This Past Weekend with Theo Von - #637

00:00:00.000 we've got new merch the year of the rat hoodies just hit the site we have them in two colors and

00:00:05.760 they're made from my favorite hoodie template we also have the winter sale that's happening right

00:00:10.960 now 20 off some of your favorites you can get them before they're gone at theovonstore.com

00:00:19.040 if you get a chance to go there and if not that is totally great as well thank you guys so much

00:00:23.360 for the support today's guest is a retired firefighter and a veteran of the fdny here in

00:00:31.680 new york city which is where we filmed he spent 20 years serving with the fire department in the

00:00:37.280 communities of washington heights and queens and bravely served alongside many others during 9 11.

00:00:44.400 i'm very grateful for his time and his service he is what i would call a legend today's guest

00:00:50.800 is mr tony bonfiglio

00:01:09.600 is it too hot in here for you tony no i feel comfortable okay yeah what kind of temperature

00:01:14.000 do you guys operate at well sometimes it's so hot you know in the summer when we're out there in like

00:01:20.000 90 degree weather and you're putting a fire out it's hot you lose so much body water yeah yeah it's

00:01:26.480 like when you take off your turnout coat and your gear it's like you fell in a pool have you ever

00:01:31.440 started a fire where you had to pee and by the end you didn't oh yeah yeah that's what i'm kidding me

00:01:36.560 yeah and then sometimes you're so thirsty i mean there were times i was so thirsty from pulling

00:01:41.360 ceilings and the plaster dust that i actually would i look up and would take water coming off the

00:01:47.440 the drain pipe just right into my mouth because i can breathe yeah yeah yeah it gets crummy it gets

00:01:52.880 pretty crummy in there oh i bet yeah it's shitty 20 years you were uh tony bonfiglio yep and that's

00:01:59.120 italian that's italian man my whole family's from east harlem yeah you know we're italian yeah it's

00:02:04.960 fun huh yeah grew up in new high park my father moved us out of the bronx and when i was about six

00:02:11.280 yeah and we moved to new high park that's like a town on the queen's borderline on the suburb side

00:02:16.400 bring it up new high park new high park went to herrick's high school what was it like back then

00:02:22.240 oh it was great it was like all blue collar workers you know all the blue collar workers kids you know we

00:02:28.880 had bus drivers cops firemen truck drivers so it's a nice suburb over there oh it was great right over

00:02:34.880 the city line uh i mean i had such a great childhood we were we had so much fun running around you know

00:02:43.040 doing all kinds of crazy back then hot rods motorcycles mischief huh yeah mischief rock and

00:02:49.680 roll rock clubs oh and long island rock clubs listening to some deaf leopards some acdc yeah well

00:02:55.200 back then it was twisted sister and uh you know we used to go to the clubs and see twisted sister obi

00:03:00.640 there was a bunch of good bands back then house bands but they would play you know all the cover

00:03:05.760 songs you had like doors you had zeppelin oh yeah it was awesome yeah that's a beautiful time dude i

00:03:12.160 think that's a kind of a time that a lot of people romanticize as well you know i think so i always say

00:03:16.240 that when i die i hope the heavens like the 70s man because that was so awesome kicked ass and you

00:03:22.960 and you were on the uh fdny for 20 years yeah 21 21 years yeah how did you get started like what

00:03:28.480 were you doing uh before you got into firefighting because things are going well you're listening to

00:03:32.560 the twisted sister yeah hanging out with the boys getting in trouble uh i did get arrested i was at

00:03:39.200 speaks uh club once in uh lito beach and i did get arrested there for uh had some weed and a couple

00:03:47.040 other things on us yeah we were young we were so yeah we just and i was going nowhere i went to college

00:03:54.960 for like uh maybe three weeks oh yeah that's not enough farmingdale university i went for food

00:04:02.080 technology i was going to be a meat inspector oh really oh yeah thank god that didn't happen yeah

00:04:07.600 hell yeah dude well i was working in a meat factory when i was a kid scraping hangar room floors like

00:04:13.040 paulie and rocky you know i had the white coat on i'm freezing scraping the blood and the fat off these

00:04:18.960 floors all day and what was that like over there so what kind of meats did they even have going in

00:04:23.120 and out just big sides of beef big factory like hanging rooms big hanging rooms and would you be

00:04:28.800 alone in there or would you have no it'd be other people butchers coming in grabbing their meat it was

00:04:33.200 like a big production place you know big time lots of trucks they would give all the meat out to all

00:04:39.600 the restaurants and everything and that was right in minneola oh that's pretty cool and minneola is that

00:04:44.480 here in new york yeah minneola is pretty much right by new high park got it so you're over there

00:04:49.360 you're in there with the meat you know you're in there at night like rocky hitting the meat yeah

00:04:54.160 i'm sure i'm sure nobody's looking because that was right around the time you know so oh yeah oh

00:04:59.520 for sure yeah there we go that's what it looked like oh definitely everything turned to veal after

00:05:04.080 this came out yeah you know that was just bro you couldn't you couldn't get something that wasn't

00:05:08.960 tenderized oh it was funny because we were all kids too and you would you know all this meat after

00:05:13.760 the place closed would be but we never took a an ounce of meat you know back then you got all this

00:05:18.560 beautiful meat you guys would be like big tubs of filet mignons all kinds of because it's in their

00:05:23.920 room yeah yeah and then i had a uh and so what happens yeah you're in there you're beating you guys

00:05:29.440 are punching the meat or whatever and uh oh yeah a common was that kind of a common future in your

00:05:34.720 area no it was not at all i just got a job there if my friends were all working there the whole crew

00:05:39.040 was working oh that's fun and we were the cleanup crew so once the butchers were all done we would

00:05:43.680 come in with these high pressure hoses and we would just hose this whole place down y'all were just

00:05:47.680 partying yeah and then we'd oil it up with vegetable oil it was a funny job yeah but what was that what

00:05:54.560 was the vegetable oil for just make everything shiny and clean because we had on online the inspectors

00:06:00.240 were there that was the two inspectors every day and they would inspect everything oh so it was pretty

00:06:05.040 if they didn't get their payola then they would knock a machine down and then they'd have to rope

00:06:09.760 the whole thing off and we would have to come in and clean the machine and then they inspect it again

00:06:14.880 so it was a little bit of kind of a was it kind of a meat mafia kind of going all the mafia yeah

00:06:18.640 was it really wow it was owned by two jewish brothers the cohen's yeah yeah so you know something

00:06:26.000 something was afoot you know um and so what makes you get out of there were your friends kind of

00:06:31.120 graduating because i ended up working and dude me and like five of my buddies worked over there at uh

00:06:37.040 well i think it was called save a center or something it was a grocery or win dixie maybe

00:06:40.960 it was called right dude one of my buddies would come clock in go home and then he would wake up

00:06:47.280 and he'd come clock out dude he worked there for like yeah he worked there for almost 11 months

00:06:51.840 dude and the rest of us were afraid to do that so we'd actually be in there working

00:06:55.520 but we would during like uh but it was so much fun as having your friend bro there was nothing

00:07:01.520 better i think than that time if you were either like late years of high school or right out of

00:07:07.040 high school and you got to work with like your buddies who hadn't gone all like nobody kind of

00:07:11.760 figured it out yet yeah you got to work with your friends that's what it was oh saturday morning we'd

00:07:16.320 all be banged up you know from being out drinking all night we'd just be getting home yeah and we had to

00:07:21.040 go in saturday morning to clean the oil the whole place oh so those were fun trips yeah we had oil

00:07:27.120 fights okay it's soaked in oil oh god i think we might we might pick up a new listenership during

00:07:33.840 this oh man we would have some good oil fights really because you'd have these big squirt bottles

00:07:38.640 and then we'd have these 55 gallon drums of oil what yeah and with seed oil yeah it was vegetable oil

00:07:45.360 oh we wouldn't even do the trucks in the vegetable oil it looks like they got waxed

00:07:49.200 what yeah they were all shiny and what vegetables was it coming out of i have no idea look up vegetable

00:07:55.760 or what i never even thought about that what could even have that much oil maybe an eggplant

00:08:02.000 what is vegetable made of vegetables you think but what they squish them

00:08:09.040 vegetable oil is made from the oils extracted from various plant parts like seeds fruits nuts and

00:08:13.280 grains most commonly soybeans corn canola sunflower and palm because that's kind of the oil that

00:08:17.680 everybody's kind of against nowadays you know but i guess you guys were just using it to keep stuff

00:08:21.680 shiny shiny wow yeah i didn't know people use it like that yeah we had these black trucks and they

00:08:26.560 would look all waxed after we were done oil in them all down yeah yeah and it stunk too you know because

00:08:33.760 it was it was such a big place and there'd be a lot of like the bones and the fat and you'd had to go

00:08:38.560 in the pit sometimes it's like you would puke it was so bad smelling what was the pit it was kind of like

00:08:44.000 below the yeah that's where all the water would drain into there and every now and then our boss

00:08:50.320 would have to go in there i'd see him reaching in he'd have like fat on his glasses and shit it was

00:08:55.840 oh it was gross yeah oh yeah dude yeah no i didn't want to stay there god yeah it was cold it was cold

00:09:03.120 in there too oh and there was freezers there and the guys that worked in the freezers oh you never saw

00:09:08.480 them they looked like they were from the antarctic they had these hoods and these parkers and their big

00:09:13.040 boots and you'd see them now and then they were kind of scary you know you were a kid you're like

00:09:17.120 there's the freezer man you know they never came out of the freezer yeah dude oh that's

00:09:22.560 fucking wild yeah be living in it it's hiding from your wife and kids probably in there oh god that's

00:09:28.640 when family life's bad when you're like i don't care how cold it is i'll stay in there yeah yeah

00:09:32.480 that's bad that's the last job you wanted working in a freezer yeah oh i think so that was in the

00:09:37.520 line and what kind of guys would do it was it tough guys was it russians who was doing it

00:09:41.120 fucking guys yeah butchers psychos they got their own toolbox of knives you know the big oh a

00:09:49.200 couple of times they would pick you up by your shirt you know because we were just the kids you

00:09:53.680 know we run it around any of them ever get arrested for crimes or anything like that like

00:09:56.720 you think where any of them low-key like dexters or like kind of that kind of guy yeah yeah they

00:10:00.320 were low-key but they were strange some of them yeah dang that's why then you had the women they

00:10:05.840 were the packers oh they were yeah they would like pack the chickens and all that and wrap it

00:10:11.120 and everything yeah women do better gift wrap they had like tough women too they were working

00:10:15.440 they was like that the boss of the women was a real tough broad oh yeah oh yeah some girl with a

00:10:20.000 tattoo of richard denner smoking everybody be out smoking yeah your smoke breaks and the guy would

00:10:24.960 come with the uh the roach coach and call you out for your coffee and he would yeah the coffee roach you

00:10:31.040 know they were a lot of roach coaches here and everybody would come out you know what a roach

00:10:34.160 coach is uh-uh it's a coffee truck all right back in the day they would come to like factories

00:10:39.280 oh so it just pulls up and you gotta get your snap and they would be like all right the code

00:10:42.240 guys here and everybody would be out a break get their coffee their lousy donor whatever he had a

00:10:46.640 little bit of a break yeah i like that man yeah dude we started when i was a kindergartner

00:10:50.800 they had uh or i don't know what grade i was in i wasn't even in a grade but i'm

00:10:54.400 but they they it was nap time or whatever at kindergarten but they would uh i wouldn't sleep right i

00:11:00.560 would just keep my eyes open because they had this uh they bring in this other lady to watch us

00:11:05.120 right and i was like kind of curious about her so i would just kind of lay over there you were

00:11:10.080 eyeballing her yeah i was kind of eyeballing her i guess you know because me and my mother were

00:11:13.920 always on the outs i was shopping around uh-huh so i uh i remember like at a certain point she'd

00:11:21.600 come over and kind of kick me a little bit and she'd let me go outside and watch her smoke

00:11:25.600 oh that's funny oh that was nice dude and she had pretty nice hair she looked a little bit

00:11:29.760 like a man yeah but she was definitely she probably what year was that oh this was probably 84

00:11:35.280 or the early 80s god yeah she looked like a man but she's pretty she's like only the third woman

00:11:42.240 i'd ever seen you know so at that point she was really good looking you don't know yeah yeah she's

00:11:47.040 beautiful to me you know she was dying you know she was just stunning dude but yeah she'd let me go

00:11:52.320 out there and watch her smoke and she'd complain about stuff oh that's funny god that was nice man

00:11:57.280 just getting a little break you know so that was like it felt like it was my break from

00:12:00.480 kindergarten like i were on break oh i remember kindergarten well really oh yeah nap time

00:12:05.360 that was the best oh yeah snack and nap and then out to the sandbox and dig a hole of china yeah

00:12:12.480 dig a hole down to a fucking butcher shop yeah they would always put like a cone in the sand

00:12:16.960 they'd be like oh you're almost in china you know i'd be like yeah let's keep digging yeah yeah dude

00:12:21.200 and then some kid would get sand in his eyes and he would look like he was chinese

00:12:24.000 yeah yeah that's what i got good dude um so yeah so take me out how do you get out of

00:12:30.880 the meat area into the into the fire like take me out of the freezer into the fire man

00:12:37.600 well i i went i went before after that i went to a plastic mold injection factory job did you

00:12:43.680 what unemployment sent me to oh they did what were they were they were making body parts oh no no we

00:12:48.640 were making there was a game called othello back then it was like a black and white yeah i remember

00:12:52.960 that game and we were making the chips and we made the colored beads so it was all like these plastic

00:12:58.560 mold injectors the color beach for like what mardi gras or something yeah my idea or people just buy

00:13:02.880 them and for their uh crafts and stuff like that all they're like a hundred different colors yeah and

00:13:07.920 i could never remember the color after i backed boxed it up and get ready to send it to omeka i'd be like

00:13:13.600 oh i'm sister but brown green oh i put something down and then the guy would come back you can't be

00:13:19.280 be yelling at me you can't send these out and i'm laughing he's like what are you laughing about

00:13:24.080 i mean i'm making three dollars an hour dude i remember one time i ate a bunch of mushrooms or

00:13:29.920 whatever after school yeah and i worked at this mail center right my job was to mail out these

00:13:35.440 insurance forms to these different companies around the country while i'm in the mail room dude

00:13:40.000 i'm not doing real good oh i could imagine yeah well my body had gotten really hot so i took all my clothes

00:13:45.680 off and yeah and uh i mailed my put all my clothes into a box mailed mailed mailed them to some place

00:13:52.960 oh my god that's great dude my first girlfriend her mom got me that job her her dad uh shout out mr

00:13:59.440 earl he was a fire chief actually oh really yep and uh but anyway i got laid off um and yeah the mother

00:14:07.520 had to come thank god it was a day it was raining because she let me borrow a raincoat she had so i could

00:14:11.840 go get in my car yeah wow so anyway we made some tough choices over the years

00:14:16.640 but uh but i did have a good time they were stayed they had a firehouse down there on choppa toolis

00:14:21.440 in new orleans and it would be great because the mardi gras parades were down there so we'd go down

00:14:25.600 there and the firehouse would be open on days like that and all this must have been an old firehouse

00:14:30.080 too it was beautiful yeah i think bring it right up it's right down there off of choppa toolis over

00:14:33.920 there and um that was it right there to uh oh i see it that's like they made it into something yeah

00:14:39.520 they made it into something wow but yeah anyway it was a great time and it was a great time we'd go

00:14:43.680 over there everybody's cooking hot dogs yeah and just you know just having a great time you know

00:14:48.080 that was a beautiful time oh the cajun yeah we had so much fun man i'll bet so how do you get into

00:14:53.040 there man how do you get so you're you're over there making jewelry and stuff well the funny part

00:14:57.760 is they sent me to this place called stonewell plastics in mineola and i go in and i got this

00:15:04.080 little mexican guy he's doing the interview with me he's got it's like middle-aged little guy he's got a

00:15:08.640 little pencil mustache you know so i'm sitting there i'm 18 you know and he goes so uh what's

00:15:14.640 your name and i said uh tony bonfiglio he writes it down he says and how old are you tony i said i'm

00:15:21.600 18 writes it down he goes and tony were you born here i said no i was born in new jersey

00:15:28.720 he starts laughing oh oh you'll do you'll do

00:15:32.240 and when i went back there i realized i was the only american in the place everybody else was

00:15:37.680 foreign oh damn so you're in there learning spanish huh yeah spanish what languages were

00:15:44.240 they yeah who was uh who was mostly spanish yeah yeah there was some black people but

00:15:48.640 even them i didn't understand because some of them from brooklyn i had one friend he would drive

00:15:53.120 me home i would say yeah i'd shake his head and he'd shake his head and we don't know what the hell

00:15:56.960 he was saying dude i still can't understand why i'd be like yeah yeah i mean look bro what he said

00:16:07.040 it's 40 years later something's never changed and maybe it's for the best you know um so you

00:16:12.400 so you're in here and are you just like this in for me or how do the winds how do the winds blow you

00:16:17.840 over to the fire world well then i went my father got me into the printing union the amalgamated

00:16:22.400 lithographers of america local one wow and i did that for about four years but i took the fire

00:16:28.240 department test when i was 18 i was 19 and like 78 and was that part of school you had to take it

00:16:34.480 no my neighbor came over and he came in our back door with an application johnny la lima thank god

00:16:40.960 johnny saved my life gives me the application he says you'll never get rich on this job but it'll put

00:16:46.640 a roof over your head and food on your table so i'm sitting at my kitchen table i'm like okay johnny

00:16:52.000 thanks you know i had no idea it was going to be the biggest career move of my life dude what

00:16:56.480 yeah what made him even come over there and do that i wonder i guess he knew i was going nowhere

00:16:59.840 because he was my neighbor and they saw us all hanging out all the time you know yeah i figured this

00:17:04.400 kid'd be a fireman it'll be all right yeah so thank god i mean he saved me because see i was going

00:17:10.560 the printing union was going south you know computers were coming in yeah and you know they weren't

00:17:16.080 printing anymore on these big printing presses so so i got that and then uh about a year later i

00:17:22.720 took a physical test after the written test the written test we took in a high school somewhere

00:17:27.920 in queens and was there a lot of people taking those tests at the time 40 000 40 000 people wanted to be

00:17:34.480 firemen yeah wow yeah because the the job i think in a lot of ways it's a very family like it's a like

00:17:41.360 it's a lineage job it's like a lot of families do it definitely um and there's a lot of esteem with

00:17:46.400 it you know um especially at that time what was it like like was it a very revered position did you

00:17:52.240 even think you could get it get the job yeah yeah i think i you know because i was 19 i was in great

00:17:57.680 shape and the physical test is really where they separate everybody the written test was a joke i mean

00:18:03.520 it was like a third grade questions you know yeah remember any of them or no uh well i you know i saw the

00:18:09.680 the sanitation guy he was saying about the dirt and the shovel with it that's exactly what it was

00:18:14.160 like what would you use a garbage truck a plow or a shovel and brew but ridiculous if you got your

00:18:20.160 name right you know that was it so i got a 98 on the written test probably the highest i ever gotten

00:18:25.360 any test in my life but what was the physical part like like my father took me to east new york to an

00:18:31.120 armory in this real neighborhood and he parked we parked his buick regal was like the nicest car my dad

00:18:38.640 ever had and i bought him these spoke rims for it for his birthday that was nice so we get there and

00:18:44.640 he says here you take the keys i'm running for the subway and you take the car home i'm like yeah you

00:18:49.840 sure that you want to yeah don't worry about it i mean he's an east harlem guy so i wasn't too worried

00:18:54.480 about him so he took off i go in this armory it's like when you get in there it's the size of a football

00:19:00.240 field and there's a hundred guys that day that are going to take the test and they break you up into

00:19:05.360 like 10 10 men groups and you go around all these different stations and you take different uh

00:19:11.440 different tests you had to run one was a mile uh one was an eight-foot wall you had to jump over the

00:19:17.280 eight-foot wall that was like the separator like if you didn't get over the eight-foot wall you went

00:19:21.520 to the police department oh sorry guys hey that's what separated them that's what that's what it is man

00:19:30.880 sometimes you got to separate the beef from the pork you know well the funny part is i got a zero

00:19:35.360 on one of them and if you get a zero on one of those stations you're done you're not gonna get

00:19:40.720 you're not gonna get hired yeah for sure which one was you i had this thing called a ledge walk

00:19:45.840 you had to put on a turnout coat a helmet you had to put boots on you had to put a mask on

00:19:50.320 and you went up on a balance beam next to a wall and you had a slide along the wall like you

00:19:56.080 were shimmying along a ledge it was called the ledge walk i'm shimmying along this thing i'm like

00:20:01.760 why the would i be on a ledge i mean is this job that crazy what am i batman you know i'm gonna be

00:20:06.880 out on the ledge and i went all the way down i touched the line i came all the way back

00:20:12.160 and the woman's scoring me says you didn't touch the line down there uh-uh what i race all the way

00:20:18.160 back touch the line i come back she ran out of time i got a zero i was like ah that's it everything

00:20:25.040 was down the drain so come on you think she just didn't do it correctly i think yeah i do i don't

00:20:30.480 i think she was there to knock some of the white guys out because there was too many white guys on

00:20:35.200 the job which they were complaining about they wanted women they wanted minorities i think they

00:20:40.320 were told because i stepped on the line she wasn't even anywhere near the line no but you know it's like

00:20:45.920 everything happens for a reason you know i mean right and so you you get the zero pissed and so but

00:20:53.360 and there's 10 stations you do fine on the rest of them you get out of there and are you then

00:20:57.200 waiting for your great like do you even like yeah so now now after you get all that done everybody

00:21:02.160 says they're half-assed goodbyes you know i i went back out thank god my father's regal was still there

00:21:07.600 yeah found it found i got into regal i found i had a joint in my my workout bag i lit that sucker up

00:21:15.280 and now i'm driving home we had no directions back then so i'm looking for signs for the l.i.e and

00:21:20.480 boom again home my dad was there how'd you do i said yeah i think i did all right and so now

00:21:26.800 it's the girls have a lawsuit because 40 girls took the test the first 40 girls ever

00:21:32.640 and they didn't pass with 40 000 applicants so you know none of them passed none of them passed

00:21:37.920 were some of the women in there on that day you were there with that 100 people no i didn't see any

00:21:41.520 women wow that that day but we had a couple in my battalion when i got there but uh so anyway they

00:21:48.640 had a lawsuit and this lawsuit went on for six years so i from that time i took the test i didn't

00:21:54.640 get a notice that i was hired for six years because it was because of the women because the

00:21:59.760 lawsuit took so long they usually hire about 2500 people off the list now they had to go deep into

00:22:05.520 the list and because of that zero i was like 4 300 on the list so the women saved me thank god

00:22:11.920 thank you girls i appreciate it yeah because rarely does a complaining woman save you oh she say they

00:22:17.760 saved me that day brenda berkman right brenda berkman everybody knows brenda pioneering female

00:22:22.960 firefighter she was the sole named class she was a lawyer in the federal sex discrimination lawsuit

00:22:28.320 that opened the fire department city new york to women firefighters after she won the lawsuit in 82

00:22:32.960 she and 40 other women became fdny firefighters was that a was that a time where like

00:22:40.240 were people like supportive of the women were they against the women what did that feel like

00:22:43.760 did it feel like they were totally against the women they were oh it was an all-male place you

00:22:48.880 know and yeah and you know i guess a lot of guys they don't feel like they didn't mind the women

00:22:54.240 that uh really passed the test but to just get on because you're a woman that was not you know today

00:23:00.320 now they have girls you know there's so much into athletics and stuff they could pass these tests

00:23:05.920 now but back then you know it wasn't like that so some of it they were just kind of stacking the

00:23:10.240 deck like we're just going to put some extra girls in because some of that's just a liability

00:23:12.960 that's it they went well yeah life and death yeah and a liability for their own life that too yeah

00:23:18.400 but i mean if your kid is trapped in a fire you know you want the best person going to get that

00:23:22.960 kid not uh you know somebody that didn't make it yeah for sure 100 i agree but they saved me and

00:23:28.480 and i'm the luckiest guy for that so you're in huh i'm in you made it in yeah and do you remember

00:23:33.920 like like when you do you get a letter that's like yeah i'm in yeah you got it and does it have

00:23:38.320 flames my wife my wife came uh i come pulling up in the parking lot from the working at mastercraft

00:23:43.840 litho and i had a little chevette we both shared this little chevette car that my wife bought on

00:23:49.680 her own when we were kids and uh i see her coming across the uh the parking lot with a wave in the

00:23:56.960 i said what is it she goes to fire department watch six years oh fire department watch you they're

00:24:01.600 gonna hire you i said holy i looked at it yeah tony bonfiglio new york city fireman report to randall's

00:24:07.600 island or 823 something 84 i'll be there that's pretty cool huh yeah oh my god i was so happy oh

00:24:16.640 she was happy she was happy i was happy where did you and where did you where did you meet your wife

00:24:21.360 christine i i met her i know she's here with us today where did you meet your wife at well i on my

00:24:26.000 block i was walking up my block in our neighborhood and she her and her sister just moved in from the

00:24:31.440 bronx they they were in the marble hill projects they were like the last ones out of these projects

00:24:37.200 and uh so i'm going up the block i'm like 14 years old yeah and he's they're coming down

00:24:42.720 with one of my friends and he's like hey these two girls just moved in from the bronx you know

00:24:46.800 chris and bernie and i'm like hey first of all i was like thought he was pulling my leg but

00:24:51.360 so that was like where we met and then you know we went through school we didn't really date until we

00:24:55.440 were like 18. hey there we are yeah that's a great shot yeah yeah it was like size 32 waist back then

00:25:05.280 hey look i'm looking at christine okay yeah she's looking good yeah yeah you can say what i'm not

00:25:10.480 looking at your waist buddy yeah we were we were you know we were like 24 years old there i i was

00:25:15.840 just getting out of the academy that's graduation day i'm graduated from there after six weeks of

00:25:21.360 training oh that's nice huh yeah yeah dude you look pretty pleased so the funny part is they give

00:25:26.880 us your assignment you know so i get this thing 34 truck now like 150 firemen only 10 are going to go

00:25:35.040 to trucks the other 140 are going to go to engine companies there's an engine company they're the

00:25:40.080 water they got the hoses and then there's the truck that's the ladders and the you know they they

00:25:45.040 they break down the doors the ledge walkers the ledge walkers so i didn't want to go to a truck i

00:25:51.440 was like real i didn't like the heights i didn't like the ropes yeah that's what i'm sure look i got

00:25:55.760 a zero on the ledge walk yeah you got the wrong guy so uh so and why did they choose you for that then

00:26:03.280 i have no idea my father said they saw how good i was at breaking things that they said they sent him

00:26:08.480 to the truck so now i see a truck in manhattan i'm like oh man all right so i tell her i says i got

00:26:16.960 i'm going to a 34 truck they gave me a truck she's like they gave me a truck i'm like yeah because most

00:26:22.080 guys are in the engine for like maybe five ten years before they get to a truck and so in the

00:26:27.040 engine means they're in the actual fire engine they're in the engine and they're they're a separate

00:26:31.440 company you know their engine a4 and i we were allowed a 3-4 it was a big 100 year old firehouse

00:26:37.520 and so a ladder they do different stuff than the engine does yeah the engine puts the fire out

00:26:42.400 okay the ladder opens up opens up the door breaks the doors down opens cuts the roofs open makes all

00:26:48.160 the rescues and the searches it's a lot more intimidating because you don't have the hose line

00:26:53.520 you're actually in there crawling around with no water no water maybe a can on your back what yeah

00:27:00.320 i was a can man for quite a while and that's heating up quick probably yeah so you get in a ladder

00:27:05.280 and where's the ladder at what's that like 161st street in manhattan and on or for answer damn

00:27:11.200 avenue place called washington heights washington heights yeah yeah a lot of dominicans up there

00:27:15.520 oh my god when i got there they were just coming in yeah and they took over with blood man they

00:27:21.360 they killed everybody really oh they took over the drug business because that was the hub you had the

00:27:26.720 gw bridge right there you had all the parkways to head out to north brooklyn out to long island so

00:27:32.720 everybody would come in and buy their crack and their cocaine yeah so it was it was badass i mean

00:27:37.760 they would be shooting all day long was it exciting it was yeah oh my god and the place was so crowded

00:27:43.920 it was like full of people with these old broken down tenement buildings brownstones tenements all

00:27:50.240 broken down hundred years old the firehouse was a hundred years old did you feel was it exciting to

00:27:56.400 go work there did it feel scary like what did it kind of become but the funny part i was gonna say is

00:28:00.640 that i went with my wife from the graduation i said we got to go it's on 84th street i told her i

00:28:07.280 didn't realize that was 84 engine when i read the thing so i take her into manhattan and i take her down

00:28:13.120 84th street and there's no firehouse i go all the way back up to the west side i come all the way down

00:28:18.800 there's no fire and we're saying wow this is nice look at this is all money brownstones high-end stores

00:28:25.040 guys finally i go around 85th street and i find a firehouse and i got my uniform on and they tell

00:28:31.040 you to not always knock on the door and say probary probationary firefighter bonfiglio this old guy

00:28:37.040 answered the door what can i do for you probing you right away i was a probie just by looking at me

00:28:41.680 with the stuff on i said i'm looking for my firehouse 34 truck they said it's on 84th street he's like wow let

00:28:47.520 me look at that he's like dude you're in with 84 engine and you're on 161st street i was like

00:28:54.560 why holy shit i had to get in the car and tell my wife we got to go up to 100 and now we left the

00:29:00.800 glitz and now we're in this freaking rundown neighborhood it was like holy music's a little

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00:30:55.760 visit www.ncpgambling.org so you're in there you're in the ladder um truck company yeah ladder

00:31:03.440 company you're in the truck company you guys are the ones that go in so you have more of an axe and

00:31:08.400 you do a hose we got a forcible entry team okay a roof man and another guy that's called the ov

00:31:14.240 he's to be he vents out the outside he goes up the fire escapes oh yeah peeping tom probably yeah yeah

00:31:19.360 yeah yeah you're the guy the first guy in to breaking the window in yeah or just sitting there

00:31:23.840 by it you know i won't say nothing oh so you do you guys get there before the uh the the like an

00:31:31.760 engine gets there or is it just does that try to get there at the same time you never know i mean if

00:31:35.680 we're leaving quarters together you know we always let the engine take off first hopefully they go and

00:31:40.720 find a hydrant okay got it and we try to get in front of the building with the ladder okay okay got it

00:31:45.360 so so take me on on your first fire my first fire well i've been like car fires rubbish fires

00:31:53.840 we had water leaks so many water leaks because it was such an old neighborhood you know when we go

00:31:58.080 to a water leak we got to find out where it's leaking sometimes we got to break into the apartment

00:32:02.960 gas leaks we did everything all the utilities up there so i doing it for about three weeks i'm

00:32:08.240 still wondering oh my god what's gonna happen with a job am i gonna what's it gonna be like i

00:32:12.960 still have no idea you know i'm i'm a can man the probie gets the can okay and the can means what

00:32:18.800 i got a fire extinguisher with a strap on my back and i got a hook and i'm gonna be the guy that if

00:32:24.880 i can put out whatever fire i can with the can oh is is it actually helpful is the can helpful

00:32:31.520 it'll put out if a good can man could maybe put out a room of fire okay okay you get your finger

00:32:36.720 over that thing it's you spread it around so it's real it's real yeah okay got it do you remember the

00:32:42.480 the uh day that you get your first five yeah it was like three weeks in and i'm doing my first

00:32:47.680 12-by watch so you have a house watch you know and you got a man somebody's got a man it it's got

00:32:52.560 a computer in there that comes on and tells you what your alarms are and you acknowledge them you

00:32:57.440 hit all the lights you send the companies out so i gotta do my first 12-by so i've i never done

00:33:03.200 a watch alone yet so the 12-by was like you know it was a little scary at first and that's 12 hours

00:33:08.320 no 12 to 3 you do three hour watch okay so 12 o'clock came i went in i took the book over

00:33:15.360 it's midnight and i'm sitting there and it's like one o'clock in the morning and all of a sudden

00:33:22.000 like 1 30 i start falling asleep i'm like sleeping look i've had a job before i know how it is i'm

00:33:29.280 sacked out and all of a sudden the alarm goes off the computer that goes it starts ticking out this

00:33:35.200 alarm i'm like oh my god i was so scared i got up i hit the house watch light i'm looking at the

00:33:40.800 ticket it says engine a4 ladder three four first two fire on an eighth floor so now i got to hit

00:33:46.160 all the bunk room lights i got to hit the intercom say everybody goes i got to hit the three bells and

00:33:52.000 then i got to acknowledge on the computer both companies 10-4 and then i got to take the tickets

00:33:56.800 and put them on the truck side and the engine side and then i put my gear on and out the door we go

00:34:02.320 let's go tony i'm amped up oh man so now we get there it's 3 30 quarter to four in the morning

00:34:09.040 and it's like a projects building about 11 stories it was pretty decent building it was on answer damn

00:34:14.720 avenue and uh so we're the forcible entry team me my lieutenant who was this salty guy from the bronx

00:34:21.680 spinelli he was like a real i mean he was the war days you know back in the 60s and the 70s how salty

00:34:28.400 salty means you know like yeah oh yeah yes he was salty yeah burly mustache unruly hair

00:34:34.240 the gout and his smile it's all bent and burnt oh yeah dude definitely great guy though yeah it's

00:34:40.160 like he was raised in an ashtray oh yeah oh this guy yeah so we're the forceful entry teams the cam

00:34:46.480 man and irons man he's got an axe and a halligan and the boss and we're the three guys so now we go

00:34:52.320 into the lobby door and we hit all the buzzes 3 30 in the morning and there's people in there

00:34:58.000 sleeping yeah no they're they're in there so all of a sudden they start but who is it who is it you're

00:35:02.320 like fire department open the door open the door fire department so they buzz you in now go in the

00:35:07.200 lobby nothing's showing nobody's bailing out you know so i'm like i don't know so this might not be it

00:35:13.360 take an elevator to the seventh floor because the fire was on the eighth floor so we get to the seventh

00:35:18.400 floor and you never take the fire the elevator to the fire floor for obvious reasons so we take it

00:35:23.520 and we take the stairs to the eighth floor and we get in this hallway and now it's like a big projects

00:35:28.560 hallway i don't know if you ever seen one of them but they're painted green and they got like fluorescent

00:35:32.880 lights and it's long so we go to all the doors and we stick our noses in the jams trying to smell

00:35:39.200 smoke we don't smell nothing so the boss says to my friend jimmy the duke he says go up to the next

00:35:45.680 floor and check it out calls down the battalion says yeah we got nothing showing on the eighth

00:35:50.560 floor we're going to check out the ninth floor so with that now we go into the hallway and my friend

00:35:56.160 is on the top of the stairs and he says lou i think we got something so i'm like oh this is it

00:36:01.520 i'm in this project hallway caught at four in the morning i'm running up the steps with my hook and

00:36:06.320 everything and there i and i said the boss says what do we have and the duke opens this door and i was

00:36:13.360 like oh my god if there was a gate to hell this was it okay black shimmering smoke that looked like

00:36:20.880 satin curtains just going in all different directions and my first thought was no way we're

00:36:25.840 fucking going in there right i see these guys hey look let me see a two-bedroom yeah this won't work for

00:36:33.920 us yeah they're pulling their boots up and they're putting their air they're turning air bottles on and

00:36:38.640 everything i'm like oh shit this is it so now we're getting down on our hands and knees and uh

00:36:43.520 the duke tells me you you hold my coat okay and i'm like yeah sure i'm holding your coat so you're

00:36:49.440 behind him crawling behind the duke the boss goes in first like this black abyss we just crawl into on

00:36:55.280 the floor what are you looking for the fire apartment oh we got to find it oh so you this is

00:37:00.720 just the hallway the hallway oh somebody left their door open pull up that hallway you had nick is that

00:37:05.840 the one from the actual building oh this is a general one yeah i think i know what you're

00:37:10.000 talking about though it's narrow hallways narrow hallways long green yeah look at that color

00:37:15.120 yellowish green that looked just like that oh god so now we're on our hands and knees and i'm i've got

00:37:21.200 his coat i got the can on my back i got my mask on and we're in total blackness and i'm crawling down

00:37:28.160 like a hundred feet and i'm saying in my mask i'm saying what the fuck am i doing here yeah this is

00:37:34.400 fucking crazy i'm never going to do this again i felt so helpless and what am i going to do it's

00:37:39.600 pitch black we're crawling in a hallway we never been before yeah dude oh yeah so we crawl up and

00:37:45.760 then all of a sudden we the duke stops and he says we're at the fire door and i'm like oh okay

00:37:51.600 can't see nothing yeah it almost seems like some kind of sex trafficking or something they

00:37:57.040 whatever's anyway whatever's going on it sounds kind of out of sorts you know it's out of

00:38:00.800 so anyway so carry on sorry so it's something that i'd never i'm like i'm not doing i'm quitting

00:38:04.800 in the morning i swear to god i was quitting i was like what are we going to do in here well yeah

00:38:09.840 we don't can't see i'm on the ground

00:38:14.000 so finally we call in and and i crawl in and and i hear the boss he's up ahead of us in the

00:38:19.440 apartment already he says bring the can in here so now i crawl past the duke i'm on my hands and knees

00:38:26.160 and about 10 feet up i see the boss on his knees with a glow of the fire he goes you see the fire

00:38:33.200 it's to the left and i look and there's a room on fire it looks like cotton candy the flames are like

00:38:39.680 all over the place and how much is it protecting you how much is your suit protecting you at that

00:38:43.680 point nah nothing no i didn't take it off bro yeah no they know they're just coats you know to keep

00:38:51.040 you warm basically they got your leather helmet on keep you warm but and at that point does it

00:38:58.560 kind of take on like do you start to feel a little bit more empowered kind of or something no i felt

00:39:02.080 scared i just wanted to get out of there and get this fire over with so now i see him and he says do

00:39:07.760 you see the fire and i look to the left and i said yeah i see the fire i'm in this mask you know

00:39:13.680 and he says hit it with the can i got the can and i'm on my knees and i i go to hit it and nothing

00:39:20.160 comes out i hit it again nothing comes out i didn't have air in the can it's like a total

00:39:25.920 fuck up for you should have put it in there that's my fuck up oh my first job so i said to the boss i

00:39:33.040 got no air in the can i've used that excuse a lot of times a lot of times over the years buddy i'll tell

00:39:39.200 you that and i want to apologize to a lot of his women out there uh but yeah yeah that was my excuse

00:39:45.040 i got no air in the can you know that's a good analogy yeah i got a ladder issue but go on fully

00:39:51.920 extended fuck you must have been embarrassed huh i wasn't embarrassed but yeah i felt like oh man i'm

00:39:57.280 gonna catch some shit for this did you like just make a sound like you had here like i didn't make

00:40:04.000 no sounds as i could believe it because i mean you always check the can you know you got to pressurize

00:40:08.960 it put a little water so he says all right back out to the doorway so i pad now the fire is coming

00:40:15.920 out over our heads in the hallway and i get to the door we came in crawling and the elevator was right

00:40:22.320 across from the apartment fire apartment and the door opens and there's 84 engine without a mask on or

00:40:28.880 anything they got they took the elevator to the fire floor and they got stuck and they're going down on

00:40:34.400 their knees and they're trying to put their masks on and i'm in i'm yelling in my mask i'm like

00:40:39.360 get the fucking line in here and put the fucking fire i'm screaming i'm like out of my mind now

00:40:45.520 so finally they get in the line now it's black again and the line is the is the hose the hose okay

00:40:51.280 and it's all asses and elbows now in this hallway you know that's what we call organized confusion

00:40:57.200 and everybody sort of bringing the line past me i see him get up to the the apartment the the uh

00:41:03.120 the room and the boss says there's the fire to the left he crack i hear the line crack you know

00:41:08.560 get the water comes up he cracks it and now he hits it you know and he starts pushing the fire in

00:41:14.000 and i squeeze past them because i got to search the apartment that's my job so and you're searching

00:41:19.440 for to see if there's anybody in the bodies yeah wow so now i'm searching along the wall and still

00:41:24.560 can't see and i'd get to a window and i'd smash it out with my hook and i would stick my head out

00:41:30.080 the window because this is the first time i could see again since we left that stairwell you know you

00:41:34.880 gotta get some fresh air fresh air and some view of something yeah so then i go around and then all

00:41:41.040 of a sudden they they knocked it down fast and i run into the duke the irons man he's like yo

00:41:46.880 probie you broke your cherry man congratulations and i was like wow i took my mask off it was kind of

00:41:52.640 like still gray smoke and steamy but it was better than the mask you know because that was so confined

00:41:58.560 so i said yeah jimmy i said my first fire but i this might be my last fire i said i don't know

00:42:03.200 if i'm doing this again and there we were we overhauled the apartment and we threw the mattress

00:42:08.800 out the window we took everything out through the street down into the street and who's down

00:42:13.440 there catching that you just hitting whoever that's free back then like nobody who gives a

00:42:17.280 shit yeah just hopefully nobody's down there you yell out look out and then you throw the

00:42:21.680 burning mattress out the window oh shit i'll throw my ex-wife out that bitch you know don't let's take

00:42:28.000 that out let's take that out and then i'm looking out this window and it's encrusted with all these

00:42:32.880 embers and shit you know like gold and amber and everything and it was like 5 30 in the morning

00:42:38.000 and the manhattan skyline was turning purple so i had all this beautiful thing i was learning i was like

00:42:43.040 wow this is some sight you know excuse me yeah yeah it was definitely rock and roll man i was like

00:42:49.360 yeah so now i had to get back and i put the air in the can when i got back changed all the masks and

00:42:55.520 everything now i had to go up and see the boss you know take my medicine so i walk up to the truck

00:43:01.360 office and i knock on the door it's open he says yeah come in he's wiping his face down with a towel he

00:43:07.360 just came out of the bathroom i said i may like puppy eyes i said uh lou i'm sorry about not having

00:43:14.160 air in the can and he's like wiping his face he goes yeah don't worry about it kid shit happens and

00:43:18.400 i was like oh oh wow thank you i was 23 years old you know i'm so now i'm walking out and he goes

00:43:25.440 hey kid and i turn around he goes you did a good job and i was like oh wow that's awesome yeah and

00:43:31.600 then i'm driving home saying am i quitting this fucking job because it was like it was like nothing

00:43:36.480 i've ever experienced and i i growing up i did a lot of crazy things but this was the scariest

00:43:41.600 they ever did but yet it was so exciting and thrilling i mean i got home and the grass was so

00:43:47.840 greener the sky was so blue and the air that i was breathing was so appreciate you were alive i was

00:43:54.160 alive man it made me i was like wow that was something of course that wasn't my last job i went 21

00:43:59.840 years more after that so what kind of like made you decide you just have to go back to work and it just

00:44:04.880 kept being like that or like yeah no like you know yeah you know we were busy truck back then

00:44:09.920 because we had a lot of fires a lot of occupied fires which are really they're a lot more intense

00:44:16.080 than a vacant fire or you know something like that you know you got a lot of people bailing out and

00:44:20.480 they're sometimes they're trapped and you know you got to get to them the truck that's their job

00:44:25.280 you know what someone said hearing you say this and like thanks so much for your time tony too i

00:44:28.880 appreciate it man thank you for the this is like an honor oh thanks kidding me yeah you guys are

00:44:33.760 pioneers you know you're the millennial pioneers with entertainment these days i think you changed

00:44:40.160 the whole scene oh well i just i think it's like people just we got to find more humans that have

00:44:45.520 the best stories you know exactly it was so crazy we're just like we're coming in new york and we just

00:44:50.400 get an email from you the other day that you had seen that we put out a thing about uh

00:44:54.480 uh about looking for somebody that works in in a fire department and uh my producer's access

00:45:00.480 forwards it to me he's like can you believe we just this guy we're gonna be there i was like

00:45:04.560 wow seems really interesting so i think it was meant to be hey i think so too and i think i was about

00:45:09.520 to say i think it was meant to be that your first fire didn't have any nobody was in it yeah because

00:45:14.320 that would have that could have been super scary yeah yeah oh yeah take me through like some of the

00:45:18.640 times where there was somebody in there like how much of a different scenario is that is the energy

00:45:23.360 different when you get there who lets you know if somebody's in there or do you even know like

00:45:28.320 take me through that process of like right when you get there and then take me into one of like a fire

00:45:34.400 where it was um inhabited well one well this one fire where i uh we we lost this little girl and that

00:45:41.360 that one really hurt me a lot because uh we got to the apartment and my my lieutenant he was a little

00:45:48.560 irish guy the bravest guy i've ever met the lieutenant maloney and i would chase him up to

00:45:54.560 the fire of the door the caller and he would knock on the door with his little crowbar fire department

00:45:59.200 opened the door you know it sounded like some cartoon you know the irish broke so these people

00:46:04.400 open the doors and we walk in and there's a card table sitting there about eight people playing cards

00:46:11.520 they're eating we're standing in the kitchen the three of us and they were like my lieutenant says

00:46:17.840 what the hell did you call the fire department so they're looking up they're like yeah i think

00:46:22.240 something's burning in the back it was a big apartment so we're like looking at each other

00:46:26.960 something burning in the back what the hell is this so now we go down the hallway my lieutenant's

00:46:31.440 cursing under his breath you know he's like all these oddies motherfucking fucking shit

00:46:35.760 yeah they're still playing cards so now we get it's fun though cards can be fun they were but we

00:46:41.040 get into the living room and there's like these french doors i don't know if you know the french

00:46:44.960 doors probably from uh is it like that kind of glass paneled and they they like two doors you open

00:46:50.640 to a room they're called french doors you think there's gonna be somebody french in there but there

00:46:54.720 ain't yeah no french people there never is dude that never is typical french you'll send the

00:47:00.000 doors we'll be there they're not typically french so anyway i uh i opened the french door and the

00:47:07.120 room is on fire like holy close the door we get down on our knees start putting our masks on

00:47:15.120 and we're calling 1075 that means we got a working fire he's telling the battalion you know the engine

00:47:20.160 now they're coming up with the line so right before they got the line i says all right guys it's right

00:47:25.680 here i put my mask on i said show time and i went to open the uh the french doors and i get a call

00:47:32.400 over the handy talkie there's a kid in the room my friend the ov is with the mother out in the street

00:47:39.440 so now we bust into these doors they're hitting thank god we had the water hitting them and i'm

00:47:44.720 frantically looking for this kid in the dark in black smoke i'm on the bed i'm i'm feeling all over

00:47:50.720 the bed i want i gotta find this kid and is it mostly feeling how far can you see i don't see

00:47:55.280 anything you don't put tape over your eyes it's nothing and you're feeling with gloves on too

00:48:00.080 yeah sometimes gloves sometimes you forget your gloves but yeah

00:48:06.320 back then we were like less you less equipment better you want to get in you want to get in you

00:48:11.920 want to get out quick too no that sounds like a guy who forgot his equipment ah yeah that's that's

00:48:16.560 all the air in the can yeah put some air in your can tony that's always that guy's excuse you know

00:48:22.320 but that's a great attitude to take like nah guys if there's air in this can we're going to be here

00:48:26.480 all afternoon yeah yeah we're in and out of this i could have probably put that maybe put it out with

00:48:30.160 the can but anyway so the engine i'm in there i'm going around and finally i'm going around the wall

00:48:35.520 i could feel i'm sorry i'm under the bed feeling around trying to find this kid and i get to a window

00:48:41.680 i break the window out and i look out the window and i see my irons man that was with me he's in the

00:48:47.200 street with the kid a limp limp kid you know and they're taking the kid they open the battalion car

00:48:52.560 door he throw they go in there and they rushed off the columbia presbyterian how'd the kid get out

00:48:57.600 no he carried she was unconscious oh he found she didn't make it she she didn't the kid was dead

00:49:02.320 unfortunately she was burnt uh they tried to revive her at the hospital but it didn't work

00:49:09.040 so i'm i'm overhauling now and i see my lieutenant and i said uh i just saw jeff in the street with

00:49:15.440 the kid he's like ah anthony the kid was right there behind the door and i was like oh i was crushed man

00:49:22.320 i shut that door i felt like i killed that kid you know so uh we go to presbyteria oh so before we leave

00:49:30.240 now the deputy shows up because now we got a 1045 which is a body and he's like uh what happened here

00:49:37.120 and we're in this apartment the people are still playing cards so my lieutenant says well we came

00:49:42.640 up to the apartment and i said i'll tell you what happened and now the deputy looks at me you know i

00:49:46.960 go you see these motherfuckers over here i said they didn't bother to fucking tell us there might be a

00:49:51.760 a kid in that back room and i'm throwing f-bombs at him and the deputy says uh lieutenant you better

00:49:57.280 control your man so the boss puts his arm around my shoulder he says come on come on anthony he called

00:50:02.960 me anthony that's anthony in a brogue anthony let's go down to the street you know and we went down to

00:50:08.640 the street and we went and we picked up my friend jeff at the hospital i said how'd they make out with

00:50:13.440 the kid he said they were trying to revive her they were bringing it to the burn center

00:50:18.320 so that was the last we heard of but there's no way you could have known that right because you go in

00:50:23.360 and the kid was hiding behind the door you think somebody would tell us there could be a kid back

00:50:27.120 there it's heartbreaking oh man you ever find out why they wouldn't let you know what was going on

00:50:31.040 there i guess there was like an sro bid or something they were renting out that little

00:50:34.960 back room to this woman and a child you know so it was pretty bad and i had a few of those i mean

00:50:42.240 right after i got over was getting over with that one i got another one where uh we showed up without

00:50:48.080 our masks on because it was the middle of the day yeah no i get there was nothing showing we get out

00:50:55.040 and the guy says yeah they're working on the oil burner all day and we had a lot of oil burners you

00:50:59.360 know they would they would they would smoke up so we're like 10 20 says on the box which means all

00:51:04.720 the other companies take your time don't blow the red lights and so now we're heading up to the

00:51:09.600 stairs to the caller's apartment it's you know forcible entry team me lieutenant clipper and this

00:51:15.120 guy jimmy lynch and we get to the door and the woman opens the door and we own the apartment and it's

00:51:20.480 like a slight smoke condition in there but slight so we're like what's what what do we have here so my

00:51:27.200 boss says he was a smart fireman he was from rescue too he said i think we're uh we got something

00:51:32.640 above us usually it's below us you know but this i guess because the light was the smoke was so light

00:51:37.760 so now we get up we don't have no masks or nothing we get to the i see smoke coming out of

00:51:42.160 the doorway you know the locked door in the hallway so i turn around i donkey kicked the door open like

00:51:48.640 three kicks it kicks open and we got a black wall of smoke we're like holy

00:51:53.600 shit now we got after the 10 20 we got to give a 10 75 which means now we have a fire oh so now

00:52:00.160 we're crawling in no mass no mass we're on our bellies was it better or worse without a mask in

00:52:05.440 this worse it was worse yeah because you could feel the heat yeah you know back in the day when

00:52:09.040 they didn't wear masks like in the 60s and the 50s everything was wooden cotton then once the 60s

00:52:15.280 and 70s and everything's vinyl and plastic and it's a whole different smoke you know it's poisonous so

00:52:20.960 it gets a great point right yeah yeah back then you could suck the cotton and the and the wood you

00:52:26.000 know it's like yeah you're probably yeah you're like smoking a pack of cigarettes or you're like

00:52:29.680 hell shit i wish somebody i wish somebody had a couple tobacco plants in here i'd crawl around

00:52:33.600 for another two minutes exactly that's what it was like and things would burn slower back then too

00:52:38.400 wouldn't they well back then yeah but plastics will take off a lot faster god so anyway he crawls in

00:52:45.440 and we're like oh shit we got to go in jimmy goes in ahead of him and i'm the last guy in we're like

00:52:50.720 almost on our bellies crawling in and i hear the horrible words we got bodies i'm like oh my god

00:52:57.520 now we got to give 10 45s so we had 10 20 that means don't come take it easy getting there now we

00:53:04.400 went 10 75 now we got two 10 45s two bodies so with that i get a body a little girl come they pass it

00:53:12.560 back to me and i cry like shimmy out of the apartment because you don't know if she i don't

00:53:17.040 know any i can't see nothing yet i still can't see nothing until i get to the stairwell i knew i had

00:53:22.320 a kid in my arms i see it's a little girl you know face is all darkened so now i'm like oh

00:53:28.320 shit i'm gonna run her down to the ems is gonna take her in the street and i go running down to the

00:53:34.160 street and there's nobody there and all the people are screaming you know they're yelling and

00:53:39.040 screaming and i'm holding this kid and i'm looking around because we gave the 10 20. they take your

00:53:43.600 time there's nobody there yet they're at the malt shop i put the kid down i do cpr on this little

00:53:49.280 girl and i you know i put it down i cup her head and i pretty much all i knew was like a 15 and two

00:53:55.280 you know you get two breaths into her and then you give a 15 and this went on for like 10 minutes

00:54:00.720 before i got relieved and the sound that she was making when the air would come out they call it

00:54:05.600 machine gun breath because it's like and the smell because i had the smell of the burnt lips

00:54:12.800 ah so finally somebody came over and they started taking over and then the ems came

00:54:17.680 after 10 minutes they let me go so now i'm like i'm walking around the sidewalk all these dominicans

00:54:24.240 are very emotional they're all screaming and yelling and crying and some of them probably

00:54:29.360 pray and everything yeah for sure i figured let me go back up to the floor because my the other

00:54:33.920 two guys were working on the mother and when i got there the ems already took over and i was like

00:54:39.920 holy and it was like the first fire we had where the windows didn't break open they were the new windows

00:54:46.000 that the gambino crime family put in and all of manhattan and they didn't break like the old windows so

00:54:51.600 it never got air so it smoldered and they died from the the smoke god and that stayed with me for years

00:55:00.560 i would like sometimes i would smell and taste the the burnt lips and everything and oh it was

00:55:07.280 horrible that's heartbreaking yeah like who do you even talk to for about that kind of stuff do you guys

00:55:13.280 go to some of the services what is some of that like i got back in the firehouse the guys were

00:55:18.400 listening up they knew uh i took my my turnout coat off and uh i just went in i took a shower we all took

00:55:27.120 showers and then the boss says into the office you know let's talk about it so he says you know we did

00:55:33.520 everything we could it really wasn't nothing else we could do i mean not having the mask didn't hamper

00:55:38.160 us at all because we still got the bodies and uh so then i went home my wife heard about it already

00:55:44.480 on the news and uh so when i got home they all greeted me and that was pretty much you know all i got

00:55:50.560 with some nice hugs and some tears at home yeah yeah you get over yeah it takes a while though i

00:55:56.080 mean i had a couple of things i had this uh this junkie that we kept called three times we got called

00:56:02.000 to the sixth floor he kept lighting fires to stay warm in the winter yeah and he was a young black

00:56:07.520 kid you know and uh so we would have to climb up these vacant stairs i had to pop a hole in the in the

00:56:13.840 cinder block walls to get in vacant building and a couple times it's happened yeah oh well it's the

00:56:19.120 first one we go up sixth floor dark cold it's icy it's about 30 degrees out and nice kid i have no

00:56:27.440 idea i got to the back with my and i see my irish lieutenant yelling at him he's like what the

00:56:31.760 you're doing you can't light a fire blah blah and he's sitting there and he was in the corner and i i

00:56:37.920 came in i put my flashlight on him and he was looking at me with these eyes you know and i was

00:56:42.800 like god he had like tombstones in his eyes you know and he was only about 16 17. so we put the

00:56:49.760 fire out we leave two hours later we get called back again go up all gotta climb these stairs six

00:56:56.400 floors no steps just the risers and no lights it's dark so now we climb all the way up again

00:57:04.080 we go through the thing he lit it up again boss is yelling you can't fucking do this he's yelling at

00:57:09.520 him and shit i got the light on him and and uh and the funny part was we just had uh we just

00:57:16.480 said broke into an enterman's cake at the firehouse with the vanilla icing that we would keep in the

00:57:21.920 fridge get it nice and stiff so as my friend jeff in the dark he's putting the fire out i put the

00:57:27.200 light on him and he's still got the vanilla icing on his mustache somebody took a piece for the road

00:57:33.680 jeff huh the boss is yelling at him that's why he's pissed this guy interrupted his dessert oh

00:57:39.440 three companies and a battalion are responding every time and we got chains on it's snowing it's

00:57:44.880 not like no right so you get a lot to get out there so the third time i hear we just we just got back

00:57:51.840 from something we went in our bunks and we get in the bunks and we're like uh a little pillow talk

00:57:57.280 before everybody was sleeping and then before you know it beam boom same box here we go again i hear

00:58:03.600 the boss yelling fuck shit i'll kill that motherfucker dude let him cook at this point

00:58:09.200 we're sliding down the balls this guy's trying to get to heaven you guys keep oh my god you guys keep

00:58:14.080 coming in and ruining his trip third time so we're in the rig and i said to my friend jeff i says let's

00:58:20.880 tell the boss stay under don't even come up the stairs we'll take care of it and surprisingly he

00:58:26.240 agreed so when we got to the door i says lou we'll take care of you stay down here so me and jeff go

00:58:31.600 up though my light my light my die hard battery died on me so i had like no light left i'm trying

00:58:37.280 to follow jeff's light and we're going up just on the rises and then there's no platform so you got

00:58:42.160 to like lean over your step to get on and when you get to the fifth or sixth floor you're looking

00:58:46.320 down at this skeleton staircase what yeah so now we go in go through the dark apartment again he's in

00:58:52.640 there again now he's got candles burning because we broke his bucket up smashed it all up so we're

00:58:59.360 like holy shit so now uh jeff is like leaning into him and he says listen you can't fucking do this

00:59:06.240 anymore and jeff's like the good cop you know i'm the bad cop so i i lean into him i look at him i says

00:59:13.200 we come back here again i'm throwing you out that fucking window and he just looked at me you know

00:59:19.760 and that was it that was the last time we went back we left there we took his candles but years

00:59:26.000 later i would see that kid's face looking at me and it made me feel so bad a wasted life like that

00:59:31.920 you know heroin he had the the works everything that's scary and the fact that he kept going back

00:59:39.360 to do it it's just that power of addiction you know it was cold oh well i guess they keep you

00:59:44.720 warm up yeah he was in a vacant yeah oh yeah a lot of like that vacants were disgusting

00:59:52.160 because it's just anybody could be doing they're doing anything huh squatters yeah they're shitting

00:59:57.200 on the floor drugs needles and you're crawling around in there because you still have to save them

01:00:03.520 oh yeah yeah vacant fires yeah do you start to develop a certain like uh

01:00:10.160 attitudes towards humanity or drug users or society absolutely call them skills they're all

01:00:16.480 skills yeah to us back then you know and uh matter of fact on my block we had a tight block 161st street

01:00:26.320 and we had a bodega a uh a gypsy cab dispatcher a whorehouse and bunch of drug apartments yeah and it

01:00:34.880 was a busy block and we had two guys on the block that were almost there the whole time i was there

01:00:40.080 and they were the lookouts and one guy was uh bald and we called him eight ball and the other guy always

01:00:46.160 had a hat and we called him the hat so and the funny part was they would watch our cars for us so nobody

01:00:51.520 would break into the cars and shit but you know i mean i would see every agency there is come down and

01:00:58.400 radar block through the years i was there atf manhattan uh tactical north uh uh cia i mean

01:01:08.560 everything i tell you who was the bit the worst ones was the fbi yeah they come down with machine guns

01:01:15.200 and i've never seen anybody that and then they clear the street they they hit all the apartments

01:01:20.480 it's amazing i bet they were all just visiting that whorehouse

01:01:23.120 outside that whorehouse yeah i would i would inspect it now and then i'd go in there with my hat and

01:01:28.000 the thing and they'd all be looking at me you know be like what the fuck you want you know like i got

01:01:33.280 to inspect this place you know what was it like in some of those joints was it interesting in there

01:01:37.520 was it just women trying to just survive most of those just some middle-aged young not too young

01:01:42.400 dominican women i guess they took care of the the cab drivers and stuff and they had the different

01:01:48.160 rooms you know everybody had their little bed in there just trying to see and i would inspect it you

01:01:52.720 know okay i got you you got condoms the condoms are here making sure the alarm works ladies yeah

01:02:00.000 they would be like come on some of them were the other the prostitutes would be like get the

01:02:03.840 out of here man you know they'd be up all night they didn't want nothing to do with me oh i'm sure

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01:04:29.360 better h-e-l-p.com slash t-h-e-o that would be the wildest thing for me would just be like

01:04:37.920 the access you get see dude i remember one time i'm in kansas city right and i guess somebody started a

01:04:44.400 fire right and i'd be like as a comedian you go to different hotels you're always in hotels over the

01:04:49.200 years and i got to the point where every now like you know every seven weeks somebody'd start a fire

01:04:55.360 pull an alarm right and so in the middle of the night you got to go downstairs and be outside so

01:04:58.960 i finally decided for myself i'm gonna wait because yeah i'm not going out there there was never it was

01:05:02.800 never a good fire right right so i was like i'm waiting out there for 45 minutes or whatever while

01:05:06.960 they see if there's a fire or not so i finally said i'm staying in the room until i smell smoke or

01:05:12.800 whatever so one time i'm in there i just made this big sandwich dude it was really good it was

01:05:19.440 one of the better ones i've probably ever made in my life and a guy yeah i remember this big

01:05:26.400 fireman with an axe comes in or just opens my door and the alarm had been going off for a while

01:05:31.680 um and he's looking he's looking for me and i was like is there a fire

01:05:35.280 you know i miss something yeah he's like you got to get out of here i was like bro i every week

01:05:41.200 they doing this shit i'm not going right i eat it all the time yeah but that's the cry wolf thing

01:05:45.840 too though you know oh for sure i knew it was on me yeah yeah hey if it's bad come back right

01:05:51.120 now right and i think he's like fuck you you know i don't blame him yeah that's that's a fireman

01:05:56.000 attitude yeah and it should it should be hey come back if i'm gonna burn you know yeah exactly uh yeah

01:06:01.760 there's just a lot of pressure yeah like immediately i was putting all the pressure on this

01:06:05.040 guy um but yeah what what were some of the environments you went into like did you ever

01:06:09.440 just walk into an environment like oh well this is crazy or like um like a drug den or like a um

01:06:15.760 oh plenty of drug dens i mean every building had a drug apartment where they would sell drugs oh yeah

01:06:21.760 yeah but this one fire that i went to it was a it was in the middle of the day it was like the second

01:06:27.360 floor we pull up fire's blowing out four windows i mean it was going good and uh so we run out now

01:06:34.720 we're second due which means we go to the floor above the fire so the first due truck has the fire

01:06:40.400 floor second due goes to the floor above which the floor above is really shitty because that's where

01:06:45.440 the heat's going up that's where everything's going you know so now we get up the staircase and

01:06:49.840 it's starting to bank down and get dark and uh i see a guy runs past me no shirt on no shoes

01:06:56.000 he's got like a three-year-old kid under his arm and a hefty bag oh yeah so a politician probably

01:07:02.560 so he slips by us you know so now we're going to take the door in the hallway above the fire apartment

01:07:07.840 and it's getting smoky and my boss puts his mask on but we have to take the door so

01:07:12.320 i wanted to see a little bit so i'm hitting the act you know the guy's got the halogen in the door

01:07:17.280 jam and i'm smashing it with an axe and he's trying to get a bite on the jam to bust the door open

01:07:23.120 so finally we get it we bust the door open we put our masks on and we go in and we're crawling

01:07:28.480 around and the engine company did a good job they knocked the fire down pretty fast you know

01:07:33.120 so as we're crawling around it's starting the the black smoke's starting to go away and it's getting

01:07:38.400 lighter and i'm i'm on the floor and i'm i bump into a uh a dresser i'm like oh now i can start to

01:07:45.760 see a little bit i put my light on the dresser all the drawers are open stacks of hundreds and

01:07:51.120 fifty dollar bills every drawer i mean no 20s no it was all coke money yeah and i'm like oh my god

01:07:59.600 you know i'm i'm still like a i'm like my one year there so i'm oh yeah i'm gonna i'm a junior

01:08:05.120 man you're like i gotta get something for christine well that's it you know i got an angel and a devil

01:08:10.880 on my shoulders and they're fighting it out you know i'm looking at we're in smoke so i mean it

01:08:15.040 ain't like a setup nobody's ever gonna know so i'm thinking oh my god i could buy myself a new

01:08:21.280 harley with that money you know and then i was like the the angel would be like oh you buy the

01:08:25.600 new harley and you're gonna crash and you'll get paralyzed and i'm like oh that could happen

01:08:30.640 so now i told the senior man i said eddie come here look in the straws yeah bring another guy in

01:08:35.280 now man you know and he's like holy shit tony he's like what are we gonna do here oh eddie's

01:08:40.800 setting you up again yeah i'm like you're the senior man you tell me what this is dirty tennis

01:08:46.240 i could have been stacking thousands in my pocket if eddie would have been like hey let's take a

01:08:50.640 little you do you have to i would have yeah yeah you got to yeah i think just to even make sure that

01:08:55.360 it is what it is get it back home right i you know i was young i i had this oh it's dirty money

01:09:00.960 it'll bring me uh bad juju it could have yeah you never know i mean i think that the karma of

01:09:07.200 it who knows yeah you don't know so the boss walks in you know the lieutenant and he's like

01:09:11.520 what do you got and i was like we got all this drawer full of my dresser full of money he's like

01:09:15.600 oh i don't see nothing he was like i don't know if you ever see schultz on hogan's heroes he's like

01:09:20.640 i see nothing he turns around he walks away you know so now we go out and it's still a little

01:09:27.040 smoky but we could see we don't have our masks on and there's another room with a padlock on the door

01:09:34.000 so he's like take the door so he puts the the ads into the halligan and i whack it with the axe yeah

01:09:39.280 the door would bust it open and theo i'm telling you there was like half the coke in manhattan was in

01:09:45.360 there bricks all the way to the ceiling on all sides of the walls a pile of cocaine about 18 inches high

01:09:53.120 on the table we were like holy shit so the boss gets on tell the battalion we got a drug apartment

01:09:59.840 send the pd up so now we're like waiting for the pd to come we wanted them to come before the drug

01:10:05.600 dealers got back so finally two two nypd guys show up and they're like yeah guys what do you got

01:10:12.720 i said we'll go in that room and go in that room i said that's the money room that's the coke room so

01:10:18.000 they both go in at the same time they go holy shit wow they call a backup you know so now we're

01:10:24.000 like my boss is like all right we're out of here you know we we don't want me nothing part of this

01:10:28.560 whole show here i'd have stuck around man you know like joey diaz says every now and joey

01:10:33.680 every now and then you bump into a colombian you know i love joey oh he's the best oh my he was a

01:10:39.040 fireman in the colorado or some shit denver was he a fire yeah but he was selling blow he said

01:10:46.080 all they had was a pickup truck i don't know if you ever saw i think it was on rogan baby

01:10:49.920 yeah it sounds like yeah he said i was just selling it was an easy way to sell coke he said i'll go

01:10:54.800 around people call the fire department sorry joey but you did tell that story no people call the

01:10:59.920 fire department he shows up in a pickup truck selling coke well he says it was a ski lodge place there was

01:11:04.640 never any fire oh yeah that's a great idea actually yeah the ski lodge so it was like perfect for him

01:11:10.400 yes joey diaz has talked many times about having been a volunteer firefighter which is

01:11:15.280 really a drug dealer in aspen colorado in the 1980s can you imagine him doing that i bet if you

01:11:23.440 were anywhere with joey in the 1980s every place was aspen colorado dude i go to a restaurant he

01:11:28.560 recommended in in jersey a chinese restaurant is a good spot king's oh he says oh dude this is the

01:11:34.080 real deal this is the chinese food you know how he talks right so i go there and the guy's name is

01:11:39.760 freddie the chinese guy i'm like freddie joey diaz sent me here he's like oh yeah joey diaz uh

01:11:45.680 he said he popular i said yeah he's pretty fucking popular he's like oh i didn't know

01:11:51.520 food was excellent thank you joey i love that food joey has it's like bro i'll be like dude my friend

01:11:56.640 died last week in uh buffalo new york he's like oh next time you're in buffalo it doesn't yeah it doesn't

01:12:03.760 matter your friend died it matters you gotta walk 11 blocks to get this prosciutto right prosciutto he's

01:12:10.000 like the only way you get there is by foot right i'm like it sounds very alarming but dude he's

01:12:15.520 always got the best food recommendation absolutely he just loves life man he just always has a

01:12:20.080 connection oh man what stories he's so funny he's one of the best i love him yeah i don't know anybody

01:12:25.520 like him but i bet in your line of work you probably met a lot of guys not like him but with similar

01:12:29.200 energies like him oh crazy people yes when i got on in 83 we still had vietnam vets that were in the

01:12:36.240 fire army you know really today it's more college kids you know they came out of college and they get

01:12:41.280 they take the test yeah a lot of guys that want to be in the calendar or whatever it's a whole different

01:12:44.880 thing you know nothing to the new guys you know they're all great but it was a different atmosphere

01:12:50.000 with the vets guys and plus back then you know they didn't have computers and you know there was no

01:12:55.440 cameras it was bc so you got away with a lot of shit yeah today you're on you go on youtube they

01:13:00.880 see you fighting the fire the ov the roof man yeah if you fuck up a million people are seeing it right

01:13:06.640 there people in the chat are like get rid of this guy like what's he waiting for why doesn't he go in

01:13:11.680 where's the hose line what's taking him so long yeah yeah dude that's all the comments yeah like

01:13:16.480 caruso's a pussy you know like like dude he just his first day on the job absolutely dude that is

01:13:23.440 crazy that that's how it's going to be everything's going to be streamed and people will be able to

01:13:27.200 comment at the moment that's a whole bit and the other day i was watching the chief had like a

01:13:31.920 some kind of ipad thing or something and they had a drone in the air no and the thing was showing them

01:13:38.400 all the roof the holes the fire the back it was like a 3d thing it's like and everything changes you

01:13:45.040 know yeah there's already a real estate agent there yeah everything's changed changes so you know when i

01:13:50.240 got on the guys from the 60s and 70s they were tough motherfuckers because so some of them had

01:13:55.040 come from like come from war actually and big time and this was just another place where they at least

01:14:00.160 had like camaraderie they had a brotherhood exactly because it was a paramilitary organization so you

01:14:05.840 know you had your lieutenants and your captains and your chiefs did the stress of the job ever affect

01:14:11.520 guys too much was there scenarios like that that kind of happened or not really nah i think most guys

01:14:15.600 loved the job what made you end up kind of loving it like what made like what kind of changed for

01:14:20.640 you like or when you look back brotherhood really oh my god like family yeah yeah that's that's why

01:14:26.640 you know i did 15 years in 34 truck from a probie i did 15 years i think i left there in 98

01:14:33.680 but yeah i mean i had a lot of friends that i'm still today you know we're all together the wives

01:14:39.280 the kids the kids are on the job some of them are already captains wow yeah yeah i guess that's

01:14:45.920 something that's so nice is just that that's one thing that's harder i even notice about life even

01:14:50.240 just like as you get out of times in your life where you're either in in school we have like

01:14:54.560 teams that you're on or like your buddies are always around or in the college you don't really

01:14:58.880 find a lot of places where there's that much camaraderie anymore you just don't find it no that was it

01:15:04.160 that was it there big time we'd make the meals yeah see this is a uh the two probies are coming

01:15:11.520 off their probation so when you come off probation you throw a big party in the firehouse and they

01:15:17.280 all got lobsters and filet mignons and and they have a big celebration it's a lot i remember my my probie

01:15:24.240 meal was it was a lot of fun we i came off with another guy richie who we both came out of the academy

01:15:29.760 together oh that's but yeah i know all these guys like family a lot of them aren't even here with

01:15:35.200 us anymore really oh yeah and that pic that's old a lot of them has gotten older passed away even

01:15:42.400 or that's the way yeah some of them uh i don't know some of them might even passed away on 9 11.

01:15:49.440 oh yeah yeah that's a great shot that's awesome dude yeah yeah i mean you could just feel so much

01:15:56.720 excitement oh my god the fun we would have and the meals that i would make

01:16:00.960 really incredible that's why they kept you around oh i was a good cook were you yeah yeah first meal

01:16:06.240 i brought in my mother made meatballs and sausage and a whole sunday gravy and i bought gavadil and i

01:16:13.040 brought it all in with the bread and everything and the guys loved it you know the irish guys call

01:16:17.360 it red lead that was what they call tomato sauce red lead tonight yeah red lead they loved it they were

01:16:24.240 like man that was so good and everything but you know what kid you got to make it here next time

01:16:29.840 so i was like ah i get it you got to make the meal in the firehouse oh that's part of it everybody comes

01:16:35.440 together you know because it could be all over the firehouse but that's where everybody who's chopping

01:16:41.280 this who's cooking that who's sauteing things yeah who's doing the entertainment the camaraderie

01:16:47.120 i would put my louis prima on the stereo and we would just be going you know jump jive and whale

01:16:53.680 and uh you know i'm just a gigolo and place would be hopping yeah oh it's fun oh that's nice and great

01:16:59.680 meals about 11 guys would eat at the same you know we'd all eat at the same time yeah and then

01:17:04.000 everybody chips in at the end of the meal because you know city doesn't pay for anything we pay for

01:17:08.960 everything that's crazy all our tv all they get paid for is the firehouse everything else we have to

01:17:13.600 buy really yeah is it still that way yeah still that way wow well when i was on the job you you

01:17:19.120 bought your own turnout coat and you had a helmet i brought some helmets here too and the helmet fit

01:17:25.360 perfectly to your head they made it a mold to your head so you didn't need a chin strap it just stayed

01:17:30.960 on there and then when giuliani came in as mayor and we had a couple of fires where guys got killed

01:17:38.160 and everything and he couldn't believe how shabby we looked because we had nobody fixed their gear

01:17:45.280 nobody gave you new gear so you you went years with this gear and it looked like the

01:17:50.560 yeah the coats were all ripped up and you know we looked i loved the way it looked like the blaze

01:17:55.760 news bears huh and all the other fire departments around the country and they already had bunker pants

01:18:00.880 and bunker coats and they had hoods you gotta wear these i i hated all of that i hated the bunker pants

01:18:06.880 i hated the hoods and uh so that that changed right there from the uniforms and then they gave

01:18:12.880 us a new helmet three sizes small medium large and they had to have a damn chin strap to hold it on it

01:18:19.120 was a lot heavier oh i hated it yeah but you get charges if you didn't wear it you know if you took

01:18:24.720 your old helmet and you got caught with it or you got caught without your bunker pants on because it was

01:18:29.440 like the the takeover you know it takes a few years before the old timers really give in to all the

01:18:35.040 changes everything takes a few years to kind of seep in oh especially the fire department's all

01:18:39.920 tradition yeah yeah dude that was one of the nice things even like whenever i would go with my it

01:18:44.960 was my first girlfriend her dad whenever i'd go over there it would just be nice to see the guys all

01:18:49.920 spending time together you know yeah and they would know other fire departments around the city it was

01:18:54.000 just like there was like definitely um it was like this kind of secret society that was a little bit

01:18:59.680 it was a little hidden kind of because you don't really think about the fire department all the

01:19:03.040 time you know i didn't but yeah but they're right there dude yep yep and they're and they're the

01:19:08.000 first ones they have to get involved when things get bad yeah you know um yeah if it's okay to talk

01:19:13.120 about what what was what were things like during 9 11 like what was i mean i know kind of like what

01:19:18.240 some things were like but when you look back on it like ah well i got there i got off work that morning

01:19:25.360 i did a 24-hour tour on the 10th and i just got home and i had a power washing painting business on the

01:19:31.520 side oh yeah and i had my dominican helper waiting for me at home you know so i got home i we came

01:19:37.120 in i'm making coffee and my wife calls me she's at work and she says you see what happened they flew

01:19:42.640 a plane into the towers i'm like you're kidding me i put a little tv on that i had in the kitchen and

01:19:47.840 i'm like holy shit i'm like what happened the guy have a heart attack that you know i thought it was

01:19:53.440 like a single plane that the guy just flew in by accident yeah some guy fucking just couldn't get

01:19:58.240 it around you know the first one you didn't know it was terrorists so then i take you get to the

01:20:02.320 paint store and the guys are all around the counter with a tv and i come in and the guy tony turns

01:20:07.360 around the foot he says why the fuck is they fucking terrorists flew planes into the fucking towers and

01:20:12.800 i'm like holy shit now i'd see both towers going now i know you know it was an attack so i says all

01:20:19.040 right we got to get out of here i got i had to paint a rabbi's house in woodmia so i got this painting

01:20:24.320 truck with ladders tony's power washing and paint i raced them on the way there i hear the first tower

01:20:29.920 collapses so i'm like i'm cursing i'm like motherfuckers my dominican guy don't speak english he

01:20:36.480 he doesn't really hear but he knows something bad he knows the towers so now i get another 20 minutes

01:20:42.080 uh 10 minutes later or whatever and i hear the second tower come down and i i was at a light i put

