FDNY Line of Duty Death
July 22, 1982 - LODD
Captain Barry N. Brown, 46
Division 6 , Ladder 19
FDNY. South Bronx, New York
Captain Brown collapsed and died apparently of a heart attack, after running up five flights of stairs in a Bronx apartment house, mistakenly believing that two children might be trapped in a burning dwelling. Captain Brown's company responded shortly after 7:30 A.M. to a fire on the fifth floor at 911 Brook Avenue, in the Mott Haven section. Someone on the scene told firefighters that there might be two children in the apartment, and Captain Brown and his men ran up the stairs. No one was in the apartment and the firefighters managed to quickly put out the blaze, burning food on a stove. Shortly afterward, Captain Brown collapsed. Captain Brown was an 18-year veteran who had been decorated four times for bravery.
CAPTAIN, FIRE DEPARTMENT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, DIED IN THE LINE DUTY, BADGE 377, HOOK AND LADDER.
Barry N. Brown, a newly promoted Captain, was assigned to the 6th Division and assigned to Ladder 19 for the night tour of July 21-22, 1982. After a very active night of building fires, Ladder 19 responded to a report of a fire on the top floor of a tenement with children trapped. Captain Brown raced up the five flights to the fire apartment to find food burning on the stove. He returned to the street and shortly thereafter he collapsed and died. He was forty-five years old and on the Department for eighteen years. He was married with five children. (From "The Last Alarm" by Boucher, Urbanowicz & Melahn, 2006.)
RIP. Never forget.
