By Theodore Decker
The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
Copyright 2006 The Columbus Dispatch
All Rights Reserved
He was almost home.
Lt. Richard S. Mileff, a 17-year veteran of the Columbus Division of Fire, died early yesterday after crashing his motorcycle in his neighborhood.
Police said they were notified by a passer-by at 12:39 a.m. of the crash at Preservation Avenue and Stonewalk Lane on the Northeast Side.
Mileff, 43, was found near his bike and taken to Mount Carmel St. Ann’s, where he died at 1:30 a.m.
Police said Mileff was traveling north on Preservation when he struck a curb and was thrown from the motorcycle.
He was not wearing a helmet, police said.
The crash occurred not far from Mileff’s home on Wrens Nest Drive west of the New Albany Country Club.
“He was within 30 seconds of being to his house,” said Battalion Chief Doug Smith, a colleague and friend who spoke for the family at their request.
“From what I understand, he’s been riding motorcycles for years,” Smith said. Sometimes Mileff wore a helmet, though the two never spoke about the practice, he said.
Mileff, the father of a 16-year-old girl, was hired by the division in August 1989. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1998 and was assigned to the ladder company at Station 2, at S. 4th and Fulton streets Downtown.
Mileff also was a certified paramedic, an EMS officer, a bomb-squad and hazardous-materials technician and a member of the division’s newly formed Dive and Rescue Team.
“He was very active within the division,” Smith said. “He was a great firefighter and a good man.”