By Jeremy Boren
The Pittsburgh Tribune Review
TURTLE CREEK, Pa. — With his “Pap” at the wheel of a 20-ton fire truck, Matt Sauter hefted a hose as thick as his thigh to a nearly frozen fire hydrant 1,000 feet from a burning house on Mortimer Avenue in Wilkins.
“I was driving the engine, and I was yelling for water,” said Turtle Creek firefighter Joe Sauter, 61. “It was a cookin’ fire. When it’s that cold, you never know what you’re going to have with a hydrant.”
The younger Sauter, 16, sent the water his grandfather ordered to the “attack” end of the hose manned by Brad Bianchi, 20, whose father, Nick, 60, worked a few feet away swapping empty air tanks for full ones with firefighters who had searched the smoke-filled house. No one was hurt, and the cause of the fire was ruled accidental.
“That’s the No. 1 important job, getting water to the truck,” the elder Sauter said. “I told him, ‘You did good, Matt.’ I’m proud of him.”
Family pride permeates the all-volunteer Turtle Creek Borough Fire Department. Of 35 active volunteer members, 23 are related.
Grandsons and sons work side-by-side with their grandfathers and fathers to respond to about 200 emergency calls a year from the small department’s brown-brick fire house on Monroeville Avenue.
Major fire alarms quickly turn into family reunions.
“It’s the middle of the night, and it’s cool to see the younger guys dragging their dads out of bed to fight a fire,” said Turtle Creek Mayor Adam Forgie, 32, a 13-year firefighter and a social studies teacher in the Woodland Hills School District. “Part of it is competitive, and part of it is wanting to make sure your son or grandfather is OK out there.”
On Saturday, the department’s extended family held its 20th annual awards banquet in Palmieri’s Restaurant — a block from the fire house — to honor widows of deceased firefighters and “gold card” members with at least 25 years of experience.
Fire Chief Jack Osman, 60, said he remembers a time when it wasn’t unusual for members to line up baby cribs in the firehouse during fish fries organized by the ladies auxiliary.
The cribs cradled the department’s future volunteers — the youngsters who would one day replace men too old to charge into burning buildings or scramble 75 feet up a ladder truck.
“That’s the tough part of being a chief right now. You think of these guys when they were little kids, and you have to send them into a burning building. It’s not easy,” Osman said. “He’s a little kid in a playpen, and now you’re looking at him with hoses and axes.”
Osman’s sons, Nick and Christopher, and his brothers, Mickey and Bill, are all Turtle Creek volunteer firefighters. A review of the weekly duty roster shows the Osmans account for many of the hundreds of volunteer hours registered each month.
Connie Morenzi, 71, knows well the intersection of family and firefighter. She is the wife of former Turtle Creek chief John Morenzi (they just celebrated 50 years of marriage) and grandmother of third-generation Turtle Creek firefighter Tim Rossetti, 23, an emergency medical technician for Eastern Area Prehospital Services.
John Morenzi’s father, Tim’s great-grandfather, was fire chief in Braddock for 32 years.
“It’s pretty hard to compete with a fire truck,” Connie Morenzi said with a laugh. “If he had another woman, maybe I could have competed.”
Countless dinners were interrupted by fire calls. Fire calls sapped vacation time from her husband’s job. Once, Morenzi missed most of Christmas Day with his family to care for an elderly woman displaced by an apartment fire.
Connie Morenzi said her husband’s compassion for others has trickled down to their three daughters, nine grandchildren and many of the young men who volunteer to fight fires in Turtle Creek.
“Some of the guys who have had no father figure to look up to, they kind of look up to him,” she said. “I’m real proud of him.”
The experience of growing up surrounded by firefighters willing to sacrifice their safety for others pays dividends in sometimes surprising ways, Joe Sauter said.
Volunteer firefighter George Lantzy of Turtle Creek used his 18-wheel tractor-trailer to stop the car of a woman who suffered a heart attack and lost consciousness in March on Route 22 in West Virginia. He noticed the woman slumped over on the highway and gently maneuvered in front to ease the car to a stop.
“He was a big-time hero,” Sauter said, noting that Lantzy’s brother, Lou, is another volunteer and a Red Cross disaster relief coordinator.
Turtle Creek is lucky to have so many family members to reinforce its ranks, but it’s not unusual to find families in volunteer fire and other public safety departments, said Allegheny County Chief Deputy Fire Marshal Donald A. Brucker.
Brucker worked 20 years as a firefighter for Forest Hills, where his grandfather was one of the department’s founding members.
“Historically, the fire service in Allegheny County has had a lot of that, not only with grandfathers and fathers but with daughters now, too,” Brucker said. “That many family members is a great thing.”
Copyright 2010 Tribune Review Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved