By Tim Carpenter
The Capital-Journal

TOPEKA, Kan. — Capt. Anthony Cox charged into buildings to confront twin beasts of blistering heat and choking smoke.

Sweat poured down the veteran Topeka firefighter's face when cocooned in a protective suit. Hissing flames offered an auditory sense of the lethal threat.

Cox would gulp more bottled oxygen and step deeper into the inferno.

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"Why did Tony risk his life for you, and you, and you?" Dotty Cox Karnowski asked mourners Monday at the memorial service for her brother. "He didn't know your name, had never been a guest in your home, didn't know if you were a good Christian or a sinner, didn't know if you deserved to be saved or would even be grateful for his help."

She answered the question for Cox, who collapsed and died Aug. 13 battling a fire at the Villa West apartment complex near S.W. 27th and Wanamaker Road.

"Because he believed you were worth the risk," Karnowski declared. "He believed that the human life, friend or stranger, was worth risking his own life."

In memory
About 1,000 people, including more than 500 firefighters, attended the service at the Kansas Expocentre. Cox was eulogized for 90 minutes by friends, family and colleagues as a forthright man who chose a career of community service. He was a captain with Topeka Fire Department, where he worked for 21 years, and was a part-time paramedic with American Medical Response.

Paramedic Jason Jenkins, director of the Miami County Ambulance Service, said Cox developed into a father-figure role model when they worked together and became a trusted friend away from work.

He said Cox helped him work through a 2005 traffic accident in which Topeka AMR paramedic Ryan Ostendorf was killed.

"Never would I suspect that I would be going through the motions again for someone so close to us all," Jenkins said.

Cox, 44, was posthumously presented the Medal of Valor by the Topeka Fire Department at the service.

The pipe and drum corps of the Kansas City, Kan., fire department serenaded their fallen brother, while retired Topeka Fire Capt. Larry Smith rang a ceremonial bell for the first Topeka firefighter to die in the line of duty in more than half a century. AMR broadcast a radio call, never answered, to mark Cox's passing.

Ladder trucks hoisted an enormous U.S. flag at the Expocentre's south entrance.

A procession of emergency vehicles from throughout Kansas followed a bunting-draped Topeka fire truck carrying Cox's body to Mount Hope Cemetery for burial. Hundreds of people lined S.W. 17th Street in tribute.

The fire
Topeka Fire Chief Howard Giles said Cox and his crew from Station No. 8 at 2700 S.W. Fairlawn were dispatched a week ago Monday to the Villa West apartment complex, 6058 S.W. 27th. The blaze proved significant enough to trigger a second alarm.

Flames gutted apartments, cracked windows, melted gutters and scorched wooden railings.

Cox stepped away from the apartment building to take a breather, but fell to the ground.

"I received a phone call that no fire chief wants to receive," Giles said. "I was told that one of my fire captains had collapsed on the scene and was being transported to a hospital."

Firefighters at the scene administered emergency care.

An autopsy determined Cox had coronary heart disease, said Sharon Mandel, Shawnee County chief medical investigator.

She said intense heat of the day exacerbated his medical condition. The outside temperature was near the 100-degree mark.

The fire remains under investigation, and an investigator said Monday it could be two weeks before public announcement of a cause.

Cox is survived by his wife, Karrie, and three children. A fourth child is expected to be born in December.

A hard life
The Rev. Neil Buono, of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, opened the Expocentre service by vowing to offer "good words about a good man" who chose a challenging career path.

He said the son of a Vietnam era soldier chose to be a firefighter, which requires a similar life-or-death dedication to mission.

Both soldier and firefighter go to work each day unsure if this will be their last, he said, and their families at home shoulder the same uncertainty.

"It's a hard way to live," said Buono, himself a military veteran. "Hard for you and hard for those who love you. If we're honest, we have to admit such service stresses the best and most courageous of all of us."

Topeka Capt. Kent Dederick, who worked with Cox in leadership of Local 83 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said intensity of the job created personal bonds rivaling that of one's own family. He said firehouse relationships prompt colleagues to refer to each other as brother and sister.

The volume of firefighters at the service, including four from New York City, demonstrated the power of that union, he said.

"What you see here today is the best explanation I could ever give," Dederick said.

Nothing routine
Louie Wright, who spoke on behalf of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said those who fight fires for a living inhabit an increasingly hostile environment.

"There is no routine call for us, and there is no safe post," he said.

Wright said the job now goes far beyond structure fires.

"Our members daily confront threats to their health and safety. They run from incidents as dramatic as the World Trade Center to the repeated insults of exposure to contagious and infectious disease," he said.

The public's understanding of this new reality was driven home by the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City. He said 343 members of the international union were killed.

Each of those men and women died doing their duty under extraordinary circumstances, Wright said.

Cox was no different, he said.

"Tony Cox did not lose his life in service to this community," Wright said. "He gave it. He freely gave it in service to the citizens of Topeka. In that regard, Tony Cox is a hero in the truest sense of the word."

The king
Lt. Ron Rutherford, who served with Cox at Station No. 8, said his boss liked to refer to the station as a castle in the kingdom of west Topeka.

Cox urged people to jokingly call him King, and in Rutherford's mind "that's what he was."

"He was a captain. He was a leader. He was a seasoned veteran. He always put our needs before his," Rutherford said. "He wanted the community to know that nothing will keep us from answering a call - ever."

Rutherford said he loves the excitement, camaraderie and friendships that are part of being a firefighter.

"I've always said I've never had a bad day at work. I can't say that anymore," he said. "We have lost one hell of a firefighter."

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