios. You could hear.
You knew who was out. So if you picked up something,

(45:45):
you did not know that your second due engine that's
supposed to come in with you or whatever is doing
the leg crampson, diarrhea. Run and now the next company
coming in god knows how far it is, which is
one thing. But as a boss, you kind of plan
because my chauffers were awesome, but you would think about,

(46:06):
all right, as a boss, now thirty eight engine fifty
one truck should be coming from the right as we
come down, slow down, you know, because they're going to
come through, whether we had the green or whatever. And
when I got to these intersections in the city, I
would lay off the siren in the air horn because
it's just acoustics everywhere, and then you would hear air

(46:26):
horns and sirens and the left from the right, and
you knew that the companies were coming and just let
them go. I mean, you know, I'd rather get there
than not, you know, you know, I mean, Mike schu Super,
I mean now that you when I became a boss,
I look at the guys that are my chauffers. In
two seventy seven. Mike did not only know where the

(46:52):
hyphens were, he knew the majority of the mains that
fed them. We had a job over by two twenty two,
and the chief standingpoint because he wanted us to supply
you know, a tower ladder whatever else. And to see
the chief's face, you know, the slime green rig. Me
and Mike shoe bypass him and go down one block

(47:14):
and he goes, ah, this one's on a twenty inch main.
That one's only a ten. I mean, when you only
supply two lines off a rig right in the books,
blah blah blah. We had two lines and a tower
ladder off this rig, and our rig was purring, you know,
the compound gauge was up, we had plenty of water,

(47:34):
we were not anything. So then the chief eventually walked over.
We realized it was Mike and goes, yeah, Mike, I
should have known, you know what an officer's dream. You know,
we had great chauffeurs. It was awesome fare face Fagan.
I mean, that guy was awesome. He loved you know,
but I we always I'd made nicko names for pretty
much everybody, you know. So that's and that's how it was,

(47:57):
you know, so you know you mentioned somebody's fair face working,
they maybody even know, you know. Yeah, yeah, I know
he's off that he's not a mutual or whatever, but
you know, it was fun. It was awesome. You know.
Jimmy Thornton was one of the senior chauffeurs in one
twelve and I had at least a good two years

(48:18):
under my belt. And it's like February I had to
twelve buy and it's snowing sideways. So Jimmy Thornton pulls
up right, walks next to me, and we're looking out
the onto Nicker Baker Abbe and I'm like, ah, this sucks.
I haven't had a job in a week. So in

(48:39):
my mind, I'm thinking, Jimmy Thorton's gonna go, Nah, don't
worry about a kid if we never go to another
run that checks the same, blah blah blah. Jimmy exhales
and goes, yeah, I know. Jimmy lived in Long Island
and he passed thirty five firehouses to come to our
condemned one Bay firehouse with an engine and truck. You know,

(49:00):
in his first life he was a fire horse, you know,
and that's why you know, and he had time on
and that's why they're there. These guys want to you know,
you can go anywhere you want, especially with that kind
of job. And those guys they were there. You know,
they did not leave, you know, Joe Lions, all these
senior guys, Joe Lions like like mister Clean on steroids.

(49:22):
You know, it's just very calm. There was a guy
named Bob Sweeney. I don't know if you ever heard
of him. He became number two of the FDN Y
and when he retired he was the assistant to the
chief of department. He was a chief chief. His first
tour is a brand new lieutenant. He comes into two

(49:43):
seventy seven and one twelve, future chief of Downtown Joe
Lions puts his hand out and goes, son, does your
mother know you're spending the night here? And you know,
and that's We also had another guy that got made
out of one twelve. I don't know if you ever
heard of him, Eddie Eddie killed Duff.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
He's been on the show.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Yeah, well he was my lieutenant for a while, future
chief and apartment and what an absolute machine and a
great guy. Yeah, he could meet you once and then
five years when I remember your name, and how's the wife,
how's the dog? And he could have worked for IBM,
he could have worked for anybody. Very smart yoh, absolutely,
and a gentleman, Absolutely, a gentleman, A great fire boss,

(50:31):
you know, absolute great fire boss.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Yeah, they don't they don't make him. They don't make
anybody really like him anymore. He was one of the kind.
Before I move on to you, of course, getting promoted
in ninety four, quick question from Ed Murray and the
chatty retire out of the PD NYPD of course, that is,
he wants to know if you ever worked with Keith
Cardka up in the Bronx.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
Suffering suck attach he sounds like she'll vender the cat. Yeah,
that's at least fully evolved couch special call tower ladder. Yes,
I know very.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Well, so answers Ed's question.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Now.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Of course, I imagine a UFO for a while, as
most lieutenants do when they get promoted, and most really
most captains do as well, until they get a permanent assignment.
But what's interesting is once you settled in Division seven,
I mean again, you're still in the Bronx. You're up
on Webster Avenue now so I mean, even though as
forty one is going to Harlem as well, it's primarily
based out of the Bronx. So with that being said,
I imagine it couldn't have been that bad of a transition.

(51:26):
I mean, you stayed in the Bronx the rest of
your career, but that period of time ninety four ultimately
the ninety seven going to sixty two engine, What was
it like working Division seven? What was your first two area?

Speaker 2 (51:37):
It was? I worked everywhere and then in sidebar. I
always say that, don't mean it this way, but I
appreciate it. I got banished to the first division for
like six months, but I'm glad I went there because
what an eye opener. Most of these places have more
building underground than you have above. Everything's two and a

(51:57):
half as soon as you take a step down below,
radio radios don't work, there's no events, this, that, and
an eight minute run around the corner because the traffic
is now twelve fourteen to fifteen minutes, and then it's
forty minutes to get back. There's nobody in at the
traffic and everything. But working in the high rises and

(52:21):
low rises, I worked in two truck one night, and
I had the privilege in honor of relieving Captain Hill.
And he was on his way home and he sat
me down because he knew sort of I knew his sawn,
but he said, he gave me about a twenty five
minute how to be a fireman lieutenant in Manhattan versus

(52:42):
being in the ghetto and stuff. And it was awesome,
you know, it just and that's an ultimate profession. You know. Listen,
you're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy, So this is what
we're gonna do. And I ended up patenting a fourth
fifth alarm at the Oyster Bar in the Grand Central

(53:04):
Terminal five engines to get the first line into operation.
It was insane. It was the highest loss of fish
I ever had. It was about four hundred thousand dollars
worth of salmon that you know, they were smoking, and
it was just But the guys are great there. You know,

(53:25):
it's a different breed down there to a point, you know,
going there and just seeing all this stuff, and you know,
you say about Manhattan, but at my analogy in Manhattan
is they don't get a lot of you know, bullshit
fires like we do. But when they get one, they
usually name them and it's not good. You know the

(53:48):
Watch Street fire, you know drend In, Seidenberg and Young.
We lost three guys in one shot there in a
small walk up little rehab tenement, you know, which a
building bank. Absolutely, there's a million of them. But going
back to the dread and fire and Watch Street, there
was a lot of stuff that was stretching blah blah blah.

(54:09):
But I had done some details and rescue two and
Patty Brown was at the Burn Center with Drennan and
his wife and he survived third fourth degree burns and
Eriting and Seinberg and Young were basically just incinerated. Giuliani

(54:31):
was there, and I remember Patty's saying mentioning that had
they had bunker gear, you know, Drennan would not be
as bad as he was, and maybe Seinbergen or whatever.
And Giuliani looked around and goes, I cut that check
a while ago. Well, we never got the bunker gear,

(54:54):
so I figured I'll just make up a position. I
guess it was the controller. Giuliani called him from the
Burn Center, ordered him to come to the Burn Center
and make him come in and see dranted And what
Patty told me he said he went out and projected
al vomited. Guess what. We started getting the bunkers right

(55:15):
after that, you know, so who the hell knows they
took our ropes. Almost ten years we had black Sunday,
you know. So again, every fire department is basically reactive
and not proactive, you know, and we all know well,
and then the locals go, well, we know that, you know,
the city pays for your for your meals and everything,

(55:39):
and go, no, they pay for yours. You're on wig
tickets and food stamps and all this other crap. If
the city had their way, they charges for it. Diesely
used just to drive the rig to a fire, you know,
So same circus, different.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Clowns, one hundred and ten percent. I remember hearing a
story about that with Hank Malay when Hank talked about
watchtreet because he was there that night with Rescue one
and Juliani and Safer was there. This is when Safer
first got there as fire commissioner. And I'm going to
clean up the quote a little bit for the show.
But Giuliani turns to Safer and he wasn't mad at Safer,
but he was mad at the control or like you said,
and he said, I don't give up what it costs,

(56:13):
let's get them the gear. And then, as to your point,
they ended up getting the gear not that long after that.
But it's unfortunate it took three good men dying and
Drennan in particular suffering. We just had veta on getting
salty for forty days. Think about that forty days. Yeah,
the man suffered in that burn center and lingered in
that burn center, and if he had the bunker gear,
maybe he'd still be here with us, as would Seidenberg

(56:34):
and Young as well, who were also killed that fire.
And I imagine, I mean, you have all this swirling
in your head, and it's not just this, but all
those years in Brooklyn, even the time you spent in
has Matt wasn't long, but still you had that, And
of course he had the four years down in forty
one in the Bronx. And it gave you an idea.
Even though the transition from firefighter to lieutenant is a

(56:55):
hard one, much like captain the chief is a hard
one too, it gave you an idea as to how
to and it gave you an idea as to how
you wanted to conduct things. So, I mean, once you
got settled into that role, especially with sixty two engine
ninety seven. Tell me about again just what you based
off to that point, dozens years of years of experience
and good mentors along the way, how you wanted to

(57:17):
run your company, and how you wanted to make sure
you allowed your guys to be themselves but also established
that line to keep them safe.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
Well, I want to rewind the tape a little. When
I looked like I was going to get made and
I was like six months out, I had two tenants
and forty one, Dennis Mourancheck and Chris King, and they
when I was working, it was the list was legit.
I sat in the right front seat as a fireman.

