June 18, 2018
Growing up, Al Jack wanted to be a fireman, but before he was hired in 1973, he had never stepped foot in a fire station. Before his career was over, he would serve in Pawtucket as a private on the line, as an officer, as a Battalion Chief, and finally as Chief of Department in both Tiverton and Seekonk. Always thirsty for knowledge, he was widely regarded as one of the most educated and tactically proficient Battalion Chiefs on the job. This interview was conducted at his home three years after he retired as Chief of Seekonk. Level-headed and measured, this is what he said ... TT- Why don't we start with what year you got on and how old you were. AJ- Funny story. I was at a wedding for a good friend of mine, and I happened to be at the bar. I was talking to a friend of mine's dad, who was a Pawtucket Policeman. He was a motorcycle officer. So I'd just come back from active duty, I was in the Guards, and he said, "What're you gonna do with yourself now?" I said, "I'm thinking about becoming a policeman." Because my MOS in the Guard was MP. And so he says, "Don't do that. Why don't you be a fireman?" I says, "Oh no way. I could never be a fireman." But I ended up taking the test a number of months later. They gave me a call the following year. I got on because of a federal program at the time, the EEA. Emergency Employment Act. They had hired some people under this EEA, and what it was was a federal job service for municipalities to help put people to work. There were some stipulations. I took the test. There was like 600-700 people there and I was very fortunate, I think I finished twenty-second. The city was working Kelly days, which meant 56 hours a week. We came on right as they lowered the hours to 48. After they created the Fourth Battalion. So they needed more fire guys. There was five guys waiting from that EEA program so they put them on. TT- What year is this? AJ- Those guys got on in either September or August of '72. TT- When did you go on? AJ- I started February 27, 1973. On the EEA program. I had no formal training. Had no fire school. Had never even stepped foot in a fire station before that. Ever. Very intimidating as a young kid. I was twenty-two at the time. I walked into the fire station, didn't know where to go, I went by where the old kitchen was. It was screened in. And there was a number of guys in there, because it was change of shifts. I prided myself on being punctual, so I was there at 7:30 AM. I didn't want to go in and just interact with anybody, I was very shy. I saw two guys way in the back. Ladder 1 was a tiller truck back then, a '65 Maxim. And there were two older guys sitting at a round card table. There was a long extension light hanging from the ceiling, like at head-height. Twenty-foot long cord from the ceiling right over this table. The two men sitting there were officers, which I didn't know at the time. One was the engine lieutenant, one was the ladder lieutenant. I walked up and said, "Excuse me. My name is Al Jack and I was told to report here today." One of them, who had his back turned to me, a kind of jarhead haircut looking guy, short, stocky guy-- TT- You remember his name? AJ- Dan Cronin. He turns to me and says to me exactly these words. "Who gives a fuck?" And now with that I just wanted to leave. TT- (laughs) AJ- (laughs) It kind of put me in my place immediately. And I didn't know what to say. Five seconds goes by and the other officer goes, "Ah, don't pay any attention to him. I was told you're supposed to start today. My name is Farrel Tuite." He was the lieutenant on the engine. And that was my very first day. I ended up working for Stretch, that was his nickname, on and off for years. TT- Talk about Stretch, because I hear different guys bring his name up. He was a character, right? AJ- Stretch was a real character. He was tall, very tall guy. Lanky, somewhat of a beer belly, mustache. Stretch was a great historian. He would tell stories about guys I never saw, never knew, back to when he'd started. Going back to guys in the 50's and 60's that were on the job. And telling stories that they told him. So he was a pretty unique individual. He taught me a lot. He was my first officer. Had a lot of respect for him. He made lieutenant when the hours changed, when they went from three shifts to four. He was at the Newport Avenue station, he had also been the chief's driver. The chief had a driver when I got on the job. So anyway, Stretch ended up being bid to Engine 2, B-Group, and I started there with him. TT- Who else was on the truck? AJ- Paul Keenan, great guy. I saw Paul at Firemen's Memorial Sunday. (Every