01:20:47.280 my foot on the brake and i just started crying i was on the on the steering wheel because i knew

01:20:52.560 how many guys just got killed you know from this whole deal oh oh i was crushed so you like yeah

01:20:58.240 at that point did you know because you were privy to the information of or you just knew how it just

01:21:03.840 knew the way it works you know they they called in everything once those planes hit you know could

01:21:08.720 you have gone back in or you weren't you weren't even allowed to go in when like at that moment since

01:21:12.720 you had just gotten off of a shift no well now i'm i'm re i raced to the the uh rabbi's house i throw

01:21:18.880 the ladders the paint i knock on the rabbi's door i says listen uh rabbi i'm a fireman from new york

01:21:24.960 city i i gotta go to the trade center i knew he knew it because i could hear the tv on inside

01:21:30.800 so he's like okay i said roberto's gonna take care of everything i told roberto listen i don't

01:21:35.280 know when i'm gonna see you again but he's like no worry no problem my boss i take care he was such a

01:21:40.560 great guy so now i'm racing with my van and i'm going in and out of the l out under the elevated

01:21:46.880 train and i've got my hand on the horn and i'm pedal to the metal and everybody's probably looking

01:21:52.080 like what the fuck is with that painter i'm in on the wrong side of traffic i'm just like the french

01:21:58.320 connection i'm in and out of fucking cars i get to the firehouse and it's chaotic everybody's running

01:22:04.000 in what we're gonna do who's going how we're gonna get there one guy said he was taking a boat because my

01:22:08.800 firehouse in howard beach was on a canal yeah so i my friend whipper comes in he's got a suburban

01:22:15.360 and my friend bobby comes and he was like i'm going in with my suburban whoever wants to go

01:22:20.000 i'm leaving now and were there some guys that did not want to go did not want to be involved no

01:22:23.920 everybody went wow yeah so we grabbed our gear a lot of guys went to a staging area they made that

01:22:30.320 mistake because they got stuck at the staging area we took the we took my friend suburban right to the

01:22:36.080 pile right there i mean we we we were heading down woodhaven boulevard and i'm like there was no

01:22:41.760 traffic it was traffic because i mean never you know the hit the fan already so uh the whip is

01:22:48.240 driving crazy my friend the whipper and he i'm like whip don't get anybody killed or enough people

01:22:53.920 already you know slow down a little so we get to the lie and the cops have it shut off the entrance

01:22:59.040 to the long island expressway so i stick my turnout code out the window and they they move the cop cars

01:23:05.280 and they wave us in you know so that had to feel crazy it was was there some i mean obviously there's

01:23:10.400 excitement probably a ton of adrenaline adrenaline what are we going to do when we get there right

01:23:16.000 we said we're going to be an ambulance we're going to take bodies and we're going to rush them to the

01:23:20.000 hospital that's what we figured so now we're racing down there and we get to the midtown tunnel and

01:23:26.000 and my friend whip is a driver man he's the best we're doing a hundred and we're going through the

01:23:31.680 midtown tunnel and it's like a a a time warp with the the lights and the yellow bricks and we're doing

01:23:37.360 100 miles an hour we come out we head downtown you know by the midtown tunnel we head down we

01:23:42.960 he takes us right to the rubble and we get out of the car and now it's dark like an eclipse and all

01:23:48.800 the stuff is coming down on us all the paper and the ash it was dark that walls were standing still

01:23:55.440 did it look something like this or just like that only now that's a few days a week later or whatever

01:23:59.920 maybe but it was dark and uh when we got out of the car we couldn't breathe so we had to rip up t-shirts

01:24:07.280 and we put them around our faces to breathe and then i noticed there was an old hardware store right

01:24:12.960 across the street with like a glass door so i grabbed the tire iron i went over i smashed the door open

01:24:18.880 and we all went in we grabbed ropes and masks and and sledgehammers all whatever cops came in behind us

01:24:25.840 everybody was grabbing so now we start to climb you know and it was like the top of the trade center

01:24:32.880 was only about six stories high now you know and we were climbing and there was nobody around it was

01:24:38.080 quiet dark eerie and we heard all the pass alarms going off that when firemen aren't moving makes a

01:24:45.120 screechy noise and you could hear that all around you know and there was maybe one or two other firemen

01:24:51.120 we were the only ones there and we were going in and out of voids in and out of voids calling anybody

01:24:55.840 hear us banging on and waiting to see if that happens and nobody nobody finally we worked our all

01:25:02.320 the way up to the roof of the trade center which was astroturf and now you could see and it looked

01:25:08.960 like it went on for a mile you know it was like a movie set it was so crazy and on the one side was the

01:25:15.440 eab bank and it was on fire and they had excuse me they had uh mesh like the black mesh covering it

01:25:23.040 and all you saw was the black mesh and the the flames coming out it was like satanic oh it was so creepy

01:25:30.240 and uh so when i were climbing all all around uh inside and out of voids and uh we did this for like

01:25:37.760 maybe about one o'clock we got there at 11 30 and my friend bobby says tone i i'm my throat's closing

01:25:44.640 up we got to get water so i said whip we got to get water we got to head to the street

01:25:49.440 now we're canal now it's like it's one o'clock people are coming in from everywhere firemen from

01:25:55.120 uh cops firemen the national guard was coming in so we worked our way to the street and then we needed

01:26:01.840 water and uh there was a guy a wall street guy with expensive suit on covered in cement dust and he had

01:26:10.960 a bottle of uh water you know like those big bottles the big bottle and he was going around

01:26:15.520 giving everybody water and you know trying to wash their eyes out and shit and we were just waiting

01:26:20.640 our turn to get some of that water and as we were doing that these four women they come out of nowhere

01:26:26.880 they set up two barrels a piece of plywood they had one the bread and peanut butter and jelly and they

01:26:32.240 started making sandwiches out of nowhere it humbled and uh i got a little emotional because it was like

01:26:43.280 you know to see all these people coming together right at this time no matter what your race creed

01:26:47.520 color working together so we passed the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we had the water and we

01:26:53.920 went back but before we got up a deputy gets up on a on a car and he yells to whoever can hear you know and

01:27:01.520 it was like six truck we just got a call they're trapped they're in a shaft and we're going to

01:27:08.560 find them like this is the first time we're hearing anybody's alive we're like yeah yeah so we will

01:27:14.400 everybody starts running for get gear and there's a a rescue truck that was crushed and we ran over to

01:27:21.040 the rescue truck and we started opening up compartments i grabbed a jackhammer we grabbed some

01:27:25.920 big big big ass jackhammer bits bottles fair and now we start heading out to look for them

01:27:33.280 you know at least you had a mission oh we were on a mission now you know now we're looking for it so

01:27:36.880 now another two hours climbing up and down these kind but meanwhile building seven which is the big

01:27:42.800 building everybody talks about was on fire from the moment we got there every floor really burned

01:27:48.320 every floor and what caused that fire just the collapse you know they had the two trade centers

01:27:54.000 oh the collapse of the other in front of them yeah there was a lot of buildings on fire so uh so now

01:28:00.960 we uh we're working up and down and i take a fall i fall into a void and i fall on my right shoulder

01:28:07.680 and my bobby comes running over he's like kiddo you all right i said yeah it hurt my shoulder

01:28:12.480 he helps me up i take the jackhammer i throw it into a void i'm like this we had no radios we didn't

01:28:18.480 know if they found anybody or anything oh excuse me my pin it was almost impossible it was impossible

01:28:23.600 finally we threw all this down because it was a couple hours already climbing again and when you're

01:28:27.280 climbing up these big jagged pieces of concrete scary in and out in and out and we made our way

01:28:32.800 into a uh a store like a high-end store that was maybe three stories up and we went in through the

01:28:38.400 window because three stories up what high because the rubble was that high so we crawled into their window

01:28:44.240 and it was a high-end women's store and it's dusty and dark and and we're crawling around i'm looking

01:28:50.800 under all the clothes to see if there's any anything we're yelling anybody here anybody here

01:28:55.760 nobody there so we worked our way back out and now we went to the uh marriott which was a hotel

01:29:01.520 right there and we came in one of these big broken windows it was right there at grounds it was right

01:29:06.800 there around zero huh yeah and we climbed down the debris into the lobby of the hotel we're the

01:29:12.640 the only ones there you know so we're like holy look at this place you know we're looking around

01:29:18.000 and it was kind of kept okay it was a big lobby no there was ash and broken glass and

01:29:23.520 shit but it was it wasn't collapsed right so i said look over there i see a fireman sitting at

01:29:29.920 one of those little desks in the lobby we're like holy so we go running over first

01:29:35.280 fireman we're seeing you know and he's covered in in

01:29:38.720 shit you know no helmet he's like pale white he's in shock and he's sitting there and we're

01:29:43.360 like holy shit buddy you okay okay and he turns and he looks at me and it's one of the young guys

01:29:49.280 that got on rotation he just left our house and they sent them to manhattan we called him monkey

01:29:54.160 man wow i'm like holy shit monkey what the and he just he looked up at me and he

01:30:00.000 and he said all my guys are dead they're all dead and we were like oh

01:30:03.440 shit you know i'm like kind of rubbing his shoulder my other guys are like monkey monkey

01:30:07.280 you all right you're all right and he he was in shock you know so we're like look monkey we

01:30:12.160 got to go man you know you're okay we're gonna leave you here and it was funny because the phone

01:30:16.400 was on the table with the little messenger light blinking it was the weirdest sight you know and we

01:30:22.160 left him we climbed back out out the window back onto the debris it's a long day yeah we were there

01:30:28.880 for until like 9 30 at night from 11 30 in the morning so we were going along we found a hose line

01:30:35.360 believe it or not a hose line all the way from the hudson and there was a big opening with a like

01:30:41.680 a void that had black smoke was pouring out of it so we had the line and for about an hour and a half

01:30:48.080 we just sat there we're building seven about a hundred yards away from us burning and we sat there and

01:30:54.160 one guy would go around through the voids and the other two guys would just hold the hose line

01:30:58.400 pouring it into this hole from hell i mean it was like it was horrible so all of a sudden we're

01:31:03.760 doing that and we see this chief and he says he starts yelling at us he's between us and building

01:31:08.720 seven and he says drop that line get out of here this building's gonna come down so we were like holy

01:31:14.560 okay we cracked it open a little wedged it into some rocks so the water would keep going down the hole

01:31:20.400 and we took off and we were like hey it was like five o'clock we're like we're hungry we're thirsty we're

01:31:27.680 tired we're covered in let's go back to the rig his suburban and we'll go uptown and we'll get

01:31:33.920 something to eat and then we'll come back so we we get off the pile like where's the car i think it's

01:31:40.640 a few blocks this way so now we're heading down and there's nobody around still i mean as far as you

01:31:45.440 know besides firemen coming in so i don't know if you ever heard of penny crone but she was like a

01:31:50.960 popular reporter on fox news she was a real tough girl she was yeah penny crone and i don't know if

01:31:57.760 she was fox but there she is it's very well known new york reporter she was out there on the street

01:32:03.200 she was in the street when we were walking and she had a microphone and a cameraman and she came running

01:32:08.400 up to us she's like guys guys can you give me some information what's like down there so the three of

01:32:13.920 us are standing there and she puts this big microphone in front of me and she goes can you tell me

01:32:18.800 i said oh it's bad really bad she put it in front of my other friend bobby bad he says horrible my

01:32:26.400 other friend says the same thing she's getting nothing out of us she's like she pulls back you

01:32:30.720 know they ask us another question and i'm like holy look over there and there's this asian woman

01:32:35.760 covered in dirt bleeding from her head and she's got a suitcase in her hand so like we run over to her

01:32:41.920 we're like man ma'am are you okay she was in shock or whatever and she just kept like looking and my

01:32:46.560 friend went to take the suitcase she yanked it back you know and then she just walked away and

01:32:51.520 we were like holy that was weird what do you think's in that suitcase my friend said money

01:32:57.040 the way she had that grip on that day it was full of money batch of yen in there i bet a lot of yen

01:33:03.760 wow some egg rolls i don't know but we we got to the suburban and it was covered now it was green it was

01:33:10.400 now gray so we all get in and it was like theo the seats the leather seats were like oh we're

01:33:18.160 squishing our backs in you know we were getting comfortable i was almost 40 at that time i can't

01:33:23.600 even imagine and the fact is you're alive like you've been through the i can't even imagine like

01:33:28.400 what your body's going through oh we were beat covered in and so it's funny because he put the uh

01:33:34.640 he put the car on and he started up and he put the air conditioner on and it blew smoke it blew

01:33:39.760 dust out it's like lily munster's vacuum cleaner i think i'm like oh everybody's getting a choke in

01:33:46.480 the things blowing smoke out all the dust we're like thanks we needed that now we're heading uptown

01:33:52.400 even with the windows open the dust is flying off the rig and we go up to 16 truck up in midtown somewhere

01:33:59.360 and uh we take a break i go in we get a drink of water i call my wife what has she been thinking i

01:34:06.240 don't know it's like you know 5 36 oh i forgot to say before we got to the car building seven

01:34:12.000 collapsed oh we just missed it we heard a roar my friend said seven just came down so we were like

01:34:18.640 holy shit we just we just missed it but you've been near that all day down there all day it was

01:34:23.520 burning because there's a lot of speculation about building seven over the years i think it's all

01:34:26.960 bullshit you do because i was there yeah i mean it's it kind of gets me a little because i i don't

01:34:32.560 know what really happened that day you know who knows you know who was involved whatever i i have

01:34:37.600 no idea right but all i know is building seven was burning all day long from first floor to the top

01:34:43.520 floor every window so you know people were saying there was explosions and but you saw firsthand that

01:34:48.960 it had been kind of cooking all the firemen that i ever talked to that were there that day no one

01:34:52.720 everybody says there was no fucking explosions but and they have all these things like the other

01:34:57.040 day i thought i saw an ai bullshit thing about guys saying uh they heard explosions like they're

01:35:02.160 putting that out on the internet and it looks real you think they're really firemen you gotta be careful

01:35:07.280 today you never know what's real oh yeah i agree with that you can't tell you can almost tell a little

01:35:12.000 bit today but imagine a few years from now with the ai you'll never be able to tell yeah you'll need

01:35:16.400 like an ai detection kit they probably will have that maybe we can get in on that we could come up with

01:35:21.440 it first yeah okay sure i mean if that's what we met for today to be able to start that and

01:35:27.920 and like keep that out of the world save the world what about over time with 9-11 there's been a lot

01:35:32.720 of conspiracy theories and stuff like that has any of that grown in the world of the uh of the fire

01:35:38.960 department culture or anything like that or is it person by person or um because you guys were one

01:35:44.000 of the most affected groups you know 343 men we lost that day it's hard to even get over that number

01:35:51.600 yeah it was a lot and we knew it was a lot when we got we left 16 truck we stopped at a genovese

01:35:57.520 drugstore and somewhere in manhattan and we went in and we got a couple of bottles of water about four

01:36:03.600 giant milky ways and some batteries for our flashlights so now we're covered in you know we're

01:36:09.600 up at the counter and the young girl's ringing us up and she goes you guys come from the trade center

01:36:15.120 so my friend bobby's what gives you that idea so she just like looked and grinned she's like

01:36:19.360 no charge for you guys so we took off we ate our milky ways we had our water and then we went back

01:36:25.280 to the pile is there a picture from that day nick do you have it where we you know if you have that

01:36:29.920 just pull it up don't even wait for me to see that that's my two buddies that was like a couple

01:36:34.720 weeks later that's whip and the other guy that's my friend andrew and marty that's back you know

01:36:40.400 you would have to go down and work at the trade center yeah and it was very unhealthy a lot of