(57:44):
But Morancheck, to his credit, would walk in with one
light bulb, toilet paper, a thing that we need diesel,
and he would PLoP everything on the desk and go,
we need all this, and then he'd leave and he
wouldn't tell me. I had to figure out how to
order diesel, how to get sand for the winter, how
to get this extinguishes, call the shops, all that all

(58:07):
that stuff they never show you and flips. You know,
everybody thinks it's pretty easy. You're sitting up in front
and you did the radio and the siren and the airhorn,
blah blah blah. And I remember we were going to
a job in Harlem, and I switched and I just went,
you know, forty one switching to Manhattan frequency, responded to

(58:27):
the ten seventy five. Well, the Queen's dispatcher sounded like
I woke them up or whatever. We advised forty one
with a real shit attitude. You are on the Queen's frequency.
And I felt like saying sorry for waking you up.
But you know, it's pressing buttons bouncing around, You're going
up and down, you know. Then you're looking over the bridge.

(58:48):
You gotta head her. So it's all this stuff positioning.
So my very first day as the lieutenant and drag
Chris King comes up to me and goes, whatever you do,
don't make me sound like a jackass on the radio.
My friends are working. So we get on the rig
and we're going right down to Hunts Point or excuse

(59:10):
me not Hunts Point, Hunts Market, terminal market, and we
got an e RS box for a fire. So we're
way down low and we can smell it, but we
can't look anywhere. Well, anybody travels up on the Deagan
on the right hand side. It used to be a
giant vacant. Now it's a Low's home depot. It's that
big cube building over there. They totally rehabbed it. So

(59:31):
where we are we look straight up. Now it's like
five floors up from where we are and it's blown
out one window. So now we jump on the rig,
We go around the corner, back down the river up
and come back up. We're trying to beat because sixty
is going to be coming in. Well, sixty comes right in.
You know, we we were we were supposed to and

(59:55):
they get the ten seventy five. If one four battalion
comes in, it's a brand new she and the whole
front of this one area is rocking and rolling as
I get out pull my mask. We had the old
scuba diving flashlight. They had to change the battery in it. It
took like three days or a bomb tech to get
the battery in and out, and I watched the light

(01:00:17):
bounce twice on the floor, down on the ground and explode.
I'm just like, oh, this is a great career. I
missed the first two job. I broke the flashlight. Whatever,
lovet well. I didn't feel as bad as the tying
to you because he transmits a second alarm. So now
you hear air horns and sirens coming from Harlan South,
Bronx company coming in. The division's coming in sixty opens

(01:00:40):
a two and a half and if it was thirty
seconds of now zole time is like a light switch, click,
fire's out. So I didn't feel so bad because I
didn't transmit his second alarm. Now I got this whole
wave of companies coming in. It's like, well, you know,
I'm not the jackass that did that. I felt really

(01:01:00):
bad for this one four guy, but you know, I
broke the light. I missed the first dude job, and
I said, oh, this is gonna be a great start
to my career. But as things progressed up in the Bronx,
I started had the reputation and anything weird happened. I
was working, and when I was getting made, I was

(01:01:25):
in thirty eight engine for a while, then I was
in sixty three and then bouncing sixty two. I was
in forty eight engine, thirty eight truck, fifty nine trucks.
So I went everywhere wherever it was, and at the time,
there was one of the ages, Gary Valentino, so I
would take the details that nobody wanted and then do

(01:01:49):
the right thing. Guess you know, I'm doing a long
term thirty eight truck, eighty eight engine. All right, that's awesome.
Finny Albanis all those guys. You know, it was just
thirty eight years and thirty eight truck. Now I had
Joe Rosie Senior as my chauffriend eighty eight. I mean,
all I gotta do is sit there and listen to

(01:02:11):
the radio. They had it down. We're going to go
the opposite a way forty eighths coming. It's dude, I'm in.
Just tell me when I say start water, just give
me water. That's all, you know. Or you know we're
gonna take the roof whatever. And so I get a call.
I'm supposed to be working the forty two engine, and
Gary Valentino calls me and goes, hello, lou all right, Gary,

(01:02:36):
where am I going? Now? Two four to two? Where
the hell? I don't even know we had one of them.
Where is that well where the Arizona lands in Brooklyn?
It's right there. I'm like ol hour and a half
to get there in the morning, I relieve a true
Staten Island Italian guy. He's got the mister t starter,

(01:03:00):
he's got she's got the perfect Can I relieve him?
When I watched you walk out the door, take a right,
take another right? In his home at two thirty, the
guy came in and threw me out of the firehouse.
He goes, where do you live? I go, I'm on
the mainland in Westchester. Go and go. Now, go to
the bathroom. Don't talk to anybody. Go. It was five

(01:03:22):
hours to get home from volume. You know too that
he came into two thirty. He did me as solid
and still five hours to get home. No actions, no nothing,
just your volume. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Yes Jesus, Yeah, if I could rewind the tape a
little bit myself. So you mentioned Captain Hill earlier. Are
you talking about fred Ale same as sir, Yeah, yeah,
fred Al. For those of you in the audience set
wanted to your homework, it's it's worth it. Fred All
was one of the three hundred and forty three firemen
to get killed in the trade center nine to eleven.
Made a great rescue of a guy in ninety nine

(01:03:55):
on the third rail. Gave no regards if the third
rail was on or not. Had a guy stuck in
the t was gonna die. I was gonna get hit
by an oncoming train. Captain Hill before that train came down,
went there again, no regard for his own safety, got
the guy out. Two years later, when the evacuation order
came in to vacate the North Tower, he said, we
go in and get my guys first went in and
was last heard from about the seventeenth floor. That that

(01:04:17):
right there. I glad you mentioned them. That was a
fire officer right up until the end.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
It's Freddy Junior. Now I just heard got made Captain.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Yep, he got put it yeah and again co gngratulations
to him. And we don't forget Captain Hill and all
the other guys that day. But that was that was
That was a hell of a fire officer. So I'm
glad you mentioned him. So, you know, moving ahead to
sixty two engine in the Bronx, much like I asked
you with Division seven Brox is. Again, this is no
knock on the other borroughs. I said this before, and
this is the nice thing about Best and Braves. So

(01:04:45):
I've gotten guys from every borough and it's basically five
departments merched into one. But there's Brooklyn firefighting, and you
experienced that, there's Bronx firefighting. Much different ballgame. This is
where you spent the bulk of your career, starting when
you went to forty one. So again, much like I
asked earlier, sixty two engines, first two area, What are
we talking here? What type of fires you get?

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Well, we could go from Pelham Parkway. Normally we go
up to the city line. I've been the Yonkers caught fires,
and Yonkers caught fires in Mount Vernon. If the companies
are stripped, we go to co Op City and we
go to Riverdale. I mean we had a huge response area,
you know, especially when the gas league city co Op

(01:05:29):
City would go and you know, those guys are stuck
down there. And I was always wonder when I was
covering why it took twenty five minutes for a frigging
gas leak up on eighteen g Those were federal buildings
in the beginning. They never had fireman service. So if
you got a local doing a local delivery run in
the elevator, she's stopping at every floor and you could

(01:05:51):
not recall. They finally retrofitted those those those buildings, so
that was you know, so while they're all down there,
we would be going up by, you know, sixty three
thirty eight, catch him work whatever else. And you know,
one of the guys in fifty h truck came and everything,
he goes, we're in the occupied North Bronx. You know

(01:06:14):
that was an FU to the South Bronx. Eighty two
thirty one guys and stuff like that. But it the
entire thing shifted up there. When I got made, you know,
I'm not going to go south, SOX started to get
a little political lot politically. I said, there's no reason
for me to go south. I live in Westchester. Why
am I going to go south? So I put in,

(01:06:37):
you know, I got the seventh and then the two
seventh Battalion and the one five Battalion, and back then
the one fire was just starting to be doing this
with ten seventy fives work and everything else. So sixty
two thirty two go there. Billy Chilson was hard for me.
She Fellini and I were just like that. So he

(01:06:57):
didn't want me to go there, but she's Billy capt'n
Billy Chilson at the time fought for me, and I said,
where's the one five what precinct number one, four to seven,
Preseinct number one and number two and homicides and assaults.
That's where I'm going job security. And you know, we

(01:07:20):
had everything from taxpayers, thirty story high rises, private dwellings.
The only thing we really didn't have was any real
long row frames like in Bushwick and Brownstones. But we
had the L train, we had underground subway. You know,
we had a couple of factories, co Op City junk yards,

(01:07:42):
so you know it was well go to wood One
in the winter. The only thing they could get down
the block would be the tiller rig. You know, the
engines were having a hard time. I mean we were
sixty three was out. We got in first. I forget
when I think I had the spot. Somebody had driven

(01:08:03):
up the street like two forty or whatever it was.
We hit at least fifteen cars. We had the chains
on and the back of the rig was in that rut,
so I don't care unless you were in a schedule
or some shit, you were not. And boom boom, hear
the car alarms go off, glass break, another one and
another one, you know, and it's like there's nothing we

(01:08:25):
can do about it. And then it actually we had
it was a good second. We had two frames going,
two private dwellings going. We're using a two and a half.
And with all the excitement of the fire and everything,
I neglected and tell the chiefs about our little altercation
with the cars parked. And they were all single parked,
so it wasn't like double parked. If the double park