year in Pawtucket, they read the names of every guy who has passed away for the last hundred and forty years). Paul taught me an awful lot about being a firefighter. Ernie Houle was on the truck at that time, but then he went to the ladder truck. I think I was the fourth spot initially. We're talking like February of '73. I can't remember if there was a fourth man assigned. Downtown, just like the 3's, was a double-house, and guys would bounce from the engine to the ladder. Downtown also had a rescue unit. So sometimes if there was a guy out, whoever was an EMT would have to go on the band-aid truck, as they called it back then. At that time, that was a suburban. A Chevy suburban. A '68 I believe. One rescue. The backseat would be folded down, and there was a cot there if we had to transport. We had oxygen and bandages but that was pretty much it. TT- Costigan did the rest, right? AJ- Costigan Ambulance transported just about everything. We used to have codes back then, a whole code chart, and there would be signals--"Signal 23" was send me an ambulance. TT- I just want to circle back to Stretch. And the older guys talk about this guy-- AJ- He was a real character. TT- Like you just said, had all the stories almost like a historian-- AJ- He very well could have been--in my opinion he didn't get the recognition he deserved. I had left the job and Stretch was still on. TT- Did he get on in the early 60's? AJ- I believe it was the early 60's, not sure though. I think he came on with Chief Thurber, Boisclair, and Lundgren. They were all in the same circle of friends. Stretch was ... we used to have the ticker-tape that would come in, street boxes, and Stretch knew, I mean we're talking hundreds and hundreds of street boxes and businesses. Stretch knew ninety percent of them by just listening to the clicks over the speakers. TT- Now the old school-- AJ- . There was no down time. If you weren't doing anything you were studying streets. And they made sure you knew your streets. If you didn't, and said you knew where you were going, they'd actually quiz you. We'd have street drills, and we'd do them not as a company, but as a house, so everyone was involved. People from both trucks would be involved in that. Even the rescue guys, when Rescue 1 was downtown, even they jumped in. There was always something to do. And if you passed all your street drills and still had nothing to do, you cleaned the truck. You never read the newspaper. Or if you did, it was in the afternoon after the officers were done with it. Back then, you couldn't hold a hand-light. Sounds ridiculous, but privates never touched a hand-light. That was for the officers. TT- Did you say hand-light? AJ- Hand-light. Flashlight. It was kind of an elongated standing vertical light with a lense on it. It was on a charger in the front of the truck, so privates never had access to it. If you were caught with one, it was a big deal. "Who the hell is this kid?" So you had your place in the pecking order, and I'm not saying it was the right thing, but it was how these guys broke in, and it was how they wanted to break you in. I got a lot out of it. It was good for me. Today, that wouldn't fly. Today, the fire service has a higher expectation of people coming on the job and they of you. Much more educated. So you try to tap into the knowledge they have and make better use of it. Back then, you did what you were told. Period. TT- Follow the senior man and keep your mouth shut. AJ- Right. TT- The ventilation stuff was new back then, right? AJ- It was very new. TT- Back in the day, I heard they would put the freaking master stream through the roof while guys were in the building. AJ- Right. No one should've been in there. Exactly. TT- Smitty and Chickie both told stories about getting pummeled by the master stream. AJ- They were nuts. And you would take an absolute beating. Especially if you were on a stairwell trying to make the third-floor--we had a bunch of second and third-floor jobs back then--and just trying to make a stop, all of a sudden you have 500 gallons a minute coming down on you, and it could kill you. The heat comes down with it, and a lot of guys got hurt. TT- How old were you when you got on? AJ- Twenty-two. TT- So you went from high school to the guard to the job. AJ- Yes. I had a couple of years of college, had an associate's degree. I was permanently sworn in October 21, 1974. TT- So you and Smitty are basically the same age. AJ- Yes. I went to the 3's and then came back downtown. I wasn't personally fond of the officer at the 3's, no disrespect to them, I just thought it was more of a relaxed atmosphere at the 