'As Close As It Gets to Going to Hell'
By Steve Olsen, as told to Carl Glassman POSTED September 1, 2007
The Deutsche Bank fire that killed Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia on Aug. 18 nearly took the lives of other firefighters as well. One of them was Steve Olsen, 47, a 19-year veteran assigned to Ladder 1 on Duane Street. This is his story, as told to Tribeca Trib editor Carl Glassman.
I was assigned to the F.A.S.T. truck (Firefighter Assist and Search Team). Our job was to assist firefighters if they got in trouble.We took the outside construction elevator to the 15th floor.
Everybody was all jammed up there. About 50 guys. They said stairway A and B were blocked. They couldn’t go up. But I couldn’t understand that. I wanted to find a way in case we had to get up there.
I went to the B staircase and walked up the stairs but it just ended. I cut through heavy-duty construction plastic, exposing a wood box over the 16th floor. They had taken the walls down on 16 and put a heavy timber box around the whole staircase. I couldn’t lift it. I tried forcing it. I tried putting my back on it. Johnny Moore from 10 Truck worked with me. We couldn’t open it.
Looking for another way up, we went to the east side of the 15th floor where a firefighter was taking the glass out, and we finished taking it out. Then John Moore and I shimmied up the bars connecting the scaffold to the building, climbed to the scaffold and went up the outside staircase on the scaffold to around the 18th floor.
for the rest of the story click here... Would you have made it out alive?
By Steve Olsen, as told to Carl Glassman POSTED September 1, 2007
The Deutsche Bank fire that killed Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia on Aug. 18 nearly took the lives of other firefighters as well. One of them was Steve Olsen, 47, a 19-year veteran assigned to Ladder 1 on Duane Street. This is his story, as told to Tribeca Trib editor Carl Glassman.
I was assigned to the F.A.S.T. truck (Firefighter Assist and Search Team). Our job was to assist firefighters if they got in trouble.We took the outside construction elevator to the 15th floor.
Everybody was all jammed up there. About 50 guys. They said stairway A and B were blocked. They couldn’t go up. But I couldn’t understand that. I wanted to find a way in case we had to get up there.
I went to the B staircase and walked up the stairs but it just ended. I cut through heavy-duty construction plastic, exposing a wood box over the 16th floor. They had taken the walls down on 16 and put a heavy timber box around the whole staircase. I couldn’t lift it. I tried forcing it. I tried putting my back on it. Johnny Moore from 10 Truck worked with me. We couldn’t open it.
Looking for another way up, we went to the east side of the 15th floor where a firefighter was taking the glass out, and we finished taking it out. Then John Moore and I shimmied up the bars connecting the scaffold to the building, climbed to the scaffold and went up the outside staircase on the scaffold to around the 18th floor.
for the rest of the story click here... Would you have made it out alive?
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