(01:08:47):
we're never going to get in there. But it was
just the back of this rig just hitting hitting the cars.
And you know, like I said, I had convenient amnesia
that night, so.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
No one was more surprised than I.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Yeah, yeah, hey, it was like that when we got here. Chief, Yeah,
that's all I gotta say.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
Yeah, that's that's the story.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
And described the rig. It was red and white. Well,
no shit, good luck.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Yeah, So for all of them, you know that, I
can just imagine bumpet, it's sorry about your car.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Later, you know, just when I was, when I was,
when I was a boss, we had a spare rig.
The guys wanted to put the magnet. I said no,
either put them upside down or leave them off that way.
Were a stealth rig and it's a freeoh God forbid.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
Yeah. Yeah, and then and everything you're describing too, isn't
even taken to account. Just the first two area alone
of Williams Bridge and Williams Bridge alone, it is bigger
than most cities for example, where I'm currently a volunteer
in west Haven. City of west Haven, that's fifty five
thousand people in it. Williams Bridge by itself, which is
a subborough within the borough itself, has sixty one thousand

(01:09:52):
people living in it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
You know. So that's the amount of shit, you know,
just spitting out. I wouldn't want to play Jeopardy against you.
You know what is Williams Brother I even know I
worked there, and you know more about it than I do. Well.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
I like to do my homework. I was a teachers
peck guiltiest charged that I still am up to this day,
you know, even year twenty five of my life, almost
year twenty six. But you know, and again it's it's
really I go back to something I remember talking about
with Chief Norman. He was on a couple of years ago.
It's a magic carpet ride because you got everything you
want right there. He got the fires and at this
time too, even though I know some guys don't like

(01:10:26):
doing ems, ems, you do a lot, You see a lot,
you learn a lot. With the MS. You got plenty
of mvas to go around, so it's almost you know,
especially as the river. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
Well the other thing about nobody was more like anti
Ems than me because then I was in Bush where
guy I got out of the military. I was in EMT.
So anything that happened, I got it. Yeah, you know,
and I number one, we got a verbal as a
guy right out on Knickerbocker Avenue in Palmetto and he's

(01:10:56):
breakdancing and he's all over the side land on the street.
Two crackheads. So we come out and his friend who
remembers the old wives tale about if to prevent him
from swallowing his tongue put a spoon in his mouth. Well,
this guy had a metal spoon and he put it horizontal.

(01:11:19):
So when this guy sees down, blew out his teeth,
cut the roof of his mouth wide open, and you know,
he just looked like a red volcano with the blood
coming out. So I'm trying to hold him roll them over.
So Roger comes up with a paperwork and he goes, no,
he's having an epileptic flip on the floors. As the
locals would say. So Roger goes to him, he goes,

(01:11:42):
this is your friend, right, yeah, he goes, is he
an epileptic? Swear to guy. He goes, Oh, no, sir,
I think he's episcopalian. You can't make this stuff up.

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Right, Well, you cannot, No, you cannot. Yeah. And the
stories back then, because I mean, part of this too,
with this mini series is getting guys who work New
York City ems later FK and y ems Pre and
post Merger on the show. And I don't envy, and
God bless him, they did great work back then. I
don't envy what they had to go through because you

(01:12:15):
talk about getting the crap end of the stick with
some of these runs, man, they got it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
We had poor Man's in Arcan, which we use. You
got a guy overdose and this happened. We had this
Spanish La Puerto ricanly her son's laying he's out, so
we went in the freezer. We packed his groin in
his armpits with ice just to get the respiration going.
And I'm looking over and I see her take the

(01:12:39):
needle out of his arm. His needle was still in there,
and she saw me see her nothing, you know, Finally
the EMS came, and you know, the rule was don't
give the guy the narcan fully give it to him
as getting into the yar that way, he pukes in
the yard, doesn't puke in the bus, right. And I
looked over and this lady, she's very broken English, and

(01:13:00):
she looks, she goes, excuse me, mister bob Betto, and
he says, both my sons are junkies. And I know
that's a clean needle. So that's the best you could
do to protect her kid. If I had a bag
of needles, I would have given him to her. She
just had that. You know, she's stuck in the swamp
and she's in quicksand so her idea of trying to

(01:13:21):
protect her sons was saving that clean needle. So you
know that's what we would do. But again, going to the EMS,
the gunshots we used to go to all that fast forward.
I know of a couple of guys that are alive
because of our new EMS and what we have. Donny,
youu bell in thirty two truck was defit by sixty

(01:13:42):
one engine in the lobby of the high rise over there.
They actually defibbed him. And I remember the guy from
sixty sixty one going check patient check patient. He put
it on Donnie oo bam hit him. You know, Jeans
Stilowski is a lot today because when he hit the

(01:14:03):
ground with Jeff Cool Joey D he had an internal decapitation.
The guy from forty one that got back to squad
for I don't even remember his name, he grabbed him
and pulled his jaw up to get the airway going.
Had he moved Gino's head the thickness of your fingernail,

(01:14:24):
it wouldn't have been paralyzed, it would have been dead.
So you know, when we spent the first day in
Saint Barnabas from home, the doctor came out and his
words were the only reason these guys are alive now
is that they never suffered another injury after they hit
the ground. So that ams stuff. When I do do

(01:14:46):
drills and I'm doing this, all that stuff on our
rig is for us first. Then then JEFDPD said, anybody
that's uniform forced, they come first, and then them. So again,
don you so when you come in the kitchen. After
I got on a Montefiore, I put a little bitum

(01:15:07):
foil on this head and I tried to push him
towards a microwave to turn it on, see if we
can get his heart jump started again. You know, But
that's just a kitchen kind of gallows humor that we love.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
Is yeah, and you need it, you need especially with
some of the stuff that you have to see. I
think it's an interesting point thought at this juncturing your
career that now, I mean time's flying and you look up,
Holy crap, I got over a decade. Holy crap, I'm
an officer.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:15:33):
Now you can pay it back the same way guys
mentored you, you can mentor them. And there's a lot
that we've covered tonight, but when you get a new probe,
you can relate you with that probe. Back in eighty five,
walking into seventy seven one twelve, what would you tell
guys early on that were bright eyed and bushytail and
you saw, Okay, these kids they're gonna they have potential,
they want to learn.

Speaker 2 (01:15:51):
Well, if you came in on the night tours, I
was usually upstairs playing Ozzie Osbourne and didn't have any
clothes on, So welcome to the club, just to let
him know what's going on, because right out the front
of sixty two is the L train, So we used
to use the line from the Blues Brothers. How often
does the train go by? So often you don't even notice?

(01:16:12):
So I remember this lieutenant guy was young, brand new
lieutenant from some queen's camp, and he asked me, He goes,
you know we have Monday Tuesday, Monday up and down,
Tuesday up and down. What do you want? I said,
I don't care. Do you mind if I go first?
I gave him Monday Monday night. I come in Tuesday morning,

(01:16:34):
get the firehouse a whift, nothing, but you know, they
had a few runs. And as I'm coming up the
stairs here he comes down. Before I could get Howard
your night, he goes, how do you sleep with the
and train going by this way? And then theF and
train goal by this way? I go, he looked like

(01:16:55):
a cat that spent a night in a dog show.
He didn't get any sleep, And I go, now you're
getting pissed off. Wait for the train to come back.
He was, yeah, I said, for me, I slept on
a flight line with F four's and B fifty two
is when I hear a train coming to me, it
sounds like a B fifty two on a roll off.
That's fine, but you get used to it. But this
guy I heated it was the longest two weeks of

(01:17:16):
his life. I'm sure doing the vacation for my mutual partner,
but it was just funny because you and I could
be in front of the firehouse having a heated discussion
and let me tell you something right now, and furthermore,
as soon as the train, you know, you would have
your your conversations between trains. It was just, you know,

(01:17:37):
it was just how would you lived? It just became
part of your life like anything else at the firehouse
after a while. Yeah, but the new guys. I had
great senior guys, Terry Kelly. I had guys that were
absolutely awesome. But I'm gonna I would tell them if
I asked for something right now. I don't expect you

(01:17:59):
to operated, but I expect you to know where it is.
The last thing I want to see is some fireman
jackass opening up every compartment to look for a spare halligan.
Do this, you know our rig go across the floor
to thirty two. Check everything to thirty two because they
have stuff. We may need everything from a first aid
kid to stokes. We need another set of irons, a

(01:18:20):
hawk to spare hoes up in the bed, know everything everywhere,
and that's one of the first things I expect. I
had a proby at the time was Chris Brown. I
thought this guy was prior military. I would come down.
There'd be a list everyth evening. We need four scout bottles,
we need this, we need this, air packs checked and
I said, well, here's the deal. I appreciate everything, but

(01:18:42):
if Jesus came down and checked my airpack, that's fine.
I'm still doing it because I have mindset the way
I want it. My straps, everything I want. I know,
I'm out of the green I am full with my bottle.
You know, it is the last thing I want to
think we open up the cellar doors to go down
on the sidewalk the taxpayer. I'm not thinking. The last
thing I'm ever thinking about is my airback. You know,

(01:19:04):
my face piece is right. I put it right on,
and you know I was very particular about that. But
you know, it turns out Chris was a Connecticut firement.
In the beginning, he was in Greenwich, then he came
to sixty two and now he's one of the senior
guys in my old house squad forty one. You know,
forty one has now become sixty two, thirty two South,
the amount of guys down, including the Captain Tommy and

(01:19:30):
but you know, we would drill. I would come in
and these guys would have an ass kicking, you know,
Williams Bridge or something, you know, a private dwell and
you had problems with or a project. We went right there.
Always the look, I don't care what the drill subject
is because I don't really want to know what well
went well. I want to know what the problems were,

(01:19:52):
what went wrong? You know, bad hydrit car and a
hydrant line, you know all that stuff. You're just thinking
because my old ultimate responsibilities I start with five when
going home with five, the way they came into work,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
So of course that's the main michief. You know, I
didn't want to touch in the eleventh. Briefly, I mean
that day you were off duty, you were home in Westchester,
you showed up to quarters first and you got a
city bus down to ground zero and people forget I mean,
I know, and Peter Jennings talked about this before he died.
It seems clear in hindsight, plane hits tower, plane hits tower,

(01:20:29):
tower falls down, Towers fall down. That day, it was
anything but when you're living it in real time as
you were, it was anything but. And even after the
collapses of both World Trade Center towers that quite literally
dwarfed the fact there were several fires that were still
going on. We're talking whole buildings in that area that
were fully involved. The work was not over. Just the

(01:20:49):
magnitude of the event had everybody in shell shock. But
any other day, just the fires alone, not even counting
what happened to the Trade Center, would have been one
of the biggest jobs in New York City that the
FDNY had ever seen, in the country, had ever seen.
And so when you got down there, tell me about
what time you got down there, just trying to help out.

