FDNY Line of Duty Death
January 7, 1976 - LODD
Fireman Charles Sanchez, 33
Ladder 131
FDNY. Red Hook - Brooklyn, New York
Fireman Sanchez died of injuries he sustained when the floor he was working on collapsed, and he became trapped in the basement.
RIP. Never forget.
Member of 1968 Proby Class (Chief K, Capt B, Lt Q)
Veteran
NY Times
Fireman Is Killed In Brooklyn Blaze
By John F. BurnsJan. 8, 1976
Frantic efforts by rescuers succeeded yesterday in saving eight of nine firemen who were trapped for up to two and a half hours when commands to abandon a burning supermarket in Brooklyn Heights apparently went unheard and a collapsing floor plunged them into the burning smoke-filled basement.
The trapped men could be heard screaming for help over their walkietalkies as relays of rescuers wearing breathing apparatus probed the acrid smoke and darkness inside the A. & P. store at Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Street, desperately seeking a way into the basement.
Eventually, rescuers reached five of the men through a 3‐by‐ 3‐foot hole punched in the basement wall with the aid of Jackhammers and battering rams. The other four escaped up a ladder lowered through the collapsed ceiling by rescuers who entered the building through a rear window.
One of the last two men to be brought out, Fireman Charles R. Sanchez, 33 years old, was found Unconscious and buried up to his waist in smoldering debris. Mayor Beame and Fire Commissioner John T. O'Hagan watched as doctors attempted to revive him in an emergency medical vehicle at the scene, but he was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn.
15 Hospitalized
Mayor Beame, who looked shocked as he emerged from the 30‐minute resuscitation effort with Fire Department chaplains at his side, told a sidewalk news conference that the city should be proud of the 150 men who participated in the rescue.
“If it weren't for the heroic efforts of the officers and men here today, this would have been a much worse tragedy,” he said.
The five alarm blaze, which was still burning more than 12 hours after the 5:51 A.M. alarm, sent 22 other firemen to hospitals suffering from smoke inhalation. A total of 15 were admitted, including Fireman Robert Penta, 26, who was found in the debris alongside Fireman Sanchez. He was listed in critical condition in Beekman‐ Downtown Hospital.
Fireman Sanchez was among the men who battled a 36‐hour blaze that erupted at an oil storage complex on the South Brooklyn waterfront on Sunday. He lived with his wife and two children at 1218 East 40th Street in Brooklyn, and. had been with the Fire Department for seven years. He won two merit awards last year.
Disaster Feared
The supermarket fire began as a routine two alarmer, but the collapse of the floor and the drama that followed transformed it. For more than an hour, while they waited for the rescuers to reach the first of the trapped men, Commissioner O'Hagan and other officials feared that they might be witnessing a repeat of the Oct. 17, 1966. fire at 6 East 23d Street, where 12 firemen died.
The initial alarm was sounded by John Davenport, manager of the 24‐hour store, who evacuated five employees from the one story building when he noticed smoke seeping from beneath a freezer in the rear of the shopping area. This and other evidence led Commissioner O'Hagan to suggest later that the cause might have been a malfunction of wiring in the floor.
The Commissioner said that Deputy Chief Robert Jacobs, who was in charge in the initial stages of the fire, had ordered his men out of the building when he heard reports of the floor sagging shortly before 7 A.M.
But the walkietalkie command apparently went unheard, and the nine men—all from Ladder Company 131 and Engine Company 279—plunged into the basement when the floor collapsed moments later.
“We were yelling for them to get out,” recalled John Scali, one of a handful of men who escaped the collapse. “We could watch the boxes and stock roll to the middle and all of a sudden the floor went in. They were screaming, ‘Help! Please help, we're burning!'”
From then until 8:20 A.M., when the first of the trapped men was brought out, the prospects looked grim. Dozens of fire engines, ambulances and auxiliary vehicles raced to the scene as three additional alarms went up, but rescuers could find no swift access to the basement.
As one crew worked its way into the building from the back, others went to work with jackhammers and battering rams in the basement of the Atlantic Variety Store next door. Three holes were punched through the three foot thick wall before the right spot was found, close the
“I told the guys to keep cool, cool, cool,” said Lieut. Nicholas Panetta, who was in charge of men of the ladder company who were trapped. He said he also told his men to abandon their breathing equipment to make rescue easier. Breathing had been eased by a high pressure air hose fed into the basement by the rescuers.
Deputy Assistant Chief Edward D. Kalletta, the Brooklyn Borough Commander, said that the basement wall had been “like a fortress,” raising fears that the men might asphyxiate before rescuers could get through.
When they did, according to Peter Hayden, one of the rescuers, “it was like hell there—you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.”
Father Injured
Out on the street. meanwhile, anxious relatives waited among a huge crowd of onlookers. One of them, Michael Canberg, burst into tears as he telephoned his wife. Patricia, to report that his father. George, a fireman, was slightly injured but otherwise all right.
By 9 A.M., seven of the missing men were safely out of the building. carried off in ambulances with oxygen masks clamped to their sootstreaked faces. By then, radio contact had been lost with Mr. Sanchez and Mr. Penta, who were finally found shortly after 9:30 A.M. side by side.
2016-01-07 Throwback Thursday from 1976
This week’s Throwback Thursday photos are from January 7, 1976 – a 5th alarm at Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Street in Brooklyn (FD Box 55-0532). While operating at this incident Firefighter Charles Sanchez from Ladder 131 made the supreme sacrifice.
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