ECHO6GOLF
28 August 2006, 16:29
RIP Marine
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/447406p-376618c.html
DevilDawg
28 August 2006, 16:39
RIP Marine, you will be missed.
Damn. May he rest in peace.
I'm praying for the LT. who survived - it sounds like he's in bad shape.
Another firefighter lost. RIP
August 29, 2006 -- The inferno in a Bronx 99-cent store claimed its second hero yesterday - a decorated lieutenant whose relatives made sure he would continue his life's work of saving people, even after his death.
The family of Lt. Howard Carpluk, 43, a 20-year FDNY veteran, asked doctors to keep his heart beating long enough to harvest his organs before he succumbed to the injuries he suffered in a catastrophic floor collapse, sources told The Post.
Rookie firefighter and Iraq war veteran Michael Reilly, 25, also was killed in the Sunday blaze, the deadliest for the FDNY since "Black Sunday," when three firefighters died on Jan. 23, 2005.
"Today, New York City has lost another one of its bravest," said Mayor Bloomberg, who visited the Bronx firehouse where the men worked.
Five firefighters in all were buried for 90 minutes under rubble in the basement after the store's floor suddenly gave way.
As their air supply began to run out, colleagues snaked a hose to them and pumped compressed air through it.
Battalion Chief Thomas Auer, 47, was released from the hospital yesterday, while firefighters John Grasso, 25, and Wayne Walters, 30, were healing from smoke inhalation and burns at New York Hospital.
"I'm doing well, but it's been a hard day," said Grasso, who was sitting up with a bandaged lower right leg.
Sources said investigators were still trying to determine the cause of the collapse, focusing on renovations and a previous fire.
Among the developments and revelations:
* Buildings Department records show that a July 17, 2000, fire at the building was arson - set by someone who poured gasoline on the roof.
* An FDNY source said renovations made after the fire may have left the floor structurally weak. Engineers will reconstruct the scene to examine whether bearing walls and support beams were installed as required.
* Officials also ruled out early reports that an air conditioning unit crashed through the roof, causing the collapse.
"The big question is the structural integrity of the floor," an official said. "Buildings like this can hold a lot of weight.
"For all intents and purposes, the floor should not have collapsed unless it was severely compromised - not in a little store in 15 or 20 minutes. We have to find out if it was missing some structural support that made it vulnerable."
Records show that repairs were made to joists and partitions following the 2000 fire.
Buildings Department spokeswoman Jennifer Givner said the owner was hit with some violations after the blaze, but noted that "the violations do not seem to be significant.
"Some complaints were filed at the time, but our inspectors checked and found no basis," she said.
"There has been no major reconstruction since 2000, and they filed for permits for the work they did."
Attempts to reach officials of Davir Realty Ltd., the building's owner, were not successful.
The fire, which officials believe started in a refrigeration unit in the rear of the store, was reported Sunday at 12:30 p.m.
Soon after the first firefighters arrived, the roof was checked to make sure it posed no danger to firemen entering the building to battle the blaze and search for possible victims, sources said.
The basement also was checked and it was determined there was no fire below, sources noted.
Reilly and another firefighter were manning hose lines - pouring 250 pounds of water a minute on the nearly extinguished blaze - and others were still searching for possible trapped victims when the floor gave way with no warning.
Reilly, Carpluk and the three firemen closest to them plunged through the hole - followed by chunks of the building, shelves and merchandise.
The second hose operator and at least six others were not in the area that collapsed and were able to escape.
Officials yesterday defended their decision to fight the fire from within the blazing building.
"That's standard procedure," said Robert Sweeney, the FDNY's assistant chief of operations.
"The history of the FDNY is an aggressive interior attack," he said. "I believe many lives have been saved in the last 100 years due to that tradition. Our members take pride in that.
"We are aggressive, professional firefighters. We have certain procedures and guidelines that we use for different types of occupancies, which were followed for this fire," he said.
"If there's a fire, if there's a chance there's someone in there that we can rescue, we go in there, we put the fire out and we make a search. It doesn't matter if the fire is out or not - this is what we do."
Asked about the Waldbaum's fire in Brooklyn in 1978 that claimed six firefighter lives - and led to a department policy not to risk firefighter lives by sending them inside unoccupied buildings - an official explained that times have changed.
He noted that in the Waldbaum's blaze, the fire department didn't know the configuration of the building's roof supports - and didn't realize that the entire roof structure would be compromised in a fire.
"The issue after that was we couldn't go in without knowing the structural details and risks," he said.
"But we have computerized records now - they knew what they faced when they went in" at the Bronx fire, he said.
Early reports that a rooftop air-conditioning unit had crashed through the roof of the building and slammed through the floor, causing the tragic collapse, were discounted yesterday by officials.
They noted that the air conditioner was still on the roof after the floor gave way - and firemen were sent up to secure it - to make sure it wouldn't jeopardize rescue workers digging out the five trapped firemen.
Firefighters tied the air conditioner to a billboard, said Sweeney, who described it as "standard practice."
Members of the Firefighter Assistance Search Team worked with their hands to dig through the rubble to locate the five trapped firemen.
They shifted and moved debris with metal tools and air pumps.
The deaths of Reilly and Carpluk struck a chord with survivors of "Black Sunday." One of them, Jeff Cool, yesterday stopped by the Ramsey Rescue Squad in New Jersey, where Reilly began his career.
"That's what being a member of the brotherhood and the FDNY is all about," Cool said. "It's about being there for one another."
Firefighters Brendan Cawley and Eugene Stolowski, who survived the 50-foot plunge on "Black Sunday," visited Carpluk's firehouse as their brethren mourned his and Reilly's death.
murray.weiss@nypost.com
CAP MARINE
29 August 2006, 15:26
LT has died also,according to local newspaper.RIP
OtherHalf
29 August 2006, 15:46
May they both Rest In Peace now.
mac3982
31 August 2006, 12:49
small world, friend of a close friend, R.I.P
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