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
I don't even remember what time we got because everything
was off. I attributed, uh, go out there nine to eleven,
and I was there for pretty much six months, but
most of it when it was still really going I
contributed to like an alcoholic blackout without alcohol, because we

(01:21:25):
just did I, you know, as a boss, I had
my guys and we're just you know, and we're meeting
up with other guys. I'm just making sure it was
amazing the entire time that we were down there, from
day one and I left in March, that we didn't
get anybody killed between you know, working with the heavy equipment,
the operating engineers, the crane guys. I mean, and this

(01:21:48):
is all now the secondary responders and they're sick. I
was just at the Suffolk County First Responders Memorial wall.
They added on Saturday one of our guys, Keith went
who was my military guy and he was NYPD Highway one.
He went through three rounds of cancer before he died.
They added three hundred and seventy four names on Saturday,

(01:22:12):
the deadliest day in America. That's still kill him. So,
I mean, it's just insane. So when you look at that,
I mean I had this one picture I was gonna
send to you. I don't know if you can see it.
Can you get that?

Speaker 1 (01:22:25):
Yeah, we can see. Just move move it up a
little bit, and we got.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
It, okay. We when we got there. I mean, this
bus driver was awesome. I mean, you know, we of
course I picked the best bus to hijack the no
police escort to Flexi two piece bus. So trying to
go across Fordham with no police escort. It was like,
you know, and every way, let's go, let's go, We
have no idea. And the bus driver was awesome. I

(01:22:50):
keep looking down. He was like Fred Flintstone. I stood
the entire time behind him, and I don't know if
with the floor was wood, he would have pushed his
foot through. You know, let's go, an, let's go. I'm
going as fast as we can. Of course, with those buses,
you press the gas pedal, the bus goes, what let's go.
You know, guys were stripping their stuff off, getting the

(01:23:10):
gear on and everything else. And when I ate myself
and Tony from seventy nine went over to the bus,
how would you say we were not woke or PC,
you know, because they were not going to get off
the bus. And then I convinced him. And then when
he looked over, you see guys coming with hooks, Halligan's
tools and everything else, air packs and we took everything

(01:23:34):
from the toolroom and didn't take anything off the rigs
because our rigs were in service. So I went into
like military mode and I don't remember anything, but on
the way down, Tony said, I started talking about military stuff.
We're at we are at war. We ben attacked, snipers,
look out for anything suspicious. IEDs just before I just
went into that military thing, and I always remember that

(01:23:58):
when we now what's wild is going down to the
FDR north and southbound. There's nobody during the day, there's
not one car that's a little different. We rounded the
United Nations and I just like I always tell the story,
I'm looking south and I called the horizontal tornado of
smoke coming from Lower Manhattan going into Brooklyn. And then

(01:24:19):
we started seeing people as we got closer. People are
just like you and suits and you know, have their briefcases.
And there was other people that basically look like uncooked
chicken legs the dust on them, and it was all about,
like what is that. We had no idea, and he
got us off the exit and jammed us right up
into Broadway and that's when our game started. And the

(01:24:43):
Chief came out of the dust. And the only reason
I knew is the Chief is he could basically see
the white helmet and everything else was done. So I
got an engine in trouble and I need help. Mike Gaffey,
myself and Grell and everybody. We turned around Johnson and
we went going. Couldn't see him, and it's like the
only way I tributed is like a snowstorm. It's that

(01:25:05):
muffled sound, very thick crunching, and you couldn't see anything.
And hindsight now I didn't realize we were on Liverd Street.
We ended up going by ten and ten's quarters, but
we couldn't even tell, and then we felt heat coming
through the dust. We went by. It was like a
Stephen King novel. There's an engine hooked up to a
hydrant running. I think I couldn't even tell if there's

(01:25:29):
a lineup, but the rig is fully involved burning. There
was nobody there, the fire trucks running hooked up to
a hydrant, and we came down the street. We were
building four and five and everybody said, that's it, We've
already done the primary and secondary. We were going by
five there pulled the guy out of the basement and
then that engine. We came down and I had Mike Gaffney,

(01:25:53):
mister Peepers. Gaffney was now a captain in Harlem, and
he was my chauffeur in six two and he's a
diesel mechanic. This guy makes mc guyver look lame, I
always claimed that. And he found the rig and he
went to the lower chauffeur's side headlight, punched in the headlight,

(01:26:14):
pulled out all the guts under there. I had a
golf team my helmet. He plugged the right line, which
released the brakes because there's an air leak. I found
some duct tape on an abandoned tower ladder right down
the street. We taped it. I found a hydrant that
was working. Mike took an axe, chopped the windshield out.
We brought it, put it right on that hydrant. They

(01:26:36):
got water supplied that tower ladder, and technically that was
the first water on the fire that we had from
that besides the Harvey and all that. And then we
left that and just moved on, you know, and going
to nine to eleven. If you had a fifty seven
story high rise collapse in front of you, that would
have been the highlight of your career. You'd always talk

(01:26:59):
about that. That's Building seven came down. It was annoying
because we were had to avoid that. I have three
or four pictures side by side, coming straight I heard
the you know, boom, boom, boom, and then of course,
the Rosie O'Donnell. That was the CIA blowing up the building.
But just watched one floor after another, and it went

(01:27:20):
down this fast, and as the dust came, we just
turned them up, got back up, and then we just
went to work, you know. So but in comparison to
everything else, the fifty seven story building is like going
to a car fire and the side of the d
you know, no big deal, you know, it's just, matter

(01:27:41):
of factively, just everything you saw, every step, every time
you went around, it got worse. We came around the
corner of the West Side Highway. Nick Fisconty is talking
to some guy named Jay Jonas. I don't know if
you ever heard of him.

Speaker 1 (01:27:55):
He's a friend.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
Yeah, he's the circus bear because I called. But it's
not funny, but you could you could hear the frustration
in his voice. He knows exactly where he is. Why
can't you come to get me? Because he had no
idea that how much devastation was out there. You know,
I'm twenty second and third floor, Bob, Jay, We're gonna

(01:28:18):
because you heard he just his name was just added
to the wall out there in Suffolk County this year,
you know, And I loved him. He was awesome. One
of the best funniest supermarket fires I ever had. And
he was a covering deputy in the seventh and weird.
His place was rocking and rolling good. So I was

(01:28:40):
in there withou Rescue three lieutenant at the time, and
the only thing we couldn't get was kaz you know,
the low budget patio furniture was down and there I
was burning because I really wanted to get some nice
pe clanners and chairs, and we just had the tone
half hitting it with three We're going down shopping the
other aisles that were not on fire, and it was

(01:29:01):
you know, it was just fun. It was a great fire.
And Nick Fuscani goes that building manager must have had
a hard time closing the door because the smoke kit
popping the door all because like it he closed allegedly
at nine and like nine point fifteen. It was the

(01:29:21):
second and third alarm going on, you know, so tragedy
in the north front. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Nick was great, but you know, you just that day
and you know, I'm looking at my guys so again,
mister Peepers as I called him, and like I said,
he was a bust me. I don't know how he

(01:29:43):
went to that headlight and do that, but he did
a couple of things on the airline. It was gone.
Like I said, I always carried golf tea's in my
helmet for other reasons, so now I can say, you know,
putting a rig back in service with a golf team,
you know, but he knew exactly what to do. You
got that rig up. So yeah, And then we heard

(01:30:04):
Alflentes transmitted he was I worked with him. He was
covered in one twelve for a while, and then he
was in two and he was trapped in his car
and he was transmitted to Mayday. And I was just
like where. You have no idea? And you know, with
the towers down, you lost your compass. You could be

(01:30:24):
in Queens. You know exactly where you were if you
were looking at the towers. At least I could. So
I'm standing on something high and I'm like, what the
hell is this? And uh, Anthony Griller goes, You're on
the center divider of the West Side Highway. I go, no,
I'm not. You start looking down and the walk classes

(01:30:44):
are down, the rescues over there burnt, and I'm starting
to look Financial Center ship. We are on the West
Side Highway. It was just you just never it was
just completely lost and disorientated where you were, you know,
and I didn't live down there anything, so but you
when you had the towers up, you know, that was

(01:31:05):
like your magnetic north. You knew exactly where you were going.

Speaker 1 (01:31:09):
And the person that, you know what I think about
as well, and my heartbreaks for all of them, but
the one that I think about when I hear Chief
shown as a story is Chief Prunty. Chief Richard Prunty
had survived the original collapse and he was trying to
communicate the same thing, and unfortunately he had very severe
injuries upon the collapse. They were trying to tell him
to hang on. After a while, he just went silent.