01:36:46.400 guys got cancer a lot of guys died after the trade center we just had a breathing expert in the other

01:36:51.440 day this guy james nester and he has a new york times bestseller a book called uh breath and he talks

01:36:57.840 about uh is it ground zero ground zero lung oh okay he talks about ground glass it's a condition that um

01:37:09.040 that happened to a lot of people who were uh first responders um at ground zero have you heard

01:37:15.120 about this yeah well i never heard about the ground uh glass but uh of course the breathing everybody

01:37:21.200 was in uh you know you if you were there for like a month or two some guys were there two three four

01:37:26.960 months my friend bobby was there uh the whole time you know he he just got his nephew on the job it was

01:37:33.200 his nephew's first job and he was in the troll he was there every day looking for his body

01:37:38.240 day and night looking for his nephew nephew yeah for his sister yeah it was god that's heartbreaking

01:37:44.880 huh yeah he's a good guy he's a great guy too who his nephew no my friend bobby this is his he's

01:37:51.040 the boxing uh he runs the uh your fire department boxing he is bring him out let's get a picture of

01:37:56.720 bobby my you see him on there bobby mcguire fdny boxing he's a golden glove champ

01:38:02.880 is he a pretty interesting guy oh oh you wouldn't i don't know if you know the knicks but his uncles

01:38:08.480 are dickie mcguire and al mcguire and marquette and the knicks yeah oh there he is his father was

01:38:15.840 john mcguire and uh he was like a big guy in new york uh jimmy breslin actually called him the uh

01:38:22.880 the king of queens because he opened the first gay bar in queens back in the day oh that's

01:38:29.680 incredible man oh yeah he sounds like an interesting guy oh he's a great guy yeah i bet he's got some

01:38:36.320 great stories too just from the boxing history of it you know joey diaz um used to uh he used to

01:38:44.240 shovel ice out of james j braddock's driveway over in jersey yeah yeah i heard him say that that's

01:38:49.440 pretty wild he'd give him side of like a couple of bucks yeah give him a couple of bucks and joey

01:38:54.720 would be like this guy's been punched in the head so many times he thought he gave me a five

01:38:58.640 he gave me a ten so but that's just a wild story right yeah yes oh go back and show the guys that's

01:39:05.600 marty right there that's bobby that's bobby mcguire bobby mcguire and what was his nephew's name

01:39:10.400 do you remember um no i don't remember my wife might but i don't all right alan he was a uh

01:39:19.200 a lifeguard in rockaway the kid his last name was alan and he just started on uh he just started

01:39:24.320 it was like his first job and bobby was there and i know his breathing is you know he's had a lot of

01:39:29.840 breathing problems once you're there too long so anyway they're having a fight in the madison square

01:39:35.360 garden in march they we fight the cops every year yeah it's called the battle of the badges who's won

01:39:41.040 over time over the years who's won the most you think is well you know the cops are double the

01:39:45.200 the amount of pool that they can get they're twice as big an organization as us you know we're like

01:39:50.560 we're like thirty thousand they're like sixty thousand but we still we get we get some good

01:39:55.200 fighters and uh we beat them quite a few times we fight they fight everywhere they fight in england

01:40:00.640 they fight in ireland oh really yeah they'll fight any fire department any cops so bobby and his gang

01:40:07.120 they kind of this is like a thing they do all year all year yeah oh he's so busy so he runs this the

01:40:11.760 fdmy boxing club yeah oh wow they raise like hundreds of thousands for uh tunnels to towers

01:40:18.320 every year and what is tunnels to towers uh that's with the uh the uh like world trade center uh

01:40:24.880 foundation where uh the brought the guy's brother ran through from staten island he ran through the

01:40:30.320 tunnel to get to the trade center and he passed away and uh so they started this organization it's

01:40:38.240 it's huge oh that's beautiful man we'll make a donation to him oh that'd be great yeah right

01:40:43.840 here born from the tragedy 911 the tunnels to towers foundation carries out its mission to do good by

01:40:48.560 providing mortgage-free homes to gold star and fallen first responder families with young children

01:40:53.440 and building specially adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans

01:40:57.840 and first responders wow they ran through the tunnel with their gear on to get to manhattan oh

01:41:03.440 oh oh the fdny boxing club is comprised of active duty members fdny and ems who train on their own

01:41:11.120 time established in 1982 fdny boxing has spent 40 years raising funds for with worthwhile charities

01:41:18.160 through spirited through spirited competition yeah man we'll make a we'll make a donation to them

01:41:21.600 i'm yeah i'm going bravest boxing team will defend the big apple in the second international battle of

01:41:26.880 the badges huh the funny thing is the best fights are in the crowd the cops and the firemen going

01:41:32.240 at it holy shit the brawls one time i was there and uh this this girl cop you know she was bad

01:41:40.560 mouthing some firemen and she threw a soda at the guy and the one fireman says hey you know i don't hit

01:41:46.320 firemen the other fireman said i do and he clocked her oh yeah boom she went flying over the day the

01:41:51.440 whole fight broke out it was crazy oh yeah yeah i mean once you throw a soda at you yeah and with all

01:41:57.200 the people getting sex changes now you don't know who's got what on them exactly you know i'm not

01:42:01.840 frisking you first yeah what are you packing yeah um how is the how has the department changed since

01:42:09.040 you got involved in now well from when i was got on and then in like in uh the early late 90s mid 90s

01:42:17.600 computers came in and that changed a lot computers and now uh digital things we had fax machines and

01:42:24.800 computers and that changed a lot of things before it was just writing in a book you know now more things

01:42:30.240 were more digital so they had a little more uh eyes on you you know you couldn't get away with

01:42:34.960 as much right a lot more technology yeah because back in the day you know the bosses ran the firehouse

01:42:39.840 there was nobody else that knew what was going on whatever they put in the book is what it was

01:42:45.760 in fact when i bought my house it was a funny story i was 24 and i told my boss i said i told the bank

01:42:52.240 yeah this is where i work if you want to check on my employment and i gave him the number to the truck

01:42:57.280 office so i said this is what i make you know and it was like twice what i was making he's like ah you

01:43:03.840 can't say that i said just tell the bank don't worry about it and it worked what um yeah what did

01:43:10.000 christine say when you called her that it must have been crazy oh yeah well her sister answered the

01:43:14.400 phone bernie and i was like bernie and she's like tony how the fuck are you what's going on i said oh my god

01:43:19.600 we just got a firehouse we're taking a break and we're all okay and uh and i'll talk to my wife

01:43:26.160 tell her you know i love her and i'll see you in a bit i'll call her later so i hung up and we went

01:43:31.360 back to the we went back to the pile so now we get back on the pile it's like what do we want we

01:43:36.960 first we're walking along and guys are like seeing other guys that you know you're hugging

01:43:42.720 so my friend bobby sees a guy they're hugging and i'm standing there like on a plateau

01:43:47.520 and this guy hits me another fine and he goes buddy you're standing on somebody and i was like

01:43:51.920 oh i looked down and this guy in his three-piece suit he's like part of the ground he's looking

01:43:57.680 up at me and i'm like oh my god that was the first body i saw all day ah yeah so now we're like okay so

01:44:04.400 now we're moving along what do you want to do they started a bucket brigade i don't know we must have a

01:44:09.920 thousand home depot buckets and you would pass a bucket and take a bucket there's some water along

01:44:16.160 for like hours we were doing that you know and it was starting yeah it was getting dark out you

01:44:21.040 know this the day was getting it was like around 7 30 8 o'clock and uh so now we're doing this for

01:44:27.040 hours my back is killing me and uh all of a sudden we hear all this yelling everybody's yelling and

01:44:33.280 cheering it's 9 30 at night you know at nine o'clock i'm like what is that what is that my friend bobby

01:44:38.560 goes look look over there down there we look down and here comes a parade of iron workers

01:44:44.080 with heavy machinery cranes they got their hard hats on cut off shirts everybody's got their fists

01:44:51.120 in the air they're all hanging off the machines everybody's cheering like we won the super bowl

01:44:55.920 it was like it was a drop in the bucket but they got right to work start taking off all the heavy

01:45:00.720 shit you know i mean it had months almost a year to go but oh it was just a start yeah and it just

01:45:07.760 felt so good like we had a chance yeah and then finally we were like you know let's start heading

01:45:12.960 home you know and i met a few guys heading home and i was thinking in the back of my mind all the guys

01:45:18.400 you know that that that got killed we had no idea how many yet can you imagine and i run into a friend

01:45:24.000 of mine and he he was off uh in a rescue company and i said hey john he said tony how you doing he

01:45:30.560 goes you know tony jerry was working jerry was like one of my best friends and i was like oh god i just

01:45:37.360 like stepped back as i knew he was he was in rescue uh rescue one i was devastated my friend whipped

01:45:44.320 sore and he put his arm around me he said come on who knew let's go let's leave and i was like uh i was

01:45:50.960 just i'm still emotional over it it's heartbreaking what was his name jerry what jerry nevins jerry

01:45:58.240 nevins let's see a picture of him huh funny story when he told me he was going to leave to go to

01:46:03.200 rescue i was like you motherfucker are you fucking kidding me it was like as everybody was leaving

01:46:08.720 you know i was there 15 years i was losing guys left and right they were getting made lieutenant he

01:46:13.120 wanted to go to a rescue company we used to bash rescue all the time rescue is like a special company

01:46:18.240 you know when when a when a truckie or a fireman gets in trouble they sent a rescue guy to get

01:46:22.800 them they're like expertise they're like the marines or whatever kind of or no well the marines

01:46:27.680 but they're like specialists and is that jerry yeah that's jerry oh there he is and they were on 42nd

01:46:32.880 street rescue one so they're right in the middle of times square oh they were there oh he made so many

01:46:37.840 rescues it was amazing wow so he enjoyed it once he got over there oh i used to go to some metal days

01:46:44.240 and and he'd be there and you know two three metals you know hanging off of buildings scaffoldings he

01:46:49.680 say you know it was a lot of times in midtown the scaffoldings would break and they'd have to go over

01:46:53.360 ropes and get these guys and uh yeah he was just a great find but when he told me he was going to

01:46:59.200 rescue i was crushed i was like you got to be kidding me he told me in the middle of a box we were

01:47:04.800 checking out a building so now i get back in the rig and we're going down the uh saint nicholas avenue

01:47:12.000 and i turned the ladder all the way out so now it looks like a square you know and i'm like this

01:47:17.200 way looking at him he's looking he's like what the fuck i'm like fuck you and and we we straighten

01:47:24.320 it out now we're crossing over answer damn avenue and i see them put the lights on like okay we're

01:47:29.360 getting to run i see the boss on the phone you know and he's he's taking down the information

01:47:34.240 puts his arm out like we got to run sounds like a job numerous calls numerous calls means you're

01:47:40.000 going to work oh yeah people are calling you know i see a fire i see a fire i see right it's not

01:47:44.960 just some weirdo with a ouija board yeah yeah no ouija boards no fake alarms you hear numerous

01:47:50.880 calls you know you're going to work so now we go around broadway and i see we come up and it's a

01:47:56.160 second floor it's blowing out like four windows and there's an awning we're off the fire escape

01:48:02.880 on the second floor and it's still not fire out i got to get in there i'm the ov that's my job

01:48:08.480 so now i'm getting a ladder out i'm putting the ladder up the dominican guys in the street they're

01:48:12.880 helping me place the ladder into the thing i climb up the ladder i smash the window out i put my mask

01:48:19.280 on and i drop in now it's blowing all the other rooms this room is getting ready to blow you know

01:48:25.040 it gets hot so now i'm in there and i'm searching around and i i i i get lost i get a little i get

01:48:32.560 pumped into a bureau on my knees and i get disorientated and i and i'm getting scared

01:48:38.640 because my ears are starting to burn i know it's going to light up so which is crazy i got caught in

01:48:44.960 a closet you never think how'd you get caught in a closet right but i'm crawling in thinking it's an

01:48:49.920 opening and i turned in there and i'm in this closet now i can't get out of the closet i'm going

01:48:55.120 around in a circle my ears are burning and all of a sudden i hear jerry he came in behind me jerry had

01:49:03.200 a bite bar which was like totally illegal instead of having a mask with a a net on it was like you

01:49:09.040 had a little bite bar in the mask so you didn't need that you just held it with your teeth which

01:49:13.120 was totally outlawed but it made it easier to take it on and off so i hear him say tony i'm like jerry he's

01:49:19.680 he's like you got to get out of here it's it's gonna light up i'm like i can't find my way out

01:49:24.160 i was like taking my mask off calling for my mother i thought i thought i was i was a dead man

01:49:29.840 and then all of a sudden uh i heard the engine at the door and i heard this guy mccarthy yelling

01:49:35.600 kick its ass kick its ass hit it hit it i heard the water coming in and i was like oh it was music

01:49:41.440 to my ears i was gonna live again and then after that when i was in the street i was like a zombie you

01:49:46.880 know and jerry was like yo what the fuck's wrong with you i said dude that was fucking close he just

01:49:52.640 laughed you know but that was it he went to rescue the next day i never even thanked him for uh coming

01:49:58.000 in after me that day oh man yeah i mean it's just even the stories are so like exhilarating i can imagine

01:50:06.640 like i can't even imagine what it's like really we were putting a fire out i made a cover of a

01:50:11.360 magazine i think he could bring it up it was called fire command i i didn't know what it was

01:50:17.040 you know it was like one of these buff magazines yeah that's me in the middle in a neck brace yeah

01:50:21.840 i look like an italian organ grinded monkey man right i thought you're gonna show me he made the

01:50:26.880 calendar i did i got the little ringlets in my hair i got the bow ties on and a friend next to me kenny he

01:50:33.680 was a probie it's a funny story we had to take it this lineup the fire escape because we got called in

01:50:39.440 as an extra engine it was a lot of fire people were trapped they were having a hard time putting

01:50:43.920 the fire out from the inside so we're taking the line up the fire now i'm in the engine i'm detailed

01:50:49.280 i'm never hardly in the engine so but when they need a guy and you got an extra guy you go across

01:50:54.240 the floor now i'm in the engine and we're taking this line up the fire escape to the fifth floor

01:50:59.680 and the boss is yelling this boss but there's joe mclaughlin he's yelling richie get in there hit it

01:51:05.200 hit it finally they charge the line we tie it off to the fire escape i mean it's a lot of water going

01:51:11.040 up that high he's hitting the water the guy right here richie that's squinting his eyes and he's

01:51:16.480 hitting the water and uh we're pushing our way in we made it up to the fire floor escape we push the

01:51:22.000 fire in and now we're crawling in we're climbing in through the window the boss is yelling they're

01:51:26.160 looking at us richie they're looking at us because we're outside on the fire escape we get in the ceiling

01:51:31.840 comes down on our heads all this hot plaster and shits burn my neck so now we're getting in we get

01:51:38.000 to like the engine on the other side is coming and they're making a good push they're putting the fire

01:51:43.040 out we're putting the fire out so now we're at this like wall with a window and i'm i'm on top of

01:51:48.880 something me and another guy we're like kneeling i thought it was a pillow from uh the couch so the

01:51:55.040 boss tells the probe he take the line and shoot the water out the window and it'll take a lot of smoke

01:52:00.320 so we could start to see what's going on here and as they're doing now you could start to see a

01:52:04.800 little the the boss takes his mask off and he goes holy look what you're kneeling on i look down and

01:52:10.560 we're kneeling on a corpse with no head no legs and no arms and he's all like a crispy burnt we're like

01:52:17.120 ah we all jump off we're like holy i thought it was a couch piece you know it was just that's what

