By Hannan Adely
Herald News
CLIFTON — Pulled from a burning building, 10-year-old Jacob Weatherbee lay in Firefighter Steven Turi’s arms, nearly lifeless and covered in soot. Turi gave him two quick breaths and heard the child gasp, a sign of hope. He raced Jacob to a nearby ambulance and hoped for the best.
“It was all reaction, like a storybook,” Turi recalled, pausing teary-eyed. And indeed, it appears headed for a storybook ending: Jacob was in stable condition on Wednesday at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston and was expected to recover fully, according to his grandmother, Nina DeVincentis.
But the dramatic rescue, recounted by firefighters at a news conference on Wednesday, might have had an entirely different outcome if Fire Station 2 on Dumont Avenue no longer existed, fire officials said. The firehouse, a half-mile from the fire scene on Elmwood Drive, closed for two months in 2009, and almost for good, because of budget woes that year.
“The rescue and the life that has been saved is a direct result of the close proximity of Fire Station 2 to the fire building at 19 Elmwood Drive, which allowed a response time of one minute,” Acting Fire Chief Brian Mulligan said at the firehouse.
Mulligan praised the actions of the firefighters at the scene and in the ambulance who worked together quickly to save Jacob’s life in a situation where seconds counted. He and firefighters related in detail how the rescue unfolded.
Firefighters got the call on Sunday at 1:32 a.m. and arrived about a minute later, learning that Jacob was still inside. The single-family home had fire surging from the front section of the first floor. After hosing down flames, Lt. William Ricci and Firefighter Kenneth Prior entered the smoke-filled home and searched for the boy.
Ricci entered the first room he saw, a bedroom on the left, and felt across the bed until his knees hit something. “I put my hands down, and I felt the little boy,” Ricci recalled. “I pulled him out a little bit to see if he was stuck under anything. He wasn’t stuck, and I just picked him up and ran.”
He carried Jacob to Turi, who was outside preparing to head into the home and aid the search. That’s when Turi started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and took the boy to the nearby ambulance, where firefighters continued to care for him on the way to the hospital.
Jacob’s health is improving, and he is responding to doctors with written notes, fire officials said.
Jacob’s mother, Veronica Weatherbee, and his brother Matthew, 12, escaped on their own and were taken to St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson. Weatherbee is now at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, where she is in stable condition. Matthew has been discharged.
“My daughter and I will be eternally grateful to firefighter Station 2 in Clifton for saving their lives,” said DeVincentis, who owns the Elmwood Drive home. “If not for these men, they, especially Jacob, may have perished in that fire.”
DeVincentis said she couldn’t bear the thought of the station ever closing again. The station was closed for two months in 2009 after firefighters and city officials argued over the city’s expenses and layoffs. To save the firehouse and the jobs of colleagues, the firefighters union agreed to givebacks including two-week furloughs, and the city reinstated 12 firefighters and reopened the firehouse.
“I will fight to the death if I ever hear about closing this station again,” DeVincentis said.
City Manager Matthew Watkins was on hand and did not address the station’s history, but he saluted the moment as one of recognizing “the heroic efforts of the men in the Fire Department.”
Other firefighters who assisted in the rescue were Daniel Hertel, who operated the pump on Engine 2, and Thomas Tafro and Jason McGurk, who treated Jacob in the ambulance. Deputy Chief Leopold Loder supervised the rescue operation.
Mulligan said the bravery and professionalism shown that night was a testament to the men’s character.
“The proudest thing a fire chief can do is acknowledge and praise his department’s actions when a child’s life has been saved from certain death,” he said. “I salute them all.”
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