Speaker 2 (01:31:29):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:31:29):
They weren't able to get to him in time, and
no fault of their own, I'm not blaming them, no
fault of their own, but it was just because again
he didn't know there as of course he wouldn't the
extended damage on the outside either. You know, Jay Jonas
is describing where his men are, including Lieutenant Cross who's
also been on this program.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
But again they got a pitcher. Ray Murphy survived the
first collapse and they got him walking down the street
like he's gonna always gone to a fire. And the
second collapse.

Speaker 1 (01:32:00):
Was bulket pulketing from latter five. Same thing. He's kneeling
with a mask on. He'd gotten spare gear from ten
house went down, and you know, the second collapse is
what got him. But again, thanks for going into that.
We just passed year twenty four. Next year it will
be a core century, which, just as you said, is
very hard to believe, you know, and I hate to

(01:32:20):
say it was. It was business as usual, wants to
clean up happening, because you're never going to be the
same after something like that. But the FD and to
Y tried to move forward. I remember talking about this
with Battalion Chief Phil Parr, who headed up recruitment for
a while, and it was amazing a lot of people,
even in spite of something like this, wanted to step up,
wanted to come on the job. I think a class
for the FD and Y started literally October of two

(01:32:43):
thousand and one, a month after this, so a lot
of guys to teach, a lot of guys. You have
to remember too, In addition to the three hundred and
forty three who died that day. It was also the
wave of retirements that came in too, so a lot
of new blood came in around this time. You know,
when did things because the job is never going to
be the same, But when did things start to feel

(01:33:04):
somewhat normal again.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
For you depends on what house you were. We were
very lucky in sixty two and thirty two, lucky to
the point we lost Mike Lynch from thirty two. He
was on rotation to thirty five and forty and going
to that I you know, I didn't see the jumpers
the buildings came down, but there is a quick video

(01:33:26):
I forget. Maybe it's Fox. There's this huge security guy,
big black guy holding the door open. John Ginley is
his lieutenant. I was in. I came on the job
with Bob, all five of them, Joe, Joe, Senior, John,
and Bob, and we were all in the same military
unit at the same base to fighting. Gimley's and Mike

(01:33:48):
it's got the roll up on his shoulder and he's
got the nozzle, so you know, he's got the nozzle
and it's just a real slow panting. We see Ginley
and Mike Lynch look up, look down like they're going
in for a gas leak or food on a stove.
There was no terror or fear or anything. They're just

(01:34:11):
gonna go, Yeah, we're going to work. That was it.
So I mean, that's just you know, yeah, it's it sucks,
but this is what these guys are doing, and this
is what we're you know, there was no fear. I mean,
we're gonna go in and get this. You know, look
at Patty Brown, look at the guys that went in
it and it never came out. It's you know, we

(01:34:32):
have a list of who's who that day. Yeah, Billy,
but look at Mike. Look at Shore from two sixteen.
He's the first guy to die. You got hit by
a jumper from Brooklyn. This job reached every frigging borough
there was. It's not like we had a fifth alarm
in Manhattan. We got Lower Brooklyn companies or that every borough,

(01:34:53):
every rescue, almost every squad has man. I mean, you
know what ASTHMN eighty eight seventeen guys and I tried.
I don't talk too much to the civilians. I don't
really care, but the timing of the attack was perfect
for the civilians. People are still coming in, we change shift.

(01:35:15):
Change at nine. All of a sudden you hear a
fifth alarm come over. Everybody goes and turns it on.
I'm not leaving. I'm not going to miss the biggest
job of the world right now. So guys are riding heavy.
I actually sort of had the privilege, but I can't
remember the kid's name. He is the survivor of twenty

(01:35:37):
two engine. He's alive today, little guy. Once everything started settling,
they're letting the guys Navy go back to the field.
They put this kid in City Island. So I'm doing
a vacation and no, I was doing overtime, and we
just let him do whatever he wanted to do, and

(01:35:59):
if he wanted to talk, he talked. If not, what
he wanted for the meal and doing bi over there
is like doing Madi gras. You know. He walked the streets,
barked the rig and you know, doing that and he
just started talking. And he's alive today because the lieutenant
on that rig, the boss, I'll say lieutenant, but the
boss sent him back to the rig to get all

(01:36:20):
the cfr D equipment. He didn't have a mask, he
didn't that get all the first aid equipment. I know
we're gonna need this. So the kid went back twenty
two went in. I don't even know which tower was,
and the entire company was lost with the exception of
this kid. And I, you know what, I might be

(01:36:40):
able to pick him out of a lineup, but I
wouldn't be able to you know his name. So we're talking.
He goes, he's just started running and velvet in dust
was becoming very tough to breathe. He started getting the
wiley coyote stars and this and starting to lose it.
And just as what he was going to give up
the ghosts, he said, Lou Glove came out of the dust,

(01:37:02):
pulled him down between two cars, and a guy gave
him his face piece, and he said, I had to
make myself put to clear my airway out started to
breathe again, and I mean that guy whoever did that,
that's like scuba diving. Whatever you give your face piece,
you never know if you ever get it back. He

(01:37:24):
gave it back, and then you know, he started to
come to and saved them. And his description was, you know, Lou,
try to drink a bag of flour. That's what it
was like in the street and like, yeah, that's amazing,
so you know, and some guy unknown fireman saved him

(01:37:47):
and then when they could start moving again, they did.
And he doesn't know that at that time, he did
not know who that guy was, you know, but that
was on the on the other side. To give your
face piece to somebody that's King Klong intestinal four too.
That guy has nuts as big as bowling balls to
be able to do that, you know, and just rely

(01:38:09):
on it. But I mean there's a million stories, yeah
of this, so many guys, you know, guys ran left, died,
guys who ran right out of the same area lived.
There's no rhyme or reason, right, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:38:20):
So I mean listen, look at Build Spade from Rescue five, right.
I mean, I'll never forget. And by the way, Mike
Dragon Eddi says, Hi, he's in the chat. I'll never
forget something that still riding as a documentary. I watch
this about at least twice a year, especially around the eleven.
Bob Gallio in the beginning, very mad exactly says that,
you know, he's been on the show before as well.

(01:38:41):
If you were working in a rescue company that day
you died, you know, and you mentioned to eighty eight
there's that iconic video, and I wish it wasn't so,
because obviously you wish these guys are still here. But
they're walking down, you know, getting ready to getting and
I know the video you're talking about. They going on
the left hand side, which is a little short cut
to get into the South tower, which is where they
ended up. And they looked up for a second. You

(01:39:04):
could see the look of concern on their face. They
knew what they were going into. You know, listen, not
one step backwards, no one step backward. They were so brave.
And I don't even think brave is the word. If
there was a word greater than brave, we'd say it here.
But again, you know, it encompasses exactly just how again
you summarize the perfectly intestinal fortitude, how much of that

(01:39:25):
it took to look at that and say, okay, let's
go in, let's help people.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
And there's people in the military stuff. You know, you're
getting bad guys on you or a bad job. You know,
I always go back to and I teach or whatever
and start, would you rather be lucky or good? That's
your question to you, Mike. You go, what's your.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
Choice lucky ten times out of ten.

Speaker 2 (01:39:49):
Okay, well, I'd rather be good because when my luck
runs out, I fall back onto my training. I mean,
that's and those are guys that taught me a long
time ago, the fair Field guy and even you know,
the nom guys. I had two non guys or rangers
as my scout leaders. So I always tell everybody we

(01:40:09):
could trap a rabbit and a man at the same time,
you know. And that's what we taught survival and stuff.
But the training is what you do, you know, And
today's training is a lot different than oh. I mean,
you can only use hay and palettes, so you get
that nice pope smoke looks like a Cheech and Chong movie,

(01:40:30):
the white smoke coming out. You throw a little bit
of plastic in there. And the old joke was the
smoke was so thin thick you could lean on it.
That's the real deal, not Chicago fire bullshit. You know,
I got five rooms going and I can see from
here to Dallas, you know. And you got a one
in shows fall on five thousand gallons a minute and
it stretches itself. The real fire is the worst ones

(01:40:53):
are in the rear. When you got to go find them,
you know, and it's now it's all plastic, even the
plan plastic. There is no more wood, you know, even
the closer synthetic, you know, and not a smoke is
for real. I don't call it smoke or called black
floating gasoline because the amount of free carbon and they're

(01:41:13):
all needs is a little bit more air. And this
thing's gonna light off. The smokes anywhere between eight and
eleven hundred degrees. You can get burned from smoke, you know,
So you know, normally who gives the fire air? We do?
You take that front door, that's a nice vertical opening,
and you know that air is coming in and it

(01:41:35):
lights off. My generation, do not ever put water on
smoke because you're doing damage. Now. You have to to
survive because if you see roll over coming, it's done. Flashover. Yeah,
you know these ev bikes, you're getting twelve to twenty
two seconds florid to celium flashover. Who Hoodini ain't getting

(01:41:58):
out at it, that's for damn sure.

Speaker 1 (01:42:00):
No, I mean, and I'm not gonna be funny when
I say this, and by the way, I'm gonna change
I'm not saying this sarcastically either. I'm gonna change my philosophy.
When you ask me the lucky than good question, I'm
gonna remember that, especially as I try to get on
the job. You know what, You're right, I'd rather be good.
So thank you for that teaching lesson. I genuinely appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:14):
Yeah, so if you stick with the basics, you never
have to go back to them.

