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Colleagues, friends recall drowned firefighter

BY EMERSON CLARRIDGE | Special to Newsday

11:17 PM EDT, July 24, 2008

To his buddies at the always-busy firehouse in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Martin Simmons was the go-to guy, the one person less-experienced firefighters could always count on in a dangerous situation.

On the Nesconset street where he lived with his wife, Judi, a PTA leader in the Smithtown school district, and their three boys, the athletic former bodybuilder was known as an avid New York Jets fan who was often seen tossing the football with his sons on the front lawn.

So when news of his drowning death earlier this week in Lake Tahoe, Nev., filtered through the firehