Following a false alarm, firefighter died in wreck with bus
By Courtney Greve
Chicago Sun Times
Copyright 2007 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
CHICAGO — The accolades were outnumbered only by tears Monday as hundreds gathered to pay tribute to fallen firefighter William Grant.
Devotion to his two families — at home and on the job — were mentioned by all, but the 44-year-old father of three from Chicago’s Beverly community was also remembered like this:
Life of the party. Old soul.
Gifted woodworker. Generous to a fault. Motivator.
Hero.
“When we say these things about Billy, it’s the truth,” Chicago Fire Department paramedic Mary Parks said as she dabbed a tissue to her eyes. “That’s why there’s going to be a line out here just like this for two days.”
Fifteen minutes into the two-day visitation for Grant, a queue stretched out the door and snaked around the parking lot of Blake-Lamb Funeral Home in south suburban Oak Lawn.
Grant, who was known to loved ones as “Billy,” died Friday after he was pinned beneath his fire truck, which was en route to what turned out to be a false alarm when its tail end was clipped by a school bus.
He was the son of a firefighter, a husband and father of three children. A highly decorated veteran of more than 20 years, Grant rescued a 70-year-old woman from a burning building in 2001