Speaker 1 (01:42:18):
And I'm gonna I'm going to call this conversation some
down the road, but when I'm hopefully on the job somewhere.
But this is the other part I was gonna say
where I'm not saying this to be funny at all.
I'm being dead serious. Loup, the Hazmat guys right now,
this is their warriors, you know, this is their warriors.
It's no comparison to the sixty four to seventy eight
in the fire load. But in terms of the volume
of the amount of EV runs are going on, the

(01:42:39):
amount of EV fires are handled, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:42:41):
Fine on the news because it's not on their agenda,
their averaging. I think it's for EV's a day and
that's yeah. And that's and that hydrogen fluoride stuff, I
know I'm allergic to it. I don't want to even
try it. The flammable gas and stuff, and now your
gears contaminated. And you know, my worst case scenario would

(01:43:03):
probably be a project fire standpipe. You come into the
front door, the ev bike is plugged in right by
the door, You push in, that thing starts to take
off and it's they're legalized IDs. With these batteries flying around.
Now you're cut off from your only way to go out,
and with one of those batteries lands on your line

(01:43:24):
and burst your length. You're having a really really bad day.
You know, how are you gonna get out? You just
lost water or as Emerald says, was taking up a notch,
but's go to Manhattan, put your car in an elevator
and put it five floors underground in a parking garage.
By the time you dial nine to one one, you're

(01:43:44):
gonna have twenty cars in that basement burning. So what's
up with that? You can't get a fireboat down there?

Speaker 1 (01:43:52):
And the tricky can I remember when she was commissioner,
one of the things you was trying to do is
commission kavan On. That is go up and kind of
get let's on it. It's hard to legislate something like
that because, for the most part, a lot of these
electric bikes, some of which are legally purchased, most of
which are not. So how do you even keep track,
how do you even enforce it? It's a nightmare for
that black market.

Speaker 2 (01:44:13):
And and but don't forget COVID put all this shit
on the market because food delivery, door dash. But those
bikes are literally designed to drive around nice smooth parking lots,
not New York City potholes cobblestones. You get to the
job site, you drop the bike, you make a delivery,

(01:44:34):
you get back on and go. And why am I
only going to plug one bike in when I can
plug six in with the six way extension cord made
in China? And then my battery is dead, So I'm
not going to go to the regular place. I'm also
go on Amazon or someplace else. And you buy batteries

(01:44:58):
that are not designed you get that fire in Manhattan
a couple of years ago, the kids bailed out to
secon out the what a four window down the side.
The wife died. This guy had something like twenty bikes
in there. Little known reason too, is why are they
charging him in projects? Because they don't pay for electricity,

(01:45:18):
So now I'm not paying for it. Hey, listen, you
want to charge your bike, I'll take you bringing up
to nine G how about you? How about you? So
now I need extension cords in six ways. Well, by
the way, the electrical in that building was installed in
nineteen sixty nine has never been updated. So you're just
asking for all kinds of troubles, you know. So, I

(01:45:41):
mean it's insane, completely toxic, inflammable smoke.

Speaker 1 (01:45:47):
Yes, as Darren Phillips was staying in the chat, hello buddy,
you get to see it, my friend, it's a recipe
for disaster. I mean, listen, I would say people are
going to die. People already have died. There was a
fire in Chinatown. Four people got killed in that one.

Speaker 2 (01:46:00):
A few more Roger fire in the Bronch that killed seventeen.
That was all smoke.

Speaker 1 (01:46:04):
Yeah, that was mostly all smoke. And I'm telling you
with all these again, you can't take it too account.
Not only the illegal charging stations, you can't also have
you also have to take a two account the illegal
alterations and adjustments to buildings were even now with the
more stringent building code, especially after Black Sunday. You know,
sneaky landlords, slimy landlords, still trying to find their way
around it. Firemen are gonna die. Firemen are gonna get

(01:46:25):
really seriously injured. I don't want to see it happen.
Neither of us do, none of the three of us
on this panel right now. I want to see that happen.
But I'm telling you the way it's trending, it's gonna happen.
Someone's going to get killed. And then, to your point
earlier about reactive versus proactive, that's when the legislation will
get get That's when somebody will do something. By then
it's too late exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:46:45):
I mean, Jeeves Lawski, Jeff Cole and Joey d were
three of my I mean, they're brothers. They're not like,
you know, we're not working an IBM. They're you know,
they're friends. They're brothers. We call each other, we know
each other, we know what fathers, we know the kids,
we know the wives. You know. It's like at nine
to eleven, I lost over one hundred guys and not
just hey, how you doing, guys? These are the brother

(01:47:07):
brother guys you know. I mean, I can give you
a story about every one of them. Dave Weiss, Mike Esposito,
Mike Lynch from you know Bobby Hamilton, Squad forty one,
you know Bruce van Hein who was one of my
tree guys, and just that that guy. I'm alive today
because of Bruce van Heine telling me to get chaps,

(01:47:28):
chainsaw chaps. I had my saw. I was dropping a
lot of trees and pound ridge. I was just gonna
do one more tree than I'm going to work. Just
it's always that last one, very easy. I'm cutting it.
So I came back, went right across my leg and
there's that little thing a female artery. Yeah, the chaps

(01:47:49):
did exactly what they're supposed to do. I was an
acre up in my backyard by myself, no cell phone.
It wouldn't have been good. I would have been on
News twelve the hard way. But as soon as that happened,
I think Bruce Hying and I still have those chaps
to this day, and every time I go out and
got to do something, I put him mind. I always
look up and say thank you, Bruce. You know I'm

(01:48:12):
not as dumb as I look as I forget to breathe,
but you know when people say something I would do
that and you got real experienced guys goes without saying
you know. And you know one of my friends who
I worked with an import authority, Christy Delvey, she goes
for somebody who doesn't have a social footprint. You're on

(01:48:34):
there a lot. And I don't even know when dragonet
he post all these photos, but Mike post it. You know,
he's very proud that he just changed the roll of
toilet paper. And he'll send that out and take a picture.

Speaker 1 (01:48:46):
So you know, man, before I get to you retire
and know six us. A quick note on Dave Boy.
If you see him in the naw Day Brothers documentary,
you see him in a lot of pre nine eleven
dock He's in still writing and the Bravest as well.
The funny part that cracks me up about him in
the Braver season the back of rescue ones. Ricky's like
I'm born for firefight and I'm a legend. You know.

(01:49:07):
So he was larger than life. But you see him
on the right.

Speaker 2 (01:49:10):
Had he was my irons man in forty six truck.
Every time we were I gave him the irons.

Speaker 1 (01:49:15):
That's the right guy to get the irons too.

Speaker 2 (01:49:17):
Well, how he got to rescue one. Is he jumped
in the river when the guy's car went in. He
looked around and he he ended up finding a mall
or something swam out there to break the window, and I,
you know, I used to break his ball. They really
you couldn't find like a boat anchor or something to
make it even real tough. You're looking for a metal

(01:49:37):
that way. And then when he was in the hospital
or something, his girlfriend was there and the mayor comes
in and stuff and you know, what do you want
to do? And sheefspid Oh he wants to go to
rescue one. He's like, no, here he goes. You know,
he had no visions of using that kind of stuff
to get him where he you know, to go there.

(01:50:00):
But what a true knuckle that. I love that guy.

Speaker 1 (01:50:03):
And on that morning in the nine to eleven One
Day in America, which is on YouTube and it's entirety
for those that want to watch it, you can hear
him talking to one of the guys asking, hey, do
you have any elevators going up? And he's kind of
going back and forth to one of the trade center employees.
Around the twenty three minute mark, anything freight anything like
that guy says no, we're trying to get it work.
And Dave, I think Kenny Morino's next to him, kind
of just has this look on his face and like, Okay,

(01:50:24):
this is gonna be tough. But he's got his hood on,
he's got all his gear, he's ready to go. He
went up again. Another guy, another guy, like every guy
in that lobby, brave as can be. Look the situation.
Knew he had to climb with all that gear, said okay,
went right right up those stairs.

Speaker 2 (01:50:39):
I forget who actually proved it. There was a story
of Dave Weiss going up the stairs somewhere and he
saw this young fireman standing there like with that oh
my god look on his face. Supposedly this is witnessed
by a couple of survivors. Dave got right in this
kid's face and yells, you act like this is your

(01:50:59):
first plane in who are building? Get over it? Upstairs?
You went, why?

Speaker 1 (01:51:06):
Yeah? And there's a story to Dave Norman, who I'm
trying to get on the show. He's a brother of
John Norman. Dave Norman was a ESU officer at Truck
one and he's coming down because he just got the
order to evacuate from his NYPD supperiors. And he knew
Dave obviously by virtue of his brother's brother was lieutenant
in one for a long time. And they exchanged pleasantries,
and Dave says, hey, you know, to Dave Norman to Dave, whye, hey,

(01:51:29):
we just got the evacuation order. We're heading down. It's like,
all right, I'll be right behind you, no worries. I
just got to go up and help a couple more
people kept going up the stairs, kept going upstairs. And
that's just one of many stories from that morning, you know, thousands,
thousands of some of which we still don't know to
this day, some of which will probably never know. But
you know, again, we got we gotta continue to mention
those guys. Moving ahead to six, you've decided to call

(01:51:52):
it a career after twenty one years. You know, hell
of a run. Obviously, I'm sure you would just change
nine eleven. That's probably the only thing you would change.
But a lot of good besides that day, throughout those
twenty one years, even without that, when did you start
to think about it? Like, you know, this has been fun,
but I think I gotta do something else.