01:52:22.960 happened they killed this guy they cut him up and then they lit him on they lit the place on fire that's

01:52:27.520 why there's so much fire you get a lot of fire in the middle of the day it's usually arson somebody

01:52:32.480 poured gasoline or something oh yeah that was a murder huh it was a murder so anyway before that

01:52:39.840 the kenny's a probie he's probably about 21 years old and uh he was in softball and he hurt his legs

01:52:47.120 sliding into second base so we were on inspection i said kenny what happened to your leg he said oh i

01:52:52.400 caught it on softball i said oh that looks fucking terrible then we got that run to the fire

01:52:56.960 so now we're leaving the fire we're going down the steps i said we're all going sick

01:53:00.640 we're tapping out right so i saw we're going to go with our necks from the ceiling coming down

01:53:05.200 i said kenny take that bandage off and tell him you got burnt on your leg

01:53:10.400 so we get in the street the street's busy it's all fire department cops there's reporters in the street

01:53:15.920 and everything and uh the fire department doctor comes running over to us and uh i said yeah we the

01:53:21.360 ceiling came down on our heads and he's like oh and i says and this guy got burned on his leg and he

01:53:26.400 looks he close kenny's leg up he looks at the softball injury and he goes third degree burns

01:53:31.120 patched this man right up so i look at kenny because he didn't know yeah it was his first take

01:53:36.320 so now we uh they take us uh we're on the wall like on malcolm x boulevard and uh they take us to

01:53:43.360 we said where's the boss we don't know where joe joe mclaughlin is so we see a bunch of people

01:53:47.920 like standing around somebody's on the ground they're taking pictures i go we go over there when we see uh

01:53:53.360 the boss he's on the stretcher getting his head taped down and they're all taking pictures of him

01:53:58.240 we're like lou lou you okay you okay and he looks up he goes get the out of my pictures he says we're

01:54:04.400 like he's okay so they put us in the bus there he is ah the best joe mclaughlin cpo joe well he was

01:54:13.920 you know he was in the 17 truck in the bronx in the war years so he was like he was a well-rounded

01:54:20.240 fireman and tough as nails wow yeah so he says get the out of my pictures so we're laughing

01:54:26.720 everybody's taking pictures of him so now uh they take us to the hospital you know so we're in the

01:54:32.240 emergency room columbia press and the young nurses are patching up on and they're laughing with us you

01:54:37.760 know and it's a busy emergency room and kenny's got his thing on and so all of a sudden this like

01:54:43.920 middle-aged head nurse comes in you know good-looking woman probably 40 or so and so she

01:54:49.360 goes to kenny's leg and she moves the bandage she makes a face you know and she's like when did this

01:54:55.040 happen and the kid he's sitting there you know he's like oh we're all looking at him laughing you know

01:55:01.120 and she just like patches it up she goes you're lucky we love you guys and we're like oh we love you

01:55:05.440 too busted so about a week or two a couple of weeks later i come into the firehouse and this

01:55:12.400 guy says hey here's one of the superstars i'm like what are you talking about he's like you made the

01:55:16.720 cover of a magazine so i'm like holy you're kidding so now i go in the kitchen and everybody's clapping

01:55:22.720 and everything they already have the picture in a frame right but they changed it from report on

01:55:28.320 firefighters injuries they put report on firefighters faking injuries so so they put captions on

01:55:37.040 everybody so you see the woman with her arms crossed and the bandana her caption said i know those

01:55:43.360 motherfuckers are faking and then there's a cop like walking here and he goes yeah chief i got those

01:55:50.160 fakers right here and then this salty harlem fireman he's looking at us and his thing says you guys

01:55:56.720 disgust me look at that sad face oh my god those that ringlet hair i love how you guys already have

01:56:05.440 your neck braces on oh yeah i kept that in my bag pocket well we had a prop pop closet at home you know

01:56:12.960 canes and braces oh that's hilarious yeah so that's that was that we made that uh cover i still have

01:56:20.320 that hanging today oh it's just just you had to go down to some memory lane man just to think about

01:56:25.520 different things and just to hear about the camaraderie of what like the lifestyle was like

01:56:30.240 um bring up the part about the ground glass lung is that what it's called i just wanted to make sure

01:56:34.960 that we that i mentioned it on here so that people know about it let me see ground glass lungs refers

01:56:41.520 to a radiological finding on ct scans showing hazy opacities in the lungs often linked to inflammation

01:56:48.720 or fibrosis from inhaling toxic dust at ground zero pulverized after the 9 11 attacks the dust cloud

01:56:55.200 contained over 2500 contaminants 50 construction debris 40 glass fibers 9 cellulose inhaling the

01:57:03.200 dust led to world trade center lung injury which firefight with firefighters losing up to 12 years

01:57:09.440 of lung function 70 percent of workers showed respiratory decline yeah the longer you worked

01:57:14.160 down there the worse it was yeah because the dust really never settled for you for months yeah it's just

01:57:20.560 it's it's so crazy to think that it created a new disease yeah you know probably well you know

01:57:26.880 think about all those offices all those fluorescent lights all those computers or they just got

01:57:32.640 pulverized to a dust that's why everybody was covered in between that and the cement it's a lot um

01:57:40.480 tony yeah i there's so many more things i want to talk to you about maybe we could have you come back

01:57:44.160 sometime anytime and and talk about other stuff you know maybe i'll bring bobby mcguire with me dude

01:57:50.000 very interesting man is he oh my god uh no he seems very interesting and i want to get a picture up

01:57:55.840 too is this is is this uh richard allen is this yeah that's his nephew that's his nephew right there

01:58:00.720 his sister's son of richie allen yeah that that's awesome man we'd love to maybe every year they

01:58:06.480 acknowledge him in rockaway they have a big thing with the lifeguards and everybody do

01:58:10.320 yeah surfer he was a big surfer oh wow yeah oh yeah i got plenty more stories there what was the

01:58:18.160 oh the murder that was a good story well you know what i think i want to save it because there's

01:58:23.040 there's even some basic there's like basic questions like uh like is our cant like somebody

01:58:28.880 leaving a candle on is that like the number one cause of a house fire um maybe house fires uh

01:58:35.200 uh probably uh bad electrical work and a lot of off fires arson yeah big time uh those space heaters

01:58:45.040 space heaters i don't know if you ever heard of the happy land social club i don't know it depends on

01:58:51.680 which one you're talking about it was in the bronx yeah it wasn't that kind of happy there's a lot of

01:58:56.480 different versions but uh sad story but uh i think like uh i'm not sure the number but eight about you

01:59:02.560 could look it up 87 people died from a gallon of gas and a match oh yeah it was horrible you

01:59:09.280 had to respond to that i didn't respond but my friend sully did he was detailed out to the bronx

01:59:14.080 and they were one of the first trucks there and when they got in they were crawling up the stairs and

01:59:18.800 they didn't know what they were crawling over and then when they finally found out it was all bodies so

01:59:22.960 it was like crazy you had happy lands and so a lot of times you don't know what's going on or

01:59:29.600 it used to be you didn't know what was going on until you got in there no probably not you don't

01:59:33.920 know who who's who said it you're just you're just the adrenaline is running man oh my god your hearts

01:59:40.480 are pumping and thought you never get it never gets like gold you know oh my bad uh how many years

01:59:47.440 like they would say we get there and be a top floor fire now you got to carry that mask all your gear

01:59:53.440 everything by the time you get to that sixth floor and you got to put a mask on you're sucking air

02:00:00.000 you're like and now you got to put this little man the mask is like the man breathing so you only

02:00:04.880 get air and i'd be in my mask like i'm getting out of this fucking city i'm going to queens i thought

02:00:12.000 queens would be an easier job for me westchester send me to west anywhere you know i'm getting out of

02:00:18.160 this fucking ghetto wow well um yeah tony thanks so much for your service man yeah i would love to

02:00:23.520 just have you come back sometime and just be able to just go down like there's some other roads i

02:00:27.440 want to go down and learn more about it oh that'd be great and just uh but yeah i think today we just

02:00:32.400 got a really good idea of just kind of the brotherhood of um yeah just what your your journey

02:00:37.360 has been like kind of getting involved with fire departmenting um oh what did your wife end up

02:00:42.320 getting a job in my wife yeah she was uh worked for a printer and then she worked for a dentist oh

02:00:47.920 yeah yeah dental like dental assistant and kind of no she was she ran the whole like you know yeah

02:00:52.960 took the phone calls oh yeah all the building everything organized yeah she ran it yeah yeah

02:00:58.560 you know my wife was a hard worker yeah that's nice like i said she bought her first car when you

02:01:03.760 know we were 17 with her own money four grand she bought a chevette red chevette oh dude if i saw a

02:01:10.720 girl with a car yeah i'm going with her yeah it's like wow this girl's got her own car

02:01:15.120 her own money no mom didn't buy it you know that's my i think the number one thing i'm looking for in

02:01:20.480 a spouse is uh hard working yeah oh because life's hard work yeah you can't try you can't do the door

02:01:26.400 lock anymore right because now they're all electric right you always used to say if the girl don't open

02:01:31.040 gets in the car and don't open your door she's out yeah so there's all these little tests but yes my wife

02:01:36.960 was a hard worker and a great mother yeah it's a nice thing too oh yeah it was funny because you

02:01:43.440 know all them years of being in the fire department i'd come home sometimes say oh my god i had a fire

02:01:49.360 top floor was burning it is and i'm telling them all this stuff for sure like did you remember that we

02:01:55.200 have to go to school tomorrow and i'd be like i just told you this whole story it seemed like it

02:02:00.640 went right over your head you're like blah blah blah we get it yeah yeah every fire you've been to

02:02:06.000 yeah matches go spit that black tar in the sink again like you always do

02:02:13.920 oh yeah behind every good fireman huh oh yeah it's the wives i got some pictures of the fire

02:02:18.880 department wives and well look you can show me that as long as they're appropriate you can show me

02:02:23.680 oh they're appropriate okay good girls okay while you know a lot of them are bronx girls

02:02:28.160 well look these days uh oh yeah tough women over there yes that's what you need in the world you

02:02:34.160 need a good strong lady this is your book right here tales from the tiller yes i didn't even know

02:02:39.680 you had written this yeah i wrote this uh it just came out in september last really september yeah

02:02:44.560 great book dude congratulations yeah a lot of good stories in there and i got recipes in there

02:02:51.520 a lot of good meals oh clam sauce casino i think you might like that bro i'll tell you this i took

02:02:57.200 a gal out the other night went to a place they had clams and white wine sauce that's kind of like

02:03:02.640 oh you would love the clam sauce casino really well you know clams casino you know they put the peppers

02:03:07.920 and the onions and a little bacon on it and then they bake them no i've never had that louisiana

02:03:12.720 didn't have clam sauce casinos they might have had it we had macaroni there it is

02:03:17.760 oh yeah that looks good so i make it this guy that got in trouble and was sent to our firehouse

02:03:24.560 and uh it was one of his meals and i took it from him and we make it with the spaghetti so we put it

02:03:29.680 over with the peppers the bacon the onions bread crumb and the clams oh i want that i'm a clam guy

02:03:37.600 have you seen that kid that says that no bring up that clam kid i love this kid but of course that a

02:03:44.400 fireman's book would have fires with recipes thrown in yeah you know so it's funny because some of the

02:03:50.080 stories are like tragedy and then it goes right into the the recipe it's like it's a little weird

02:03:55.040 but no no that kid that does the italian words no no i'm looking for the kid yeah this kid's hilarious

02:04:01.040 but the um what did i just ask you for now yeah yeah i'm a clam guy kid have you seen this little

02:04:08.000 kid no i'd see this kid they interviewed him we'll finish on him all right i'm a guy who only

02:04:16.400 basically likes clams really i'm a clam guy yeah i like that kid it's all i do all he eats it looks

02:04:24.240 like it clams are awesome he's just crazy i hated oysters yeah he's getting a little bit weird but yeah

02:04:31.760 that guy's a clam guy you know he's getting a little weird but i could see you guys just like you

02:04:36.160 guys show up at a fire but you also brought like but you also brought uh dinner that has to be preheat

02:04:41.520 that has to be heated up so you're like taking it up to the fire with you leaving it on the ledge as

02:04:45.680 soon as you as soon as you sit down to eat the tone alarm goes off every time huh uh and what happens

02:04:50.880 is they we have a big thing of foil paper and one guy just starts cutting the foil papers off and the

02:04:55.840 other guys start wrapping it to go otherwise the cockroaches walk away we had so many cockroaches in the

02:05:00.960 firehouse oh my god i can never get rid of them oh god yeah we'll have to hear about it next time

02:05:07.360 you have a book tales from the tiller the true stories of hero yeah true stories of heroism

02:05:11.760 heartbreak and humor the luckiest guy alive in his journey in the fdny that's awesome starts with some

02:05:16.400 of my jobs before that and then right through the academy and right up to retirement put it together

02:05:20.960 just me and my son oh yeah and my wife yeah oh that's excellent it was all in-house and my brother-in-law

02:05:26.720 who was in utah in seattle he he worked for microsoft he did all the proofreading so funny

02:05:33.360 story is it you know he threw his shoulder out working the mouse doing all my corrections because

02:05:39.120 every every chapter had like a thousand corrections on it so well that sounds like an insurance scam

02:05:46.400 but uh that'll be the next book you know uh but no people are already telling me when you're

02:05:51.440 going to write another book i'm like well i'm just trying to get this one out now you know it's hard

02:05:55.120 i go on the instagram that helps and something's always some ass so you write one book it's like

02:05:59.280 when's your next book coming out that guy he hadn't even he can't even read it's always people that

02:06:03.520 can't read what's my next one going to be like more tales from the tiller hey hey if it sells you

02:06:09.040 never know man well i've enjoyed your time today man thanks for thinking with us and just kind of

02:06:13.120 taking us on a little bit of a journey um yeah i i we have we had so many questions for today so i'd

02:06:18.320 love to be able to get to more yeah i can't believe how fast it went another time i know when you're having

02:06:22.880 fun hey you're the man i'm just glad we're not on fire in here today man i really am dude checking

02:06:28.800 this lobby out over here too it's about a thousand years old over here i know this place is pretty

02:06:33.520 cool man it's cool have you if you get to go to there's like a bar over there and a restaurant just

02:06:37.520 at each end i went and i looked at them yeah it's just cool it's funny because i've been in like big

02:06:42.160 hotels in manhattan before and the lobbies are like tremendous you know i mean there's stores and

02:06:46.960 restaurants so i thought it was going to be i've never been to the chelsea yeah this is a nice place

02:06:51.680 to come if you just come for a meal or something like um they went to the bar last night it's nice

02:06:55.520 in there huh and it's the sweet yeah this is one of the sweets and it's but yeah it's it just feels

02:07:00.880 like i don't know to me it just feels like a lot more uh chill here yeah definitely and relax but

02:07:05.920 thank you for your service i want to say that thank you for coming today and helping us share uh memories

02:07:10.160 of of some of your comrades that have fallen over the years and that have also served and uh we

02:07:14.960 appreciate it and we appreciate your wife and uh son dominic we'll have to put a picture of all of

02:07:19.680 all of them together at the end of the episode and uh and thanks again man thank you yep we had

02:07:24.320 a good time pleasure man and an honor well i appreciate it tony thank you very much thank you

02:07:28.000 now i'm just falling on the breeze and i feel i'm falling like these leaves i must be

02:07:39.440 oh but when i reach that ground i'll share this peace of mind i found i can feel it

02:07:45.440 it's in my bones but it's gonna tell you

02:07:54.080 you

This Past Weekend with Theo Von - February 04, 2026

#637 - FDNY Firefighter

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