By JOHN F. MORRISON
Philadelphia Daily News
Katherine Hannan was rather upset when she came around the corner of a burning building and saw her husband on a second-floor balcony trying to calm a hysterical fire victim, thick smoke billowing around them.
OK, you can expect your firefighter husband to take such risks, but, after all, she was six months pregnant and he was off-duty.
Her husband, Fire Lt. Francis J. Hannan, had used a piece of lawn furniture to climb to the second-floor balcony of the apartment house on Rhawn Street where a woman and a boy were hiding from the flames and smoke on March 13.
He lowered the boy to the ground, but the woman wouldn’t go. Hannan had told his wife to call 911 so he waited for the firefighters, trying to keep the panicky woman from running back into the burning apartment.
Other firefighters arrived and took her and a pet dog to safety.
For his valor and dedication to duty, Frank Hannan, 36, of Engine 45, 26th and York streets, in Strawberry Mansion, was named the winner of the Fire Department’s Firefighter of the Year Award.
The award is to be presented to him this morning in a ceremony at Fireman’s Hall Museum, 2nd and Quarry streets.
“I was just overwhelmed by the award,” said Hannan, an 11-year veteran.
“It’s a great honor. I never expected it. It’s just tremendous to be recognized this way by your peers.”
Hannan and his wife had been on their way home from visiting friends that day when he saw smoke belching out of a window of a first-floor apartment.
His wife was at the wheel and he told her to pull over. He had to find out what was going on. After being repulsed by smoke at the front door, he ran around to the back to find the woman and boy on the balcony.
After her husband was safely back on earth, Hannan’s wife got over her annoyance. She gave birth to a boy, Francis Jr., in June, two months early. He’s healthy now. They have another child, Brigid, 2.