3's, and I was a young guy chomping at the bit. I wanted to do more. So I came back downtown after 5 months and started on Rescue with Spike Levesque. TT- That's another character, right? AJ- Unbelievable. He, again--I have personally three people I tried to emulate in different ways--one was Stretch, with his dedication to the job, he was a party animal, and outside of the job everybody knew him. We had gone to a funeral in Chelsea, Mass, there was a bunch of us in the car. We stop by Fanueil Hall, we're just coming in the front door, and the bar was on the opposite wall, and there's maybe a dozen people at the bar. And that was all you heard. Swear to God. "Hey, Stretch!" We walk over and there's a bunch of firemen from New Hampshire. Never seen them before, didn't know them, but they knew him from other funerals. So he was a character, and he taught me alot. Another guy who taught me was Spike Levesque. He knew the street. He had a rapport with people on the street that was incredible. He could de-escalate anything. I mean you could have someone waving a gun around and he would talk them into putting it down. He was just able to work with people, any kind of person. He was a funny, funny, funny guy. And the third for me was Chief Thurber. He was Assistant Chief before he retired. As a Chief officer, I wanted to be able to lead people the way he did. I tried to model myself and my leadership capabilities the way he did it. It was difficult to get people to do what you want, especially with thirty guys on a shift. You've gotta sell people, you gotta get them to buy in, and Chief Thurber did that. Those were the three guys. You took the parts that were important to help you grow. I remember coming on in October '74, getting sworn in, and telling my mom, "Wouldn't that be great if I started at the very bottom and finished at the top? I'm gonna try to do that." It wasn't possible in this city, because of how the top job is structured (politics), but I was very fortunate elsewhere. TT- Were you born and raised in Pawtucket? AJ- Yes. Lived off Pleasant Street, Tidewater Street. That's where I was born. And then we moved to Blackburn Street off of Benefit street near the Checker Club. TT- Now, do you remember your first fire? AJ- Yes. Very first fire. There were a bunch of us that had just come on, we were all told to report downtown. That same week, it was an oven fire off of Main Street. I think it went out because all of us consumed all of the oxygen in the room. No kidding. Guys like Stretch were like, "Oh my God, here come the new guys." It had slight extension. TT- What about your first good fire? AJ- Um, there were a number of them. We were very busy back then. Pleasant Street, you know those apartments when you cross Division Street? Those weren't there. The Portuguese Social Club was there. That was a really good fire. And we burned almost every house up and down Pleasant Street. TT- Now this is from the 95 interstate project when they cut through the city. Literally taking people's homes and land to do it. This was a big deal. They pretty much ripped the city in half and gave them twelve bridges to make up for it. AJ- They did. Yes. I remember that as a child, when 95 was built. It kind of divided the area, as far as response? And the ability to respond? So it definitely changed that aspect of it. But back then we had so many fires it was crazy. TT- It sounds like Detroit nowadays. And the houses they took, they boarded up. Not all of them got demolished. Some of the closeby ones were probably worthless. Who wants to live ten feet away from a highway? AJ- "Plywood Alley." That's what they called Mineral Spring Avenue. Lonsdale, after that on the lefthand side, I had family that lived there. On Lonsdale Avenue. So I knew they called it Plywood Alley. And it just burned. Main Street? At Main Street and Lonsdale, opposite the mill up at Sterry Street, Sisson, all of those were burnt. All of those. The Teddy Bear Club, everything. I don't even have enough fingers to count how many house fires we had in that particular place. TT- Chickie was talking about the camaraderie, and how the bond between Pawtucket and CF is so strong. And back then, it was concrete, because you guys were all at the same things. AJ- We were at the same things, you interacted. When I first got on the job, the drinking establishment of choice was Sullivan's, but it's former name was the Boulevard Tap, it was Joe Marques Boulevard Tap, but it was called the Boulevard Tap. And Friday night, that's where you would go. And we'd make the loop and it would be with Stretch and Spike, make the loop from there to the