The New York Times Archives
After 45 Days in Hospital, Fire Officer Dies of Injuries
By Richard Perez-Pena
July 21, 1994
Forty-five days after he collapsed from smoke inhalation in the basement of a TriBeCa warehouse that was being consumed by an arson fire, a 15-year veteran of the Fire Department died yesterday, never having regained consciousness.
The death of Lieut. George W. Lener, 40, raises the prospect of a murder charge against Alberto A. Raposo, 22, who was arrested on June 16 and charged with setting both the June 5 fire that claimed the lieutenant's life and another fire on May 30. Manhattan prosecutors could not be reached for comment last night, but a statement released by the Fire Department said, "As a result of Lieutenant Lener's death additional charges will be filed."
Lieutenant Lener died at 4:30 P.M. yesterday at Bronx Municipal Hospital Center, setting in motion the tight-knit department's rituals of grief for the fourth time this year. As his unit, Ladder Company 6, helped his widow plan the funeral, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Fire Commissioner Howard Safir and a chaplain visited the company in its station on Canal Street at Allen Street, in Chinatown.
Members of the unit, some of whom had taken turns during the previous 45 days driving the lieutenant's family from their home in Staten Island to the hospital, gathered in small clusters to share hushed remembrances.
"Everybody in the house loved the man," said Firefighter Tommy Falco.
His comrades remembered Lieutenant Lener as an outgoing man with a fondness for chocolate bars and a devotion to his wife, Maura, and their three children. He led the Cub Scout pack in which his sons, Brian, 9, and John, 7, were members. And when the lieutenant brought his 12-year-old daughter, Jillian, to the fire station recently and another firefighter brought his daughter, Firefighter Mike Meldrum said, "He was like a big kid showing them around." 'A Heavy Blow'
"It's a heavy blow for us," said Firefighter Meldrum, who was the lieutenant's driver. He said that although Lieutenant Lener was supervisor to most of the firefighters he worked with, "there were no airs about him."
Capt. George Eysser, commander of the company, said he often consulted with Lieutenant Lener and trusted his judgment. "He will be greatly missed," he said.
On March 28, after two years in which two city firefighters were killed in the line of duty, a blaze in SoHo claimed the lives of three firefighters. One of them, Capt. John J. Drennan, lingered for 50 days, succumbing to severe burns on May 7.
Lieutenant Lener and his company helped fight that fire, and when firefighters were needed to fill the vacancies at the station where the dead firefighters had worked, he was the first from his unit to volunteer.
A few of Lieutenant Lener's co-workers expressed some bitterness that his long fight for survival received so little attention compared with the struggle of Captain Drennan. But others said they believed that the department's -- and perhaps the city's -- capacity for horror and grief at death in a fire had been tapped out.
Investigators said that before setting the June 5 fire, at 79 Worth Street, the arsonist had splashed oil on stairways in the building and the fire escapes outside. Commissioner Safir said that it appeared at first that the arsonist had intentionally laid a trap for firefighters.
But after Mr. Raposo was arrested and questioned, investigators said his aim had been to get back at the superintendent of the two warehouses that were burned -- the other was at 80 Leonard Street -- over a personal dispute. In the two fires, 33 firefighters in addition to Lieutenant Lener were hurt.
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