Speaker 2 (01:52:11):
I actually thought about it in six because, oh five,
my brother died and then almost a year to the day,
my mom woke up dead. So that was the second
child she lost, So two deaths within a year. I
just you know, looked around and said, hey, I would
have stayed, you know, but I just, you know, it
sucks being an adult. So I just you know, it

(01:52:33):
doesn't fail me. This and that and a couple other things.
And you know, there's sixty two. I mean, we ran
our asses off, but we're going to fires. You know,
it was a blast. I think when I was there,
we're just doing over sixty five hundred runs maybe more
just a little bit now. I think last year it
did something like eight thousand or something. That's insane, you know.

(01:52:56):
So you know, going back to the EMS thing, MESS
stands for Engine missus sleep, you know, for every minute sucks.
But you know, like I said, going back to the
fact that we're training now, a lot of our guys
Jeanie Zelawski one of them, don You Bell another one
that it worked for us too, So you got to

(01:53:17):
look at it that way.

Speaker 1 (01:53:19):
Yeah, and again, hell of a run. And as I say,
to the point of redundancy on this program, to my
PD and FT friends alike. And even if you missed
the job, you got to make the walk to the
pension section. And there's so many guys and gals that
unfortunately never got that chance. So in fact, you made
that walk, God bless you. Almost in next year will
be twenty years that you're out. Uh so you know,

(01:53:40):
let's keep collecting that those pension checks. My friend.

Speaker 2 (01:53:42):
A good time, Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:53:46):
It's yeah, absolutely, you know, great run, a lot of
great memories and again except for that one.

Speaker 2 (01:53:51):
Surrounded by great guys, you know, every company to seventy
seven one twelve. You know, again, I would like to
go back to that time and just go back there
and just it was so much fun. You know, some
of the best seller fires I ever had in my
life were in that basement. So it was awesome. You know,

(01:54:12):
tough Man contest and all that crazy shit. But it's
what we did. You know, the cops were awesome. It
was just a great time. You know, it would you know,
the cops would watch our cars. We put sant on
a roof for him, you know, even though our Santa
kind of smelled funny sometimes in the possible mouth while

(01:54:33):
she was using which was red white and blue usually,
you know, and the A three precinct was awesome. The
four to seven guys were great. Two seventy seven, one
twelve to weight. The time was actually like being in
the Bronx. We were not racing to cut each other
off for a gas, you know. It was you know,
if it's a job, you know, if you're in the block,

(01:54:55):
you got it. But we're not going to cut off
to seventy one, two eighteen to twenty two everybody. The
trucks were one twenty four with a gentleman truck, you know,
one twelve going the other way. We had one eleven
and then we had rescue too east get moved one
seventy six, you know, so that was that was a
little different. But you know then you think of it

(01:55:17):
losing two kids, you know, and he broke his arm.
I think in December he fell while we were down there,
you know, he was down at the site. So you know,
another family, Timmy and Tommy Haskell, two brothers killed. I
worked with both of them, you know, so Angeline out

(01:55:37):
of rescue one and his son four and fifty four.
So yeah, absolutely, you know, there's all kinds of combinations.
I remember we were digging on the other side where
REPI Squad one and I saw Lei ALEPPI completely forgetting
about his son that was there. And you can't fake

(01:55:59):
that face look of horror and terror and worry and everything.
I mean, squad won. Somebody had wrote the BF four
and dust on the door. I mean almost perfect. Mike
Guess Gazito truly one of the funniest guys and smartest guys.
You're always thinking of the job was there. There's a
back called excavator moving Squad one with a chain. I

(01:56:21):
look over. It's esposed brothers from Rescue five removing his
brother's truck. That was different, you know, yeah, and just
did what you had to do. You know, it's like
a combat unit. They killed our bosses, they killed our
fucking chapel, and they killed everybody. And there was twelve
probies working that day. That was their first and last five.

(01:56:45):
So you know, we got one hundred guys we never found.
So I mean that's you.

Speaker 1 (01:56:53):
Know, yeah, God, you know that the Mikey Camarado, there's
a picture of him going in an eleven truck. Mike
Rod his number is the only one retired in the
history the Little League World Series twenty two years old.
I kid you not number eleven. I believe he hangs
on the left field fence down to Williamsport every year,
you know. And that that guy twenty two years old.

(01:57:13):
First and last fire, Yeah, first and last fire.

Speaker 2 (01:57:17):
Like I said, I want to play Jeopardy against you.
You know way too much stuff, you remember too much.
You probably take a little tennis test for me.

Speaker 1 (01:57:25):
Fine, I get I I get called rain Man at
the firehouse a lot of it's it's a nickname.

Speaker 2 (01:57:30):
Why yeah, it.

Speaker 1 (01:57:35):
Make it rain you know. It's the nickname I wear
with pride, to wear prie shoutouts all my West having guys,
love you all. I hope you're watching tonight. I hope
you're well. Beat shifts and tonight. Well, you know, the
two hours have flown by. This has been very four hours. Yeah,
well almost two hours an hour fifty seven.

Speaker 2 (01:57:50):
Okay, that's like being a little bit pregnant. You are,
you're not.

Speaker 1 (01:57:55):
Well?

Speaker 2 (01:57:55):
When I when I did the previous Guys Salty two
and a half hours, it's like it's like being on
a game show. I don't it didn't seem two and
a half hours. And I didn't even get a chance
to talk about I got three four hundred stories I
could never tell anybody. But you know there's other ones
that are. You know it's pg.

Speaker 1 (01:58:18):
R, you know, so yeah PG thirteen TV fourteen. Yeah,
you can make it work. We can sqeeze it into
a podcast, and we did, and I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:58:27):
Well, thank you for that. I mean, see you in
the Harvey getting soaked when he shut down the stanks. Yeah,
that was a wind.

Speaker 1 (01:58:34):
That was fun. Literally the moment before for those of
you and I got the rapid fire second, I got
to ask you before we say goodbye. But uh literally
for context for those of you who weren't there, I'm
talking to Tim Hannigan who's on the rescue down in
Bridgeport and Dave and yeah, so you know, I love
to get you on the show. I forgot to mention
to you. I got to show my own blah blah
blah blah. Literally just got done saying it was a

(01:58:54):
beautiful summer night. By the way, Oh, I'd love to
get you on the show. The timing couldn't have been
any better. As soon as I finished that sentence, we
got soaked and Lou I never seen him laugh so
hard when he saw me. I just walked up in
front of him, stood there without saying a word, just gritting,
and I just see him. He's talking to somebody. He
stopped to think it was his wife, and he just
looks at me and he goes. I just see him

(01:59:15):
go and just put it out.

Speaker 2 (01:59:17):
Of shooting three thousand gallons a minute and they shut
it off into the wind. As a number in the
marine manual when you're studying huge slugs of water, well
we got hit like with a ton and a half.
That was you know, yeah, clean Hudson salt water. Yes,
you can sip your teeth with it, but yeah, that's it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:59:39):
I grew a third arm since then, so it's all right.
You know, I have a third nine that's growing in
up here. But like that, Yeah, no complaints.

Speaker 2 (01:59:46):
You get you a job polish and shoes that way,
there's no waiting, mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:59:49):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:59:50):
Then you can see the next customer coming with the
third eye.

Speaker 1 (01:59:52):
It's awesome to tipy five percent. We'll be good to go.

Speaker 2 (01:59:55):
It hits a hit, that's fine, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:59:58):
Yeah. We go into the rapid fire, which is a
five hit run. Questions for me, five hit run answer
you really it's four because I was going to ask
you the favorite company ever worked that you already answered that,
so it's just four questions instead. And the second one
that was going to jump to of the you know's
the vast majority of your career. Like I mentioned earlier,
sixteen of those twenty one years were in the Bronx.
So a lot of memorable jobs. What's the one, either

(02:00:19):
as a fire men or as a lieutenant that sticks
out the most?

Speaker 2 (02:00:23):
Well, I mean we had the UH, I had the reputation,
and anything weird happened Halpen when I was working. So
one of them that sticks I mean a lot, was
the l train collision on the White Planes Road up
by two four to h yep, two trains collide, ones
laying on a factory. The third rail peeled off and

(02:00:46):
into a tractor trailer on fire, and the laker was
still on And when we pulled off it looked like
we were at the back end of a Godzilla movie.
I was expecting to see King Kong God still marching
into Yonkers. With the damage to the roof of the
factory starting to collapse. We set up and I finally
looked up. I had half the train hanging over us,

(02:01:07):
so we relocated. But yeah, that was a little different.
You know, I've had triple homicides I've had. We were
doing an investigation of a previous fire. Of course I
get hit. My rig gets hit by a car on
Webster Avenue stolen from Chicago, hit two other cars at

(02:01:29):
Webster Avenue, and then hit my rig. And I thought
my chauffeur was right where the car hit is where
Scotty mcclennan was standing. So we hear the bam bam band.
We come out the car stealing gear, tires of burning
right where Scotty was, and we did the complete three stooges.
As I'm running out looking for Scotty, I pushed Scotty

(02:01:51):
out of the building, so you know, I'm looking to
make sure because right where he was, that's where the cars.
But of course I never even saw him. I hadsion.
I pushed him out of the way to make sure
he was okay. That's where we ran out to the
street and I gave an urgent. That was a little unnerving.
I thought Scotty was dead, but that was different. How
many people get hit by a stolen car in Chicago. Well,

(02:02:13):
you know that's we call that Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (02:02:17):
Yeah, it must be the ends. And why you can
expand on it here because you talked about it earlier.
One lesson. You always wanted to make sure you're talking provis.

