Fire Captain Jack Dunne and Firefighter Michael Daley can’t forget that day in 2007 when they were off-duty and saw a fire on 11th Street. They responded with no gear, but with a significant amount of experience that allowed them to rescue a mother and her two children trapped in the third floor of a house in flames.
The heroic act brought them recognition when Liberty Mutual awarded them honors on a state level, which qualified them for national honors. In February, both firefighters received national recognition for their heroism in the 2009 Liberty Mutual National Firemark Awards at the World Conference and Expo in San Diego, Calif. Along with the award came a $10,000 donation from Liberty Mutual to the Bayonne Fire Department, which Fire Chief Greg Rogers said would be used to off set the cost of purchasing needed equipment.
Prior to the March 18 City Council meeting, Armando Patino, freehold branch manger for Liberty Mutual, presented the Fire Department with a $10,000 check, which comes with the national honor.
The state FMB awarded them All Gold, and this allowed them to be submitted for national honor, said Rogers.
The scene
Dunne and Daley, both off-duty at the time, arrived at the site first. They were apparently about a block away when they saw the fire.
“I called in the alarm,” Daley said.
Both men raced to the scene, only to find the victims trapped in the home’s attic.
The firefighters attempted to enter the house to make the rescue, but the heat and flames prevented several attempts.
“I went into the yard looking for a ladder,” Daley said.
When the first fire truck arrived on the scene, Daley and Dunne grabbed the ladder off of it and pushed it up against the house only to discover the ladder came up short.
Daley positioned it into a flowerbed, which allowed Dunne to reach the window – barely.
Balancing himself on the ladder’s top run, with Daly directly below to provide support, Dunne successfully retrieved all three victims from the attic window.
“I had to stand at the top on the tips of my toes,” Dunne called. “Mike supported me.”
“I thought the woman would come out next. But she reached back into the house for another child.” – Fire Captain Jack Dunne
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“I thought the woman would come out next,” Dunne said. “But she reached back into the house for another child.”
The woman came last, and Dunne brought her to the ground just in time as flames engulfed the building.
Witnesses at the fire scene said the woman looked scared and desperate, but was still cognitive enough to follow Dunne’s directions.
Dunne, who was at the top of the ladder, suffered burns on his back and neck. Daley, who was behind him, suffered burns on his hands. “Both were transported to The Burn Center at Saint Barnabas [in Livingston, N.J.] by EMS. The mother and her children were transported to Jersey City Medical Center by EMS and were also later released.
Annual award given for outstanding efforts
The Liberty Mutual Firemark Award is presented annually to U.S. firefighters who best represent their communities through courageous valor and who best demonstrate the firefighter’s selfless spirit. The award takes its name from the firemark, a leaden plate in the form of a phoenix rising from the ashes, which American fire offices in the 18th and 19th centuries used to mark all the houses they insured. The firemark stood as a guarantee to all fire brigades that the insurance company that insured the house in question would reward handsomely the brigade extinguishing a fire on the premises.
Liberty Mutual National Firemark Award winners are chosen from a pool of nominees who have received local awards from a Liberty Mutual office in their community throughout the year by a committee comprised of numerous fire safety organizations, including the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the National Volunteer Fire Council, the National Fire Protection Association, the National Association of State Fire Marshals, and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers.
Rogers said the awarding of the national honor is a great morale booster for the department.
“It also sets the bar high,” he said.
Rogers said this lets the people of Bayonne know about the high quality of people who are working on their behalf and for their safety.
In accepting the honor, Dunne said, “It just feels great knowing that we helped recover people who are living today from what we did.”
He also said that the cash award allows the firefighters to give back a little to the city and the Fire Department.
“When you listen to the narrative of what these two gentlemen did, this is exemplary. It is above and beyond the call-of-duty behavior,” Mayor Mark Smith said. “At one point, Firefighter Daley had his own child with him and handed that child off to strangers so that he and his partner, Capt. Dunne, could go in without the aid of protective gear, without the breathing apparatus and put their lives and their limbs on the line, sacrificing themselves nobly to do what was the right thing to do.”