Firefighters Bid One of Their Own Farewell - New York Times
RIP
The firefighters in crisp blue uniforms stood in formation for the second successive day, for the second funeral of a fallen comrade, a day after two more of their colleagues were injured at the same site where these two had perished.
There was grief today at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, and even some laughter at a few memories of Firefighter Robert Beddia, a 23-year-veteran of the department who died on Saturday doing the work he loved.
The Rev. John Delendick, a fire department chaplain, told the mourners gathered at the ornate church that Mr. Beddia, 53, “didn’t become a firefighter for the money, he didn’t become a firefighter for the glamour.”
“He became a firefighter because of certain values,” the chaplain said.
But along with the grief there was weary frustration and simmering anger at the circumstances that had claimed Firefighter Beddia’s life.
He died on Saturday along with a colleague, Joseph Graffagnino, while battling a seven-alarm fire in the former Deutsche Bank building in Lower Manhattan, which was in the process of being dismantled. Both were assigned to Engine 24 and Ladder 5, based at a firehouse at Avenue of the Americas and West Houston Street in SoHo.
The fire raised troubling questions about why it had taken so long to bring down the 41-story building that was damaged beyond repair in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.
On Thursday, as Firefighter Graffagnino’s funeral was taking place in Brooklyn, two more firefighters were injured at the building when a worker lost control of a small forklift on the 23rd floor of the building, sending it tumbling down 200 feet to the ground.
The forklift crashed through a construction shed on the ground level, and part of the shed collapsed on the two firefighters.
Both firefighters, Neil Nally, 35, and William Carbettis, 51, of Engine 258 in Long Island City, Queens, were listed in stable condition today at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. They both sustained head injuries.
Firefighter Carbettis had his spleen removed. Firefighter Nally also had an injured back and right hand, according to a fire official, and could be allowed to leave the hospital today, fire officials said.
At today’s funeral for Firefighter Beddia, there were echoes of the funeral on Thursday for his colleague, Firefighter Graffagnino.
At both, bagpipers played “Amazing Grace” for a crowd of mourners that again included Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta.
And as a backdrop for both funerals, there were thoughts about the troubled building where all four fighters had been harmed, and about why city officials and building owners can’t seem to get to the bottom of the task of bringing down the condemned building.
Mayor Bloomberg, who said he had never met Firefighter Beddia, said he had been described to him by others as a dedicated professional.
“For 23 years he was a quiet hero,” the mayor said at the Mass. “He rarely spoke, but when he did others listened.”
The mayor also talked about the fire that took Firefighter Beddia’s life.
“This fires raised a lot of difficult questions,” the mayor said, adding that city and fire officials would “investigate to get to the bottom of what happened.”
Such an inquiry, he said, would hopefully “lead to actions to make the Fire Department stronger and safer.”
Firefighter Beddia often drove the fire truck for Engine 24, a post referred to as the chauffeur, but when he was not behind the wheel, he was working with the younger men, firefighters said.
Lt. Richie Quinn of the Fire Department spoke to reporters outside St. Patrick’s today about Firefighter Beddia.
“He was our chauffer, he knew every building inside and out, which was extremely helpful for us,” he said.
Firefighter Beddia’s sister, Susan Beddia Olson, spoke about him before his flag-draped coffin, in the form of a letter to him, which she began by saying, “Dear Bobby,” the name those close to him called him.
“Remember walking me down the aisle?” she asked. “Remember dancing with me at my wedding?
“You are my friend, you are my brother,” she said. “You are my hero.”
Two hours after the funeral mass had begun — as the family and other mourners accompanied the coffin out of the cathedral, from where it will be taken to a cemetery in Staten Island for burial — hundreds still lined Fifth Avenue.
A church bell tolled, and the crowd went silent as Firefighter Beddia was led out of Manhattan, a borough whose streets he knew so well, for the last time.
