By Steven Goode and Dave Altimari
The Hartford Courant
HARTFORD, Conn. — Kevin Bell, the first Hartford firefighter killed in the line of duty in four decades, had alcohol and the primary substance found in marijuana in his system when he died fighting a fast-spreading house fire, a state toxicology report reviewed by The Courant reveals.
But the seven-member panel convened by the city to investigate the death and problems within the fire department never received the toxicology results, according to Hartford Fire Marshal Roger Martin, who was chairman of the board of inquiry.
Bell, 48, died in October of 2014 when he never made it out of a second-floor room in a Blue Hills Avenue home after commanders gave an evacuation order. His death led to city, state and federal investigations that resulted in scathing reports on problems with the department’s equipment and training and on mistakes made by fire department personnel.
None of those investigations mentioned whether the toxicology results had any effect on what happened during the fire. The toxicology report was part of the state medical examiner’s investigation into Bell’s death. The medical examiner ruled Bell died of asphyxiation but has declined to release the toxicology results.
State police included a redacted copy of the toxicology results when they recently released their report to The Courant in response to a Freedom of Information request. The state police report does not mention the results in the narrative about the events that led to Bell’s death.
The medical examiner’s office provided the toxicology report to the state police, Hartford Police Department and the Connecticut Department of Labor’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health. The Hartford Fire Department later received a copy, sources said.
Carlos Huertas, who was chief of the department at the time of the fire, declined to comment Wednesday on why the board of inquiry did not receive a copy of the report.
Current Hartford Fire Chief Reginald Freeman and Deputy Chief Brian Foley, spokesman for the Hartford Police Department, did not respond to a request for comment. Corporation Counsel Howard Rifkin and Mayor Luke Bronin also did not respond to several requests for comment.
Bell, who was manning a hose, sprayed at least four firefighters directly, knocking the masks off two of them, a state police report indicates. One of those firefighters, Jason Martinez, fell out of a second-floor window. Martinez was burned over 10 percent of his body and did not return to work until last year.
In the state police report released last month, investigators concluded Bell was likely in control of the hose at the time streams of water knocked the masks off Martinez and firefighter Colin McWeeny.
At least two other firefighters also were hit by water from Bell’s hose but didn’t have their masks knocked off, the report indicated.
That conclusion differs from the internal review done by department officials, which said Bell’s hose had become “errant” before the streams struck the firefighters.
State police redacted the toxicology results when they released their investigative report to The Courant. The Hartford fire department’s reports make no mention of the toxicology results.
Among conclusions reached by a department board of inquiry were that there was a failure to properly search the room in which Bell was trapped and that no one heard Engine 16 Lt. John Moree’s mayday distress call while the firefighters were still in the building.
In the aftermath, the department implemented changes, including improvements in communications, firefighting procedures and a marked increase in training.
The state police report questions why as many as seven firefighters were in one room, in some cases unaware of each other, and attacking the fire from different directions.
Bell, a six year veteran of the department, and Moree entered the living room and moved left through the door while a second group moved to the right. On the other side of the room, entering through a door from the kitchen were firefighters from Engine 7 and members of the tactical unit, which included Martinez.
Moree ordered Bell to open his nozzle and “attempt to cool down the conditions.” State police said it was “very highly probable” that as Bell sprayed toward the kitchen entrance he struck Martinez, McWeeny, and two other firefighters — Bryan Riddick and Lt. Scott Cunningham — knocking the masks off McWeeny and Martinez.
McWeeny was eventually carried down the back stairwell. Martinez made his way to a window, leaving sooty fingerprints on the white wall, until he fell out.
Riddick told investigators he “jumped on the line” to stop the spray and realized another firefighter was on the line and turned off the hose. State police said that Bell was operating the “only attack hose line” in the room at the time the firefighters were sprayed.
It was around this time that Moree radioed “mayday, mayday ... you’re not on the line.” A “mayday” must be called when certain conditions exist, including if a firefighter becomes disoriented or lost inside a structure, is trapped or entangled, is running low on air or loses contact with a hose. Moree told investigators several of those conditions existed, but the report does not elaborate.
Moree would later tell investigators he searched for, but couldn’t find, his partner, firefighter Kevin Bell, who was manning a hose inside the room. Moree got out nearly three minutes after the first of a series of orders to evacuate the house.
He told investigators that he crawled along the hose line searching for Bell but couldn’t find him. Moree said he tried searching other areas of the room which by now was filled with smoke but couldn’t locate him.
In November 2015 Bell’s family announced that it was filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, Huertas, Deputy Chief James McLoughlin, who was in charge of the fire scene and Moree.
The suit focused on Moree’s actions at the scene. It also alleged that fire personnel deliberately spread inaccurate rumors that Bell had cocaine in his system “with the apparent goal of taking the focus off the embarrassing failures of command structure, equipment maintenance irregularities and the lack of State of Connecticut mandated training provided to their firefighters and instead allow the ‘blame’ to impliedly fall upon the decedent as per the scandalous rumors continuing to circulate.”
The family settled the suit for $350,000 in December. Engine Company 16 was renamed in honor of Bell in April.
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