by Deborah Young
It should not have been.
Instead of spending a cozy Sunday morning inside New Brighton's Engine Co. 155 quarters, a line of firefighters stood outside yesterday in dress uniform, lowering the flag to half staff and tying it to the red brick building with ungloved fingers, in the bitter cold.
Also part of the FDNY's saddest tradition, the firehouse was draped in purple and black bunting.
It was a two-alarm fire in the attic of a nearby home at 39 Van Buren St. at 12:28 a.m. that took the life of one of the city's Bravest.
But Lt. Robert J. Ryan, Jr., a 17-year-veteran of the force, a 46-year-old father of four and a man colleagues described as a "firefighter's firefighter" a friend, a mentor, a survivor and an inspiration, died when a ceiling collapsed, throwing him to the ground and knocking off his helmet and oxygen mask, sending him into immediate cardiac arrest, authorities said.
The West Brighton native was carried, unconscious, out of the two-story house by his fellow Bravest, who witnesses said, laid him on the ground outside and leaned over him, working furiously to try to keep him alive. He was pronounced dead at Richmond University Medical Center.
Engine 155 was the first to respond to the fire, believed to have been sparked by faulty wiring. One woman escaped from the home, unharmed.
The blaze, still under investigation by fire officials, who did not deem it suspicious, was brought under control at 1:31 a.m., according to fire officials.
Fire marshals are conducting interviews with the other firefighters that were with Ryan to piece together exactly what happened.
"He was a brave man who lost his life protecting the city," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said during a somber, morning press conference at the West Brighton hospital. "He was carried out of the building by his fellow firefighters who were standing right around him when the accident occurred."
The mayor described how Engine Company 155 arrived at the scene of the blaze four minutes after the call came in, and how Lt. Ryan had taken the lead, stretching the hose into the attic where the fire had started.
The fact that Lt. Ryan was out in front was true to character, said colleagues, who remembered him as a leader and a consummate mentor who, just before the call came in, had taught a workshop on how to remove unconscious firefighters from buildings.
"He was the best guy we could have had," said Capt. James Gorman of Engine 155. "He'll leave a huge hole in Engine 155. He did everything for this place. He had a long, dedicated career."
Lt. Ryan worked in all five boroughs in a career that could have easily been over in 2006, when he sustained painful, third-degree burns to his neck while battling a blaze in Bay Ridge.
"He had to fight to get back," said Capt. Gorman. "He could have retired."Firefighters looked dazed as they conducted the investigation on Van Buren Street, coming and going from the white, two-story, 1920s era home, that, from the front, appeared virtually undamaged. "There aren't too many people who would go running in to save somebody else's stuff," said James Jefferson, the owner of 39 Van Buren St.
Jefferson said he has lived with his family on the quiet block for about 15 years, and that he was at work in Brooklyn as a supervisor with the Department of Environmental Protection when the flames broke out.
"Any loss is hard, especially when you're trying to save somebody else," he said.
His wife, Lorraine, had been asleep when a neighbor, Helen Collins, walking outside, noticed the smoke.
"I knocked on her door and tried to wake her up," said Ms. Collins, whose uncle called 911. "She came out and said, 'You saved me!'"
The two watched from the window as about 100 firefighters came roaring up the street. She said she saw the men carry out Lt. Ryan and lay him down on the street, leaning over him and screaming for EMS.
"I feel very bad for his family," said Ms. Collins, whose father had set two votive candles on the sidewalk. "It's going to be very hard to get through. They are in our prayers."
Family and firefighters arrived by the dozens to the Ryan's De Kay Street home. As they left in tears, fire marshals and police outside kept the press at bay, requesting privacy for the family.
"He was outgoing; he always wanted to help; you couldn't ask for a better neighbor," said Steve Harding who lives directly next door and whose son plays often with Lt. Ryan's children.
When the Ryan family moved in about a year ago, they knocked on the door to introduce themselves, he said.
"From that point on we were on a first name basis," he said, crying quietly as he described how they helped each other with yard work and had barbecues together. "His whole family is wonderful. They moved here and they really brought the block together."
Ryan's death also hit especially hard to those who saw the fire lieutenant struggle for a year to become "active duty" after he suffered severe burns to his neck.
While fighting a blaze in the kitchen of a three-story brick building in Bay Ridge on Oct. 3, 2006, he told the firefighter operating the hoseline that they had to pull out because his neck was burning. The firefighter turned the hoseline on Lt. Ryan's neck to cool him and finished extinguishing the fire.
The third-degree burns left him so sensitive to heat there were doubts as to whether he would ever be able to return to fighting fires.
Lt. Ryan returned to active duty on Sept. 26, 2007, but he didn't forget the burn center and remained close friends with many of the staff, Cooper said. He was to hold a toy drive for burned children in the pediatric wing Dec. 19, and helped arrange thousands of dollars in donations to the center.
"He would open his oven so he could little by little get used to the heat," said Dr. Michael L. Cooper, director of the Staten Island University Regional Burn Center where Ryan recovered. "For him, there was never a thought in his mind that he could ever do anything else."
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