Elks, and then, if it was really late, me and Spike would head to the Broad Street Tavern, I mean real dives and real dumps-- TT- (Laughs) AJ- There's so many funny stories. Some I can never repeat. Here's a very true story about one night with Spike Levesque. I was a kid, twenty-three years old, assigned to the rescue. It was Christmas Eve. TT- How old was Spike if you were twenty-three? AJ- I'm guessing probably early forties. We had a run to the Broad Street Tavern. It was a bar that we went to often. And it was a tough place. So we'd always go there and there would be fist-a-cuffs. This is Christmas Eve, nine o'clock. We go in there and there's somebody who got popped, they didn't need us. We patched him up, he didn't want to go, everybody's cocked. So Spike's interacting with someone, and it was Alice, and she was pretty much one of the most disgraceful people I had ever set my eyes on. Heavy, heavy lady, massive breasts, I mean just smelled, the whole nine yards, just sitting at the bar, sitting at the bar almost taking up two stools, and she was involved in this altercation. I don't remember if it was her that popped this guy initially, so anyway she's talking with Spike. And I've actually seen him put his own money on the bar for these people. You know? That's the kind of guy he was. She said, "Spike, who's this?" Spike goes, "Oh it's just my fucking partner." That's how he would talk. She said, "Oh, he's cute. He's young." So he goes to her, "Well, do you want him?" (laughs). She goes, "Yeah." He goes, "Okay, you can have him." She grabs me, I turn to look at him and he's already picked up the medical bag and oxygen and he leaves. TT- (laughs) AJ- Now I'm--she's got me and I can remember everybody laughing. I was horrified. She's got my head between her breasts, and she stunk to high heaven, and literally I can remember trying to move my feet away--because it happened that quickly. He went outside and had a cigarette. TT- (Laughs) AJ- That's how long it was. And he comes back in and says, "Alice, you can't keep him." TT- (laughs) AJ- I remember they had to have an actual discussion. Like a five minute discussion about why she had to let me go back to work. And I just couldn't believe it. We got in the truck and he lights up another cigarette, and I'm behind the wheel, shaking, and I'm like, "I can't believe you just did that to me." And he just thought it was the funniest thing in the whole world. We got back to the station and everybody was laughing, he tells Stretch, he tells everybody, just buries me, so yeah, that was one night with Spike Levesque. TT- Was there ever a fire where you said, "Maybe we shouldn't be in here." AJ- We called it, "Going to the Shrine." It was a term we used back then for when you thought you were gonna die. There was only two of us on the truck, Stretch and I, and the fire was on Pawtucket Avenue, two houses before Sayles on the right hand side. And Engine 1 was in there. Timmy Holloran, a great great guy. Everybody used to use booster lines back then going into the fire. TT- Timmy Holloran was the officer? AJ- He was a private. He worked with Phil Healey. An old-timer. Jimmy Murray came on in that group of people before me, Jimmy was assigned there. I think he was on the truck that night with Timmy. They only had two people. You couldn't see anything. It was a first-floor job and it was a bedroom in the rear of the house. Stretch said to me--I'm driving-- he says, "We gotta go in and back Timmy up." Because he was alone. So I went in, followed the hose in, no SCBA, no Scott, because you wanted to show everyone you had a set of nuts. I went in, made it into the first room, started to find the second room, and that's it. I stood up, big mistake, got some heat, I tried crawling back out, and the only thing I remember is somebody pulling me. I made it to the door but I couldn't get out. There was a screen door. I remember someone pulling me but my wristwatch got stuck on the lever inside, the lever for the screen door. Finally they just pulled me out, ripped my watch, ripped the lever right off. And the next thing I remember was laying out front in the bushes, and it was a police officer that had pulled me out, and of course everybody starts arriving. Ray Naughton was on the rescue, because I hadn't transferred over to the rescue yet, and in the B-Section of the Journal back then was local news, and there on the front page of section B was a big photo of me spread out like this (mimics a beached carcass). I was unconscious. TT- So you took a blast of heat and smoke and went unconscious. AJ- Timmy came out fat, dumb and happy and was