Speaker 2 (02:02:27):
Know where everything is. But you know you also something
as simple as how you get ress may save your
own life. The FDNY is the worst. Were leaving the
waistraps off. You get trapped and entangled in a bicycle wheel,
a mattress box, screen or whatever else. And when I
was doing the stuff with the airplanes for the port authority,

(02:02:49):
when these planes hit hard, even though they may be intact,
the inside get distorted. You've got a waisttrap now gets
hung up on the table tray, a TV or an armrest,
and got two guys inside there. Fifty of my crew
is now a may day. So again, how do you
get dressed? Can see open your bottle fully? You know,

(02:03:10):
because if you fall down that pass alarm is activated.
If I gave you a fifty pound backpack, little with bricks,
I said, here, walk around with this for a while.
You're gonna tell me I have sex with myself, all right?
So why would you put an airpack on and you
immediately need.

Speaker 1 (02:03:27):
It, good advice, sound advice. As far as your years
in the Air Force crash fire rescue, what would you
say was your best moment there?

Speaker 2 (02:03:38):
I had a couple. Probably ninety two I had two crashes.
I had a crash at Leguardi. I was in seventeen truck.
That's the one who was in the water on fire
during a blizzard. That was a hat trick of shit.
And then ninety two I had two crashes. And later
that year in April, we're at my old Basin homestead

(02:03:59):
and we had an F sixty dropped right down in
front of us. The pile was still in the cockpit
on fire, and me and Al and one of their guys,
we went over a safety to see he was on fire.
He got burned, had broken back, So that one was good.
I've had three hot seat rescues, one F fifteen, F

(02:04:22):
sixteen and then F one O four we got the pile,
but this one it was on fire and going, so
that one that was unique in the military. I've had
a lot of other stuff, but you know, that one
was a happy ending. A lot of them are not.
You know, when you hit a mountain doing uh six

(02:04:43):
hundred miles an hour.

Speaker 1 (02:04:44):
It's usually not good, you know, yeah, yeah, thankfully that
time it was yeah. And the last question the rapid fire.
But twenty one years you did on the Ft and Wife,
twelve of them were spent as an officer. So if
you can grab a brand new lieutenant just got promoted,
what advice would you give them based off your experiences?

Speaker 2 (02:05:05):
I'd do the ghetto flips. I don't teach about TPRs
and how to order toilet paper. I'd do this to
all the guys. I don't give a shit if you're
you know, a volley of paid guy. January July. The
windows are closed heat or air conditioning. If you have
fires snowing out two windows on arrival, we're thermal pain windows.

(02:05:26):
If failed you got a serious fire, even one window.
And then what's it like on the floor above for
the second two trucks, so you see that you're not
walking into a normal thing. You could be walking into
an ambush. And I always said, is the fact that
when we got the bunkers, the engines are a little

(02:05:47):
slower now because they got to do it. The truck
is about the same, but we give them rabbit tools.
So now as we used to stretch up the stairs.
You'd hear the irons getting hit. They're not in guys,
let's call it extra step to let's go go go go,
now you boot pop. These guys are too far, too fast,
too deep, and by the time you feel heat, it's

(02:06:08):
too late. So you know there's pros and cons to
to that. And I'll tell you I very rarely that
my hood, my whirlhood. When I was in Brooklyn one
reason and one reason only. When I was in the truck,
I pulled the ceiling and had about a thousand cockroaches

(02:06:30):
come out of this ceiling land on me. Now they're
my coat, they're here, They're down my sleeves, they went
down the rubber boots and everything. So at least with
the hood, it kept those little coma saamas out. So
that was a whole purpose of wearing the hood is
to keep the roaches out and some of that sheet rocking.
There was no asbestos in the vacants that we were
in either at least.

Speaker 1 (02:06:52):
Fair straight off.

Speaker 2 (02:06:53):
Yeah, yes, absolutely so.

Speaker 1 (02:06:57):
Boy man, this was fantastic.

Speaker 2 (02:07:01):
Pass he did.

Speaker 1 (02:07:03):
He did. Just find your pass with flying colors and
thanks for the background. Heeds their producer on the rapid fire.
I'll say goodbye to the audience in moments stick around.
We'll talk off air. But before I say goodbye to them,
if you have any shout outs that you want to give,
go right ahead.

Speaker 2 (02:07:15):
Well, I know Mike is very upset. DRM is Dragon Ready,
h Dragon Rescue Management. But a guy came up with
a DRM actually stands for it doesn't require Mike.

Speaker 1 (02:07:28):
Awesome, Mike. If you want to sponsor the show, by
the way, we'll advertise it. Don't worry.

Speaker 2 (02:07:33):
Shame. Yeah, So with getting salted, you know, these guys
they want, you know, sponsored, that's fine, you know. But
there's a ton of guys, you know. And we just
buried Keith Winschall. We had a service for him on Saturday.
He was one of my military guys. Highway one cop.

(02:07:54):
Keith was one of those guys could sit in any
kitchen table anywhere. He was not your And I have
to say the service that we did a Highway One's
quarters over there off the Bronx River cops were absolutely
awesome gentlemen, you know. And Keith was a psycho. And
I don't have the picture, but I you know, I

(02:08:16):
have it in my mind of him going on as
Harley with nothing but assless chaps at about seventy miles
an hour. That's Keith. Yeah, that is Keith. He was awesome.
And you know he he went three rounds with cancer
and nine to eleven cancer. He was paralyzed by a
line of duty injury. And this guy never gave up.

(02:08:39):
He had a four wheel drive electric wheelchair so he
could go hunting in the woods. There was nothing, you know, Diane,
his wife was, you know, a machine. So you know
that's how it is. So you know, we talked about
nine to eleven. That's my generations, Pearl Harbor and Gettysburg.
And as people say, it's the stay in American history

(02:09:01):
that's still killing. So if anybody hasn't gotten registered to
check please do you know? I had two guys at
the Port Authority when I was working at La Guardia.
I convinced them to sign up. They were both NYPDE.
They went back at their log books and all the
scratch markers, and one guy ended up a year after

(02:09:22):
he registered with intestinal cancer. So it's out there. It's
a ticking time bomb. Do what you gotta do, and Mike,
thank you for what you do. You know, had I
known you I was gonna dress up. You're gonna dress
up like an FBI interpreter. I at least World War
underwear or something for you.

Speaker 1 (02:09:39):
You know, that's fine, that's just something I gotta do.
You can pull off this look. I can't pull off
that luck, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:09:45):
So who says you can't shine a sneaker? What are
you kidding me?

Speaker 1 (02:09:48):
And there you go. Listen, I got the third I
have the third leg ron anyway from the saltwater from
hunts and.

Speaker 2 (02:09:52):
So there you go, all right, gargle with it. It's awesome.
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (02:09:55):
Even better build character.

Speaker 2 (02:09:57):
Yes, absolutely, kill your hemorrhoids.

Speaker 1 (02:10:00):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, you know, and then a lot of
other things too. Stick around. Like I said, we'll talk
off here. Thank you very much. Thanks to everybody again,
thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:10:12):
And really I'm not that famous. So I just have
weird stories, that's all.

Speaker 1 (02:10:15):
And we were glad to hear him. And you know, again,
we covered a lot. We pretty much covered it all.

Speaker 2 (02:10:19):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:10:19):
It's everything I have in my outline. The very minimum
was covered, uh in this chat about your twenty one
year career. Of course, the Air Force crash fire rescue
as well coming up next to the Mike the New
Even podcast. You may know this gentleman. He's a Bridgeport guy.
He's Chief Department in dan Berry for what'll be volume seven,
the Best, the Bravest nationwide Ridge Dave had a long
career in Bridgeport. Now he's currently in Danbury. I've been

(02:10:40):
working on him for a while. He's coming on so
I look forward to that.

Speaker 2 (02:10:43):
And here he llows money.

Speaker 1 (02:10:45):
I'll tell him that, I'll pass the message off when
I talked to him next and we see who I
have coming up on September twenty second. That is gonna
be Mike Grant actually for another volume of the e
Men inside the NYPD's Emergency Service. Here he was Transit
Rescue when Transit Police had their own ESU prior to
the merger. He's coming on next Monday, six pm. So

(02:11:06):
two interesting shows on tap with Thod on Friday and
Grant on Monday. Now, for those of you that are
listening on the audio side from their nineteen ninety five
album Short Bus, Filter's coming your way with hey Man,
nice shot. In the meantime on behalf of All You
Tube Den Lieutenant Dave Russell and producer Victor I have
Mike Colone, The Spin Volume seventy three and the Best
of the Brave Mis Interviews with the Ft and Wise
Elite and we we'll see you next time. Take care,

(02:11:28):
see you Friday, guys.

Speaker 3 (02:11:51):
Oh wish I want to meet you.

Speaker 4 (02:11:56):
Show what you could have saw me?

Speaker 2 (02:12:07):
See please?

Speaker 4 (02:12:12):
They think that your really end thing?

Speaker 2 (02:12:17):
What's all wrong?

Speaker 4 (02:12:23):
Most why they're right? For Look how they all got strong.

Speaker 3 (02:12:32):
That's why I say, hey, marry my shot shot man.
That's why I say hey, marry my shot.

Speaker 4 (02:12:49):
Got shot man. Show now back smoke Star.

Speaker 3 (02:13:44):
And the airs all clear.

Speaker 4 (02:13:50):
Nose who will write down?

Speaker 2 (02:13:55):
That is a kind of feeling.

Speaker 4 (02:14:01):
You fight and too whool rights, but they were just
too strong.

Speaker 3 (02:14:11):
Let's take it in your face and let you smell
what they consider all That's why I say, AMENI shot.

Speaker 4 (02:14:27):
Good shot mask.

Speaker 3 (02:14:31):
That's why I say, amen, I shot.

Speaker 4 (02:14:37):
What a good shot?

Speaker 2 (02:14:39):
Mask? S S S S S S

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Episode 371: The Best of The Bravest: Lt. Dave Russell (Volume 73)

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