Chief Leader – March 02, 2016
by SARAH DORSEY
For Survivors of ‘Black Sunday’ Fire, $183M Jury Award Brings Relief, No Joy
Though he waited 11 years for the city to be held responsible for the deaths of his three firefighter brethren, the tears that ran down Jeff Cool’s face when he heard the verdict weren’t tears of joy. “It’s a sense of relief. But there’s no joy in it,” he said. “I lost three brothers. I lost the guy that saved my life that day.”
Had Only Safety Rope
Mr. Cool, then a Firefighter, was the only member of his crew carrying a personal safety rope on Jan. 23, 2005, the day that became known in the FDNY as Black Sunday. The city had stopped issuing the ropes to firefighters five years earlier.
Firefighter Cool and his partner, Firefighter Joseph DiBernardo, had become trapped in an illegally-subdivided apartment in The Bronx, flames at their back. Though they were on the fourth floor, because of the way the building was configured they were effectively five stories above the ground, and there was only one way down: out the window. Mr. DiBernardo offered to lower his partner first because Mr. Cool had a wife and kids.
The rope—which either broke or slipped out of his hands about 15 feet down—meant the difference between breaking nearly every bone in his body and dying on the pavement, Mr. Cool believes. Mr. DiBernardo tried to descend after him, but fell about the same distance.
Two of their FDNY colleagues who jumped that day—Firefighters Eugene Stolowski and Brendan Cawley—survived with terrible injuries. Two others—Lieut. Curtis Meyran and Firefighter John Bellew—fell to their deaths. Mr. DiBernardo died six years later of an accidental overdose of medicine—a powerful cocktail of prescription drugs he still took daily to cope with his physical and psychological injuries.
City’s Share $146 Million
On Feb. 22, a Bronx jury awarded the families—all but the Meyran family, which settled separately—$183 million. After the lawyers take their cut, it will be divided among the survivors, their families and dependents. The jury found the city 80 percent liable for the tragedy, putting the administration on the hook for $146 million.
The building’s owner, a limited-liability company called 234 E. 178th St., was held 20 percent responsible. The jury found that the owner should have known that tenants had subdivided the building into a treacherous warren of padlocked rooms—a place where someone could easily become trapped when smoke began billowing.
Joseph DiBernardo Sr. is the father of the man Mr. Cool’s children called “Uncle Joey.” A retired Deputy Fire Chief, he fought the department for months in 2012 to get his son’s name inscribed on the “Wall of Heroes” at FDNY headquarters honoring line-of-duty deaths.
In 2013, he founded a nonprofit in Joey’s name to distribute safety ropes and train firefighters across North America in their use. Mr. Cool works with the foundation. He travels the continent speaking about ropes and firefighter safety, and also tells his story on behalf of the New York Blood Center. He knows how important it is to donate blood. He lost 72 units of it after his fall.
‘City Was Arrogant’
The elder DiBernardo described the verdict as the closing of a chapter in his life—though the book will never be closed, because he will never get his son back.
“Thank God a wonderful Bronx jury saw that the city was arrogant, playing Russian roulette with firefighter lives,” he said last week.
The trial centered on whether ex-Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, the former president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, and his successor, Nicholas Scoppetta, had undertaken a sincere effort to study the importance of personal safety ropes whose use as standard equipment Mr. Von Essen had discontinued toward the end of the Giuliani administration.
The former Commissioner claimed that the ropes, at three pounds, just added weight for firefighters who were already laden with gear. They didn’t use them much anyway, went the reasoning.
Vito Cannavo, the families’ lead attorney, asked for proof that the FDNY had conducted studies on the matter, or minutes from any meeting where top Chiefs had recommended that the ropes be taken away.
No Reply From City
During closing arguments, he repeatedly held up a blank piece of paper to the jury—this is all the city could produce, he said.
To Mr. Cool, it was clear that a three-pound rope was hardly going to break a firefighter. Some today carry more than 100 pounds of gear.
The personal ropes were first rolled out in the mid-’80s,, but in 1994, the department switched its members from their long coats and rubber boots to more-protective bunker gear. The new garments were heavier, and the ropes didn’t fit into the coat pockets as easily.
But each firefighter was still issued a harness.
“That’s like having a gun with no bullets. Or a bullet with no gun,” Mr. Cool said.
The harnesses were needed because fire trucks still carried what was called a “lifesaving rope” or “roof rope,” Mr. Cool explained, by which a team can launch a rescue by lowering one firefighter from the roof.
But the personal safety ropes—which each member of the team would have on him at all times—were crucial, he believed.
‘Our Bulletproof Vest’
“It was our failsafe,” he said. “Like a bulletproof vest is to a police officer.” Six months to the day before Black Sunday, he bought his own rope at a trade show in Baltimore. It cost about $350, and his wife wasn’t too happy that he put the hefty sum on their credit card.
“She’s happy as can be that we spent that money now,” Mr. Cool said.
Mr. Cannavo said a firefighter could actually have been disciplined for carrying an “unsanctioned” rope like Mr. Cool’s. He explained to the jury that the crew on Black Sunday had launched a rescue with a roof rope once the six men sent out a mayday alarm, but three minutes and 49 seconds later, when they were forced to jump, it was not yet in place.
Though he survived the jump, Firefighter Cool was forced to retire with a disability pension, a fact that still saddens him.
“I miss it every day,” he said. “It was more than a job to me; it was my life.”
He and Mr. DiBernardo are bracing for a possible appeal. Though city legal officials declined to say whether they’d pursue one, the administration may wish to contest the finding that it’s 80 percent responsible.
“I think it’s distasteful,” Firefighter Cool said of that possibility. “They put us through 11 years of heartache and never coming to the table with a fair offer.”
Will Aid the Injured
Chief DiBernardo expressed relief that the long and emotionally devastating trial was over, and said the first thing he hoped to do with the money was to buy a transport van for the Fire Family Transport Foundation, which helps injured or sickened firefighters and their families get to doctors’ appointments and other events. Some who use the service are suffering from Sept. 11-related cancer. The Chief wants to buy another van for his own foundation and help provide for his daughters and grandchild.
“The main thing is that the city was found responsible,” he said. “The city and the Fire Commissioner. That was the greatest joy. The money doesn’t mean anything. I have a house, I have a car, what do I need?”
Mr. Cool hopes that the award will prevent future mistakes.
“Hopefully municipalities are going to think twice before they ever take another piece of equipment away from a civil servant,” he said. “Whether it be a police officer, a firefighter or a corrections officer.”
Apt. Dangers Remain
Chief DiBernardo, however, noted that the danger of illegally-subdivided apartments is as real today as it was 11 years ago, for residents as well as firefighters. It happens particularly in lower-income neighborhoods, where high rent costs have driven tenants to carve out a room they can afford, even if it blocks a key means of egress.
“It happens in every borough,” he said. He once visited his old building in Richmond Hill, Queens, where he and his family had been the only residents. Richmond Hill is now sometimes called Little Punjab or Little Guyana for the South Asian and South American immigrants who have flocked there.
When Mr. DiBernardo returned to his old house, there must’ve been 15 or 20 people living there, he guessed.
“We call ’em illegal SROs,” he explained, short for single-room occupancies. “We know immediately because we see the bedrooms have [padlocks] on them. As soon as we get in there—as soon as we see that—we know we have a lot of life hazard there.”
“It’s a terrible thing waiting to happen,” he added. “And you’re gonna have multiple deaths one of these days.”
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