like, "What's the matter with this kid?" (laughs). Because that's the kind of fire guys they were. TT- Talk about that for a second. Guys like Timmy Hayes-- AJ- Oh my God. TT- Timmy Holloran-- AJ- There was a bunch of them. Leo Masse, those were fire guys. As officers, as firefighters, they, my God, they did superhuman stuff. As a kid, you wondered how they could do it, because I couldn't do it. Unfortunately, most of them paid for that. But they could go in and take smoke. Ray Murray, he was another one. He was my Battalion Chief. I remember we'd be in there and hearing him, and Ray, he sometimes, he was an old time fire guy. At the time I had taken a lot of classes and stuff, finding in my mind that there was a better way to do this, and Ray didn't want to hear any of that. As a Battalion Chief he told you to do something and you better friggin' do it. He would be standing in back of us while we were on the line saying, "No, I want it over here. I told you over here." And you were like, "Are you kidding me?" Timmy Hayes and these guys, they'd be smoking a butt on the way to the fire and come out--I smoked back then--and the first thing they'd do is put a butt in their mouth. You would look at them and be like, "I don't even know how they could do that." TT- What about other big fires along the way? AJ- Oh God. A number of fires. I was the chief of Tiverton when Greenhalgh Mill lit off. We sent an engine, I got here about four o'clock in the afternoon, Ronnie Doire was running the mill fire and actually had the Command vehicle lent by the Massachusetts Fire Marshal's Office. I ran the city. TT- Because you already knew it. AJ- I knew the city. So I took the city. They didn't have to worry about that. There was enough to worry about already. TT- So you retired from Pawtucket as a Battalion Chief, right? AJ- Yes. I retired at the end of June in '01. I made rescue lieutenant in '83, fire lieutenant in '89, captain in '92, battalion chief in '97, and retired in '01 to become the chief in Tiverton. TT- You stayed there until ... AJ- I stayed in Tiverton for three years. I loved it there, I'm still friends with all of them, I really did like it there. I didn't leave because I was disenchanted, I just wanted more. TT- So '93 was the Hargreaves time. AJ- Yeah. TT- You were in charge that day if I remember correctly? AJ- Yeah. I was kind of avoiding it, not because I don't want to talk about it, I just don't ... I've had a number of fires, as a Battalion Chief. There was a reporter that worked for the Times that would call me the "Black Cloud." We had more fires on the Fourth Battalion when I was Battalion Chief than all of the other shifts combined. For like two years it was crazy crazy crazy. So John Hargreaves lived in Rehoboth. And I was building a house in Rehoboth. Believe it or not John and I were not friends, we were in the same fire school, and he was a few years older than me, and he would stop by my house when we were building it. I was a captain on C-Platoon working Engine 1 on West Avenue. Loved it. That was my favorite truck. TT- Right? AJ- Loved that truck. Loved the station and loved the truck. Meerbott was the B.C. Well, Meerbott took vacation and that put me in charge. I was the queen for two cycles. And that was my biggest fire--not necessarily the biggest fire, not necessarily the worst fire, but the worst thing that ever happened in my whole entire career. TT- Lemay was saying that at one point during this fire, because we all know about the building construction. I mean this place was a fortress, like breaking into a bank vault. They finally got in, couldn't find the fire, the heat was so intense it would come and go in waves. I guess at one point, Lemay said Buchanon came out and you asked him, "How's it looking in there?" AJ- There were a couple of guys that you know, I mean you work with these guys. Buck was in my fire school. So I know John. We were friends, and John was a good fireman. There were some other guys, Roy Taylor was one, they called him Spud, he was on Ladder 2. Guys historically used to say they went to the 4's to hide, or bid Ladder 2 because they didn't want to do anything, but I'll tell you when the bell hit those were two guys I would always always rely on. And so I did ask Buck. He came out and there were a number of people I relied on because I didn't know what the fuck was going on. It was horrible. And I kept throwing people at it and back then it was "Special Signal this, Special Signal that" and when I became a B.C. I had more authority to change things, but back then I was a captain. So anyway, I said to Buck, "What's going on in there, what