February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Hundreds of FDNY members and mourners flocked to the headquarters of Engine 46/Ladder 27 in the Bronx to remember the deaths of Lt. John Bellew, of Pearl River, N.Y., and Lt. Curtis Meyran, of Malverne, N.Y. Both men died after jumping four stories to escape a burning apartment building on Jan. 23, 2005.
“My father was a firefighter, he rode in a big red truck,” Meyran’s 11-year-old daughter Angela said, reading to the crowd from a poem she had written entitled “The Last Alarm.”
“My father went to work one day and kissed us all goodbye, little did we know that next morning we’d all cry,” she continued, moving many people to tears with her brave delivery.
“Curt and John weren’t heroes on just that January day. They were heroes every day,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, as he unveiled a memorial plaque.
“Our city is forever grateful that they proudly chose a life of duty, courage and danger to protect us.”
Firefighters Brendan Cawley, Jeffrey Cool, Joseph Di Bernardo and Eugene Stolowski survived what became known as the “Black Sunday” blaze.
Thirty-one-year-old Queens native Cawley suffered severe injuries to his head, ribs, shoulder and chest following the 50-foot fall. A year later, the Irish-American firefighter has not yet rejoined the force, but is “coming around.”
“I hope someday [to return to firefighting], but I don’t know when that will be,” Cawley told the Irish Echo.
Fellow survivor Jeff Cool, who used a rope to lower himself and Di Bernadio to safety, was critical of the fact that all firefighters still do not have safety ropes, despite the FDNY’s vow to provide them following the deaths.
“What are we waiting for, another Black Sunday?” he told the Daily News. “There’s a 99 percent chance, I believe, if we all had ropes that day, we would have escaped.”
Forty-six-year-old Meyran is survived by his wife Jeanette and daughters Angela and Danielle, who is 7, while 37-year-old Bellew left behind wife Eileen and four children: Briella, 7, Jack, 4, Katreanna, 3 and Kieran, who is 18 months.