10-4-94 Capt Wayne Smith LODD
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NYTimes.com..Death of Queens Fire Company's Leader Ends 59-Day Vigil
By JAMES BARRON
Published: October 5, 1994
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. .The signal -- a sequence of five bells repeated four times -- echoed through firehouses across the city yesterday. Slowly, solemnly, it confirmed what a telephone call had already told the firefighters at Ladder Company 136 in Elmhurst, Queens: the 59-day vigil for their commanding officer was over.
The commander, Capt. Wayne E. Smith, was trapped in a two-alarm fire on Aug. 7. With burns over 40 percent of his body and lung injuries from the air in the burning building at 81-04 37th Avenue, Captain Smith died at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. His wife, Connie, had kept a daily vigil. Fire Commissioner Howard Safir had stopped by nearly every day.
"Fifty-nine days of waiting for what was really the inevitable, unfortunately," Commissioner Safir said yesterday. "The prognosis from the beginning was extremely critical. We all hoped against hope."
Captain Smith, at 37 one of the youngest captains in the department, was the fifth firefighter to die in the line of duty this year.
At Captain Smith's firehouse -- its nickname, chosen by the firefighters and emblazoned on T-shirts they wear off duty, is Wayne's World -- the news seemed not to have sunk in, despite the telephone call, the bells and the flag at half-staff.
"There's a feeling like it's not really happening, that Wayne's going to wake up," said a firefighter, Duecy Smith, who is not related to Captain Smith.
He and other rank-and-file firefighters at Company 136 -- "truckies," they call themselves with pride -- remembered Captain Smith as someone who, in only nine months as a commander, had raised morale.
"To win over a firehouse that quickly takes considerable talent," Commissioner Safir said. "He was a real leader in the firehouse. No one was surprised that Wayne led his men into this fire and was right in front. They found him on the floor above where the fire was. One of the duties of a ladder company is to go above the fire floor and search for victims. That's exactly what Wayne was doing, putting his life in jeopardy to save others."
On the way in, firefighters faced huge volumes of smoke and flame. Captain Smith was one of the first to go inside.
Other firefighters discovered Captain Smith, overcome by the smoke, on an upper floor. Fourteen other firefighters were also injured, two seriously. Commissioner Safir said the blaze was still under investigation but is believed to have been caused by faulty electrical wiring.
I remember when we lost Captain Smith. And I remember how well he was liked and the T-shirts saying "Waynes World". I never knew Captain Smith, but from what I read and heard about him, he was well respected by his Brother Firefighters. That's something that has to be earned and is not taken lightly.
Thank you Captain Smith, and may you Rest in Peace.
Thank you Captain Smith, and may you Rest in Peace.
Thank you Captain Smith:
Is the City Forgetting A Hero?
Dennis Duggan - Newsday
All of the 59 days that Connie Smith spent watching her badly burned husband fighting in vain to stay alive were bad ones, but one of the worst was the day doctors amputated Captain Wayne Smith's left hand.
Smith had been an outstanding left-handed pitcher at St. John's University and dreamed of a major league baseball career. It wasn't meant to be and so he became a firefighter. The amputation was an ominous sign to Connie Smith that her husband might never return home to her and their two children, Ashley and Dylan.
I often visited her at the famed New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center's burn unit. Doctors tried to prepare her for the worst, telling her that her husband's condition was "incompatible with existence." A vivid reminder of those pain-filled days will surface in a Queens courthouse today when Smith files a motion to counter the city's rejection of her lawsuit seeking compensation for her husband's death.
On one of my visits to the hospital she told me that "I can't even talk to him and he can't talk to me. I think he is screaming but no one can hear him." It was a chilling description of the pain Connie Smith felt day after long day in the summer and fall of 1994. No one, of course, knew how much pain her husband felt but descriptions from other firefighters who had been burned were frightening.
"I am numb," she once said. "Some days I can barely make it into his room." She often wore a floral print dress Smith had bought for her when she was pregnant with their second child Dylan, who was three months old when his father was hospitalized.
"When he gave it to me, he said that he hoped I could fit into it after I gave birth. He has never seen me in it and I wear it when I come to the hospital." Smith, 37, had gone into the "kitchen"-the word firefighters use for fire-once too often. He suffered burns over 40 percent of his body trying to combat a fire in a Jackson Heights apartment building in early August 1994.
At his funeral in October, then-Fire Commissioner Howard Safir called Smith a "brave and dedicated hero, who gave his life attempting to save others." Safir piled accolade upon accolade on the "gentle giant," as Smith was called by his fellow firefighters in Ladder Company 136 in Elmhurst, some of whom wore T-shirts lettered "Wayne's World" to show their affection for Smith.
"He was a real leader in the firehouse," Safir told mourners. "No one was surprised that Wayne led his men into this fire and was right in front." But that was then. This "hero" is now just another litigious bum as far as this city and its fire department is concerned, and it wants a suit bought by Smith's widow seeking $30 million thrown out.
Smith's lawyers, led by Peter James Johnson, have filed a cross motion in which they say the "city has acted irrationally once again in deciding to abandon a hero...who was burned over 40 percent of his body by the unconscionable conduct of the City [and other defendants]..." That motion cites a defective fire truck with a leaking water tank and corroded fittings, as well as lack of modern safety gear and a defective fire hydrant. It also notes the city's "failure" to meet state and federal laws relating to rescue teams for firefighters in trouble.
A written decision from Judge Phyliss Flug will be handed down but is not expected for several months.
I talked yesterday afternoon to Connie Smith by phone from her home in Tampa, where she moved to be close to her parents.
"I am living a quiet and uneventful life here with my two children," she said.
Her daughter Ashley is in the sixth grade and often draws pictures of her father. "She misses him," said Smith, whose mother lives with her in Florida.
Her father died four months ago.
"I bring the children to New York several times a year to visit Wayne's parents, who live in College Point," she said.
She said that firefighters kidded her for giving her children "soap opera" names. "Well, with a last name like Smith, what would I call them," she would reply.
She misses the man who dropped into her life one summer day at Jones Beach.
"Mind if I sit on your blanket?" he asked.
"We were joined at the hip after that," she said. "He was my best friend as well as the love of my life." She said his phone calls home to her always began, "This is Wayne, your loving husband." "It will be seven years on Aug. 7," she said, "and this doesn't get any easier for me. I think of him every day. My son Dylan doesn't have a father to play with, and when I see husbands and wives with their children the pain is sometimes unbearable."
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1995/06/29/1995-06-29_faulty_gear_killed_firefight.html
Is the City Forgetting A Hero?
Dennis Duggan - Newsday
All of the 59 days that Connie Smith spent watching her badly burned husband fighting in vain to stay alive were bad ones, but one of the worst was the day doctors amputated Captain Wayne Smith's left hand.
Smith had been an outstanding left-handed pitcher at St. John's University and dreamed of a major league baseball career. It wasn't meant to be and so he became a firefighter. The amputation was an ominous sign to Connie Smith that her husband might never return home to her and their two children, Ashley and Dylan.
I often visited her at the famed New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center's burn unit. Doctors tried to prepare her for the worst, telling her that her husband's condition was "incompatible with existence." A vivid reminder of those pain-filled days will surface in a Queens courthouse today when Smith files a motion to counter the city's rejection of her lawsuit seeking compensation for her husband's death.
On one of my visits to the hospital she told me that "I can't even talk to him and he can't talk to me. I think he is screaming but no one can hear him." It was a chilling description of the pain Connie Smith felt day after long day in the summer and fall of 1994. No one, of course, knew how much pain her husband felt but descriptions from other firefighters who had been burned were frightening.
"I am numb," she once said. "Some days I can barely make it into his room." She often wore a floral print dress Smith had bought for her when she was pregnant with their second child Dylan, who was three months old when his father was hospitalized.
"When he gave it to me, he said that he hoped I could fit into it after I gave birth. He has never seen me in it and I wear it when I come to the hospital." Smith, 37, had gone into the "kitchen"-the word firefighters use for fire-once too often. He suffered burns over 40 percent of his body trying to combat a fire in a Jackson Heights apartment building in early August 1994.
At his funeral in October, then-Fire Commissioner Howard Safir called Smith a "brave and dedicated hero, who gave his life attempting to save others." Safir piled accolade upon accolade on the "gentle giant," as Smith was called by his fellow firefighters in Ladder Company 136 in Elmhurst, some of whom wore T-shirts lettered "Wayne's World" to show their affection for Smith.
"He was a real leader in the firehouse," Safir told mourners. "No one was surprised that Wayne led his men into this fire and was right in front." But that was then. This "hero" is now just another litigious bum as far as this city and its fire department is concerned, and it wants a suit bought by Smith's widow seeking $30 million thrown out.
Smith's lawyers, led by Peter James Johnson, have filed a cross motion in which they say the "city has acted irrationally once again in deciding to abandon a hero...who was burned over 40 percent of his body by the unconscionable conduct of the City [and other defendants]..." That motion cites a defective fire truck with a leaking water tank and corroded fittings, as well as lack of modern safety gear and a defective fire hydrant. It also notes the city's "failure" to meet state and federal laws relating to rescue teams for firefighters in trouble.
A written decision from Judge Phyliss Flug will be handed down but is not expected for several months.
I talked yesterday afternoon to Connie Smith by phone from her home in Tampa, where she moved to be close to her parents.
"I am living a quiet and uneventful life here with my two children," she said.
Her daughter Ashley is in the sixth grade and often draws pictures of her father. "She misses him," said Smith, whose mother lives with her in Florida.
Her father died four months ago.
"I bring the children to New York several times a year to visit Wayne's parents, who live in College Point," she said.
She said that firefighters kidded her for giving her children "soap opera" names. "Well, with a last name like Smith, what would I call them," she would reply.
She misses the man who dropped into her life one summer day at Jones Beach.
"Mind if I sit on your blanket?" he asked.
"We were joined at the hip after that," she said. "He was my best friend as well as the love of my life." She said his phone calls home to her always began, "This is Wayne, your loving husband." "It will be seven years on Aug. 7," she said, "and this doesn't get any easier for me. I think of him every day. My son Dylan doesn't have a father to play with, and when I see husbands and wives with their children the pain is sometimes unbearable."
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1995/06/29/1995-06-29_faulty_gear_killed_firefight.html
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REST IN PEACE CAPTAIN.
B
Bigandy
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You Rest In Peace Captain Smith
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Continued Rest in Peace Captain Smith.
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October 4 is the anniversary of the Line Of Duty Death of FDNY CAPT. Wayne Smith of LAD*136 take a moment to remember him & his Family in your prayers....... FF LAD*4..LT LAD*110..CPT LAD*136 NEVER FORGET.CONTINUED REST IN PEACE BROTHER.....
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May you continue to Rest in Peace, Captain Smith.