can you tell me?" I forget how he described it, but he did basically say it was hell in there. TT- Lemay said that Buck turned to you and said, "It feels like the devil's in that fucking basement and someone's gonna die." AJ- I don't remember it like that. Spud, you talk to him, there was two inches of rubber on that roof. And we were smoking blades trying to get through. I can't tell you how many blades we tried to put a hole in that roof. If I had that fire today, actually if I had it the following day, my approach would've been totally different. I would've backed the fire truck into and through that corner. I knew where the fire was, knew where the fire was, but we couldn't vent the building. I mentioned a good friend of mine, Rene Couto (Central Falls Chief). Rene comes out and goes "What do you got?" I was like, "Rene, I can't vent this fucking place. We can't open it up." He said, "What do you got?" He said try this. We already had. He said try that, we already had. I had people in there and Tom, I can tell you this much, I'm very comfortable in my actions that day. Could I have done things different? Yes. You know, you have to know, that everyday, every single day since then, I relive that fire. Every day. I was the second person to see John when he came out. Face to face. I grabbed him. The fire presented itself as being, the building presented itself being something that was impossible to deal with. Again, our approach back then was--and I'm not blaming anyone else--I was in charge. It was just different. John Hargreaves came on the last truck. Engine 6. TT- You guys were trying like hell just to get into this place-- AJ- I needed people. I can tell you this much. That was August 22, 1993. I had been on the job 20 years. The very first head count that I experienced on the Pawtucket Fire Department was the one I held that day. That one. I pulled everyone out of the building because I was looking for Greg Brulé who on the 1's. Greg was in charge of the 1's because I was in the car that day. Greg moved up and got lieutenant's pay. Guys were running in and I literally stopped two people from going in the building. I won't mention any names but I stopped them from going in the building. It was like on cue. Brulé comes bee-bopping out of the building, out the door I elected not to open. And the reason I didn't is because I didn't want to flash the fire. I had been part of seeing what happens when a fire flashes and gets oxygen from an unknown source, and that was back in the late 70's with Kevin Rabbit. Kevin had to leave the job because of the injuries he sustained that day. TT- Were you working that day? AJ- I was. We got Special Signaled. I was downtown on Engine 2 with Stretch. We went there and had missed Kevin. They had just taken him out and threw him in the back of a police car to take him to the hospital. Kevin was inside, found a dude, grabbed him from the bed, stood up, guys didn't know and introduced oxygen from another source and the second floor lit up completely. TT- A reliable source says that Rabbit got left up there alone. AJ- He did. His officer left him. And Ray Wallach, God rest his soul, Ray Wallach was at the top of the stairs and saw Kevin wandering around and grabbed Kevin, and the whole house was lit up. They thought Kevin was Mack Qualls, and Mack was a black guy, that's how much soot he was covered in. So anyway, at that Hargreaves fire, as we all refer to it, I didn't want to introduce oxygen, and Greg comes out of that door that guys wanted to open but I was like, "No. We have to vent it another way." I wanted to vent it where the fire was. We knew where it was. Contrary to what people say, we knew where the fire was. It took a while to find it but we just couldn't vent the building. What I should've done, and what I would've done today, is I would have backed the fire truck into the corner wall where we knew the fire was and vented the building. I had pulled everybody out before. It wasn't like I left people in there. We did a head count. Saw Greg, barked at him for a bit (he was freelancing), Greg was a great fireman. But it was after that, unbeknownst to me, that John entered the building. He should not have been, was told not to, he was told not to. They actually have him on film, there was people--there was an investigation. It was the most half-ass investigation I've ever been a part of in my entire life. TT- Meerbott said that same thing. He went even further and said the building was completely torn down within a day or two and put into dumpsters and trucked away forever. AJ- It was a couple of days later. TT- I mean this is a line of duty death. It doesn't get anymore serious than that. There was no investigation, and they just bulldozed the whole place into never-neverland. AJ- I just couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it. Even our investigation on the fire department was nonexistent. Maybe you heard this, but I was interviewed later when the guys from OSHA came down, and their biggest concern was Steve Parent pumping Engine 2 without a helmet on. TT- Jesus Christ, I heard this too. Talk about ludicrous. AJ- And they asked me, they drilled me. "Well, how come your men weren't wearing all of their gear?" TT- Honest to God, the guy's pumping the fire. He's the safest one on the entire scene. AJ- I said, "Well, first of all I wasn't aware of that initially. I confronted him and he told me that someone on another truck had lost their helmet so he gave the guy his helmet. Steve gave him his helmet. Two guys were grilling me. They came after me for an hour and a half on gear. TT- Now this is a line of duty death investigation and these guys were worried about the guy standing on the street at the pump panel with no helmet on. AJ- John's Jacket was frayed in the back. His cuffs were burnt off. His collar was burnt. The heat damage to his coat was unbelievable. TT- Just for the record now, we're talking about the confluence of a number of horrible things all at once. We're talking about a building no one could get into, no one has radios except for the officer, and if the radio gets wet it doesn't even work, no one knows where anyone is unless they're on the radio-- AJ- You tried telling guys to stay together. I remember telling Kurt Richards-- TT- And also, not for nothing, but Hargreaves wasn't someone you'd have to normally worry about because he didn't have the reputation as an inside guy. AJ- John wasn't an inside guy, even he would tell you that. TT- It's almost like he wandered into an environment that he never should've been in. AJ- Shouldn't have been in there, he was told not to be, he was supposed to stay with the others. I instructed him to, I instructed his officer, which was Kurt Richard who was a captain, and he said, "Okay. chief." Kurt went inside with his guy, and the only way I knew John went in is because there was a person on vacation and we were able to seize the tapes. Honest to God, there's a picture of John walking up the walkway into the front door of the building, by himself, following a hoseline. I can't remember if he had his mask on but he was pulling his gloves on. The guy was on vacation taking pictures. He sees a fire guy going in and snaps a bunch of pics. So we know he went in, he wasn't supposed to, we don't know why, don't know where he was. I interviewed everybody later on, "Did you see him?" Not one guy saw him. TT- No one even knows what he did in there, right? AJ- He wasn't in the working group. He wasn't on the hose teams, he wasn't on the backup teams, he wasn't searching for a vent. He was by himself. TT- There's been a lot of crazy conjecture about why he would even go into that building. I don't want to get involved with rumor mongering, but it just seems like it was a combination of events and this is what happens. AJ- It's a terrible--not for me to say his reasoning. There's only person who knew that and he can't tell us why. He did things he shouldn't have done. TT- When I was talking with Meerbott, I was like, "What the hell was in that building that was so important that demanded all this security?" Two inch re-enforced bulletproof glass, two roofs, it was like breaking into a bank and I've built banks. A couple of them, actually. They are not easy breeches. AJ- They had been firebombed before, the McBurney Law Office, and I don't know them well enough. I went to school with John (McBurney), young John, I went to Saint Ray's with him, but I don't know what the family was into or not, I just know the building had been firebombed before. There was some questions about it. I just find it hard to believe that I was interviewed by OSHA for over an hour and a half, and those two guys just grilled me about gear. I was like, "Are you shitting me?" Nothing about tactics, nothing about strategy, and then, to have the building be taken down within a week, I still can't believe it. Our Fire Marshal at the time, I'm not casting aspersions against him, but if it was me, I would've asked a lot more questions. Here's a guy who was fubared. I mean it was obvious to everybody that he was in very very serious condition, and we had gotten reports back in the following weeks that things were bad. Guys were taking watch at his house in case the family needed