By Richard Weizel
Connecticut Post Online (Bridgeport, Connecticut)
Copyright 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
STRATFORD, Conn. — Just last year, Michael C. Reilly told fellow town firefighters he was relieved to have made it through an eight-month ordeal battling fires as a Marine in Iraq.
He said he was lucky a terrorist bomb was disarmed near his fire unit just before it could have killed him.
But the 25-year-old Reilly, who always dreamed of being a New York City firefighter, wasn’t as lucky Sunday.
Reilly, a resident of Sleepy Hollow in Westchester County, N.Y., died fighting a blaze just two months after realizing his dream by joining the nation’s largest firefighting force in New York City.
Working out of Engine Company 75 in the South Bronx, one of the city’s busiest, Reilly died while fighting a massive fire in the Mount Eden section of the Bronx.
Firefighters were dispatched Sunday afternoon to battle a blaze in a one-story commercial building at 1575 Walton Ave. The fire quickly grew to three alarms. Fire units entered the building to search for victims and other firefighters trapped when a floor in the structure collapsed.
Reilly died along with fire Lt. Howard J. Carpluk Jr. of Engine Company 42. Both were trapped in the collapse.
Reilly started working for his hometown volunteer fire department in Ramsey, N.J., as a 16-year-old junior in high school, and was hired by Stratford in 2003.
A year later, the Marine Reservist was called to action in Iraq.
“I just talked to him 10 days ago and he was on top of the world. He had made his lifelong dream come true by the age of 25 and he had his whole future mapped out,” said 47-year-old Stratford firefighter Mike Tiberio, who graduated from the Connecticut Firefighter Academy with Reilly in 2003.
“Mike and I got hired together and I just can’t fathom why it had to be him.
“Some of us have lived a lot longer and here’s this great guy just starting out, and just like that he’s gone,” Tiberio said.
“I’m still numb.”
But Tiberio said Reilly often commented about the job’s dangers.
“He told me if that were to happen to him, he would have no regrets because if he had to go, this is how he would want to go,” Tiberio said.
“Firefighting wasn’t a job to Mike, it was a passion. That’s why this is so tragic.”
Stratford Fire Chief Ronald Nattrass said Monday the 98-member department is in a state of shock, and many plan to attend whatever tribute is held for Reilly later this week in New York.
“They say there’s a silver lining in everything, but if someone can show me any in this instance I would be very grateful,” Nattrass said.
“He was just a guy who never looked for the glory, and just loved fitting in,” the chief said.
Fire Chief Tom Lanning of the Ramsey Volunteer Fire Department in northern New Jersey said his 80-member unit is also stunned, as is the entire town of 14,500.
“Firefighting was in his blood, as he joined the fire department at age 16 in our high school juniors’ program, and said he wanted to do this for his life. He was ready,” Lanning said.
“In less than 24 hours, we have lost two courageous men, [including] a young probie at the start of his career,” New York City Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said of the firefighters’ deaths. “It is a heart-breaking loss for the Fire Department.”
Stratford Mayor James R. Miron, in a statement, said, “The town of Stratford joins with the City of New York in honoring the passing of Firefighter Michael C. Reilly.”
The mayor ordered flags at all Stratford municipal buildings lowered to half-staff in memory of Reilly, “who so bravely served our community before moving to pursue his lifelong dream of working as a New York City firefighter.”
Reilly is survived by his father, Michael Reilly Sr., mother Monica, brother Kevin and sister Erin.