FDNY Fire Service Line of Duty Death
April 17, 1939 - LODD
Fireman John J. Lyons, 30
Engine 250
FDNY. Parkville - Brooklyn, New York
Fireman Lyons died after he suffered smoke inhalation and drowned in the basement of a four-alarm fire he was operating at the S. Kresge Fire and Dime Store on Bay Parkway.
Fireman John J. Lyons of Engine 250 lost his life in the basement of S. Kresge Five & Dime store at 6706 to 6710 Bay Parkway. The four-alarm fire also injured seventeen other firemen in the six-hour battle. Fireman Lyons was overcome by the smoke early in the fire and drowned in the water-filled basement. His body was not recovered until the next morning. Fireman Merz of Ladder 168 went into the basement and rescued several other members of Engine 250 to earn the James Gordon Bennett Medal and the Dr. Harry M. Archer Medal. Fireman Lyons was thirty years old and a member since March of 1938. He was married and had a five-week-old son. (From "The Last Alarm" by Boucher, Urbanowicz & Melahn, 2007)
RIP. Never forget.