anything. The wife was given a car to drive to Connecticut, sometimes with a driver, police or fire. The police department really stood up for us. A lot of people don't know that, but John's family was--everyone tried to look out for them. But prior to the incident, John did not have a very good relationship with the city administration. It was ugly. But still the city stepped forward. The police department did, the fire department did, for him and his family. About a month later he passed away. He had been transferred to Boston. The burns that he had on his wrist, hands and neck were bad, but the thing that really killed him was the sepsis from the infections he had in his throat and lungs. It's unfortunate. It's a shame that it happened, but I'm good with it now. TT- It's a dangerous job. AJ- It shows. You can be-bop in and think, "Oh it's just a little hot, I got my SCBA on." John came out with his mask off. No one knows why. I can't explain that. His hands were burnt. I went through the building myself, assumed it was him, there was soot on the palms of his hands, and there were palm prints chest high down the wall along the corridor from which he exited. Handprints, fingerprints, not gloves. We kind of pieced it together that he had his glove off, made his way with his left hand down that hallway. Don't know why that glove was off, don't know why his mask was off-- TT- There are too many questions that can only be answered by one person. AJ- Like I said, I think about John everyday. I see him as he came out of the building everyday. I deal with it. John's in a shoe-box that I have. And when it bothers me to the point where I think I've got to deal with it, I'll imagine myself going to a closet, opening the door, and taking down a shoebox. I'll deal with it. Sometimes it's five seconds, sometimes it's five minutes. Close the box, put it away, close the door, I'm good. So that's the way that I have been able to-- TT- Everyone that's spoken on this blog has said the same thing. It was a bad situation made worse by the decisions he may or may not have made. It's just a tragedy. And that should be the end of it. Now, let's switch gears. As you went through your career, you held every position. And then you became Chief in two other places. You went through the hole spectrum. Aside from the Hargreaves incident, is there anything you would change? AJ- No. No. In my mind I got to fulfill a childhood dream. I remember I lived off of Benefit Street from five-years-old until I got married, running after fire trucks and only going as far as my parents would let me go. Never been on a fire truck, didn't know any firefighters, but I got to experience that. To start at the very bottom and work my way up. It didn't happen in Pawtucket, but quite honestly I'm more proud of that, that in my opportunity in two other towns, I had competition. It wasn't bestowed on me, I wasn't knighted, I had to compete with other individuals. And I had tried for nine other jobs. TT- What are you most proud of? AJ- The city of Pawtucket does accountability every twenty minutes on scene. Guess who started that? As a B.C. I just didn't like the way things were being run, so I did a lot of reading, and I picked that up from the Kansas City Fire Department. Every twenty minute time marks. The chief at the time said, "We're not gonna do that." I said, "Well, I'm going to do it on my shift." He said okay. That was Jim Congdon. He came on the job in the school before mine. We did it. Every twenty minutes. The Kansas City thing just made so much sense. You got a thirty minute bottle on. This way if you have a problem you address it before the problem turns into a crisis. It took a couple of years for me to enact that. Mike Levesque was another progressive BC. We were able to instill that in people. It just made so much sense. These are the type of things, positive things. A testament of a leader is what he leaves behind in others. And that's my job. It was as a rescue officer, a line officer, a B.C. or even as chief. It's what you leave in others after you're gone, what you've done. And I believe in that.
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Victoria
9/12/2021 12:22:46 pm
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AuthorTom Trabulsi was born in the Midwest, attended high school in Rhode Island, and graduated from Boston University with a degree in American History. He was a bike courier in Boston and New York City, worked construction in the mountain west and east coast, and is currently a firefighter in a northeast city. Archives
August 2022
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