Memorializing a Fallen FDNY Firefighter

(New York-WABC, January 27, 2005) -- Our hearts go out to our bravest this morning, who daily risk their lives to save ours. This past weekend, three of those firemen didn't return home. Two have children, one has four kids, and all will have to remember how courageous their fathers were by the things said this week at three funerals.

Eyewitness news reporter Kemberly Richardson was in Pearl River in Rockland County this morning, where they are preparing to remember 37- year -old John Bellew. Bellew and 46-year-old Lt. Curtis Meyran died when flames and a lack of water to their firehoses forced them and several other men to jump several stories from a burning Bronx building last weekend.

Two firefighters who survived that blaze were saved by a length of rope tied to a window's safety bars. Officials say 37-year-old Firefighter Jeffrey Cool lowered himself partly down the rope before it snapped, sending him crashing several stories to the ground. And 34-year-old Firefighter Joseph DiBernardo used the remaining length to descend about one story from the fourth floor of the burning building before he too fell.

Both of those firefighters suffered critical injuries in the Sunday blaze.

The Fire Department stopped issuing individual ropes to firefighters in 2000, but Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta says the FDNY is reconsidering that policy.

Two other firefighters, Eugene Stolowski and Brendan Cawley, were also injured in the fire. Stolowski is in critical condition at Weill Cornell and Cawley is in stable condition at Saint Barnabas Hospital.

The fire apparently started when sparks from an overheated extension cord ignited a mattress and bedding. Fire officials are investigating whether tenants of the building constructed illegal partitions in the apartment, obstructing firefighters' view of the fire escape.

Another fire the same day, this one in Brooklyn, took the life of 37-year-old Firefighter Richard Sclafani.

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