By Jennifer Maloney
Newsday
WEST ISLIP, N.Y. — Edward Mueller loved helping people.
As an emergency medical technician for the West Islip volunteer fire department, he would roll out of bed sometimes several times a night, pulling on the clothes he laid out beside the bed and grabbing the keys he hung beside the front door.
Mueller, a father and stepfather of seven who worked as a physical therapist assistant at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore, died Saturday after a prolonged heart attack that began Friday night while he was responding to a false alarm. He was 50.
Funeral services will reflect his line-of-duty death.
“The fire department was so important to him,” said his wife, Robin Mueller, 43, of West Islip. “He loved his patients at the hospital. He was so well-loved by everybody.”
Mueller’s first passion, his family said, was horticulture. After graduating from high school in Huntington, he earned two associate’s degrees, in general studies and in botany and horticulture. Then he went to work as a landscaper.
“He always pointed to every tree and every plant and he could tell you the Latin name of it,” recalled his son, Kristopher Mueller, 23, of Lindenhurst.
Even after going back to school in 1996 to become a physical therapist assistant, he continued to cultivate a lush garden at home.
Mueller relished the outdoors — the dirt of his garden, and the sand and surf of the Caribbean, his wife said.
“We went on nine cruises together,” she said. “We weren’t going to wait until we got old.”
Mueller joined the fire department four years ago, and last year was recognized for responding to the most calls — almost 1,000 in one year.
Last year, the Muellers decided to adopt a baby, Victoria, from the Guangdong province of China, adding a seventh child to their combined family.
“We thought, ‘God has blessed us so richly, why not take one of these precious babies and share our family with her?’ ” Robin Mueller said.
Mueller died while visiting two of his stepdaughters at SUNY Oneonta, one year to the day after bringing Victoria home. Funeral arrangements will honor his line-of-duty death.
In addition to his wife and son, Mueller is survived by daughters Jessica, 25, of Huntington, Tricia, 7, of West Islip, and Victoria, 2, of West Islip; stepdaughters Jannette Murray, 24, Megan Murray, 21, and Caitie Murray, 19, all of West Islip; a stepfather, Michael Violante, 80, of Huntington; a sister, Diane Ellaborn, 52, of Massachusetts; and a brother, Martin Mueller, 60, of Pennsylvania.
Viewings will be held Thursday and Friday from 2 to 4:30 p.m. and 7 to 9:30 p.m. at Chapey’s Funeral Home in West Islip. A firematic service conducted by the West Islip fire department will be held Friday at the funeral home at 7:30 p.m.
Fire trucks will join the procession to Gloria Dei Evangelical Lutheran Church in Huntington Station, where the funeral will be held Saturday at 9:30 a.m., followed by burial at Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury.
Copyright 2008 Newsday