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Lieutenant Carlos Gonzalez
Ladder Company 133 |
| July 3, 1999, 0515 hours,
Box 75-8621, 188-01 Dormans Road, Queens |
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Appointed to the FDNY on July 14, 1979.
Previously assigned to L-11, L-107, L-43 and E-53. Recipient
of the Thomas R. Elsasser Medal and cited on nine other
occasions. Brother, Richard, serves as a Lieutenant in Ladder
Company 136. Father, Pablo, is a retired Firefighter from
E-311 and uncle, Rudy, is a retired Lieutenant from L-17.
Resides in Bay Shore, L.I., with his wife, Elizabeth, and
children, Reuben, 15, Robert, 10, Erik, 8, and John, 2.
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The faint streaks of dawn
were breaking on a warm summer morning this past July, when
the silence of the south Jamaica quarters of the “Merrick
Magic” (Engine 275/Ladder 133) was shattered by the strident
sound of the tone alarm. Simultaneously, the housewatch teleprinter
directed the company to respond to a reported house fire.
Ladder Company 133, under the
command of Lieutenant Carlos Gonzalez, rolled eastbound from
quarters toward nearby St. Albans. As they did, billowing
black smoke could be seen on the horizon. They “had a
job.”
Ladder Company 133 recently
had been established (November 1998) to augment the fire protection
in southern Queens, an area of heavy fatal fire activity.
As the company raced to the
location, the Queens dispatcher radioed the responding units
that numerous telephone calls were being received. Many of
the calls reported that people were trapped on the second
floor of a wood-frame private house. Within three minutes
of the initial alarm, Engine Company 275 arrived on the scene
and transmitted a signal for a working fire. Less than a minute
later, Ladder 133 pulled up.
As Lieutenant Gonzalez stepped
from the apparatus, he was besieged by civilians who told
him they saw a woman above the raging fire on the second floor
of the house. They reported that the woman apparently was
trying to escape from the building, but she had disappeared
from view.
Immediately, Lieutenant Gonzalez
ordered the chauffeur to position the aerial ladder at the
second floor on the left side of the building. He called for
a portable ladder to be placed against the building’s
right side. With the two members of his “inside team,”
Lieutenant Gonzalez then forced his way into the first floor
of the structure. Fire had engulfed the front porch and was
consuming the living room and foyer.
Knowing that time was not on
their side, the Lieutenant ordered his team to start searching
the first floor while he attempted to locate the staircase
to the upper floor. Although the heavy smoke forced Lieutenant
Gonzalez to his knees, he nevertheless crawled through the
first floor, finally locating the stairway. However, he was
unable to make his way up because of the excessive heat generated
by the fire.
Aware that there might possibly
be a victim upstairs, Lieutenant Gonzalez redoubled his efforts
and finally was able to ascend to the second floor. Once there,
he immediately started a search of the first bedroom. After
completing that task, he crawled down the hall toward a second
bedroom that was burning freely. Feeling his way through the
dense smoke and heat, he found the motionless body of an elderly
woman, Mrs. Susie  Burruss.
Still working alone, Lieutenant Gonzalez dragged the unconscious
victim through the hallway, down the stairs, across the first
floor toward the door and into the hands of waiting firefighters.
When Mrs. Burruss was removed
from the house, she was in cardiac arrest and critically burned
over most of her body. After initially being revived at Mary
Immaculate Hospital, she was transferred to the Cornell Burn
Center. Unfortunately, the victim’s injuries were so
severe that she did not survive. Compounding this particular
tragedy is that a fire in the same house took the life of
Mrs. Burruss’ daughter nine years ago.
The ultimate fate of Mrs. Burruss
in no way diminishes the rescue performed by Lieutenant Gonzalez.
He acted alone and without the protection of a hose-line in
an extremely hazardous environment. His display of personal
courage and tenacity in rescuing a victim from the highly
dangerous area of the floor above a raging fire has earned
him official recognition of his bravery by the FDNY.--BDG
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