By Richard Weizel
Connecticut Post Online (Bridgeport, Connecticut)
Copyright 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
STRATFORD, Conn. — Fire Chief Ronald Nattrass will lead about two-thirds of the town Fire Department’s 98 personnel to funeral services today in New Jersey for a former colleague, Michael C. Reilly, who died Sunday battling a blaze in the Bronx, N.Y.
Nattrass said Thursday about 65 people from the department will board two chartered buses this morning to attend funeral services at St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church in Reilly’s hometown of Ramsey, and then attend burial at Mary Rest Cemetery in Mahwah.
Really, 25, who had been on active duty as a firefighter in the New York City department since July, died along with 20-year veteran fire Lt. Howard J. Carpluk Jr. of Engine Co. 42 fighting the blaze in a commercial structure. Both were trapped under a collapsed floor.
Reilly, who worked out of Engine Co. 75 in the South Bronx, among the city’s most dangerous for firefighters, worked as a Stratford firefighter from 2003 until realizing his “lifelong dream” of becoming a New York City firefighter.
The FDNY is the largest in the nation.
During his time in Stratford, Reilly also served eight months in Iraq as a Marine Reserve firefighter.
When Reilly returned from Iraq, he told firefighters in Stratford he had a couple of close calls, including being near an undetonated bomb that was disarmed before it exploded.
“It’s so ironic because his mother was always worried about something happening to him in such a dangerous war zone,” said 47-year-old Stratford firefighter Mike Tiberio, who graduated from the Connecticut Firefighter Academy with Reilly in 2003.
“But he made it through Iraq, and it’s so sad he died while on the job in New York,” Tiberio said. “But if he had to die, he told me he wouldn’t want to go any other way than while fighting a fire.”
Tiberio was among three Stratford firefighters in an honor guard who stood at Reilly’s coffin during the wake Thursday at the Vanemburgh Sneider Funeral Home in Ramsey, Nattrass said.
Nattrass said Stratford Firefighters Michael Bruneau and Matt Salemme were also part of the honor guard.
Reilly will be buried in his hometown where he started his firefighting career at age 16 with the Ramsey Volunteer Fire Department.
“Everybody here is still trying to digest this tragedy,” Nattrass said. “He was a very young and brave guy with a very bright future ahead.”
Nattrass said the department plans to present Reilly’s family with an American flag that was flown from the flagpole outside Stratford Fire Department headquarters.
Reilly is survived by his father, Michael Reilly Sr., mother Monica, brother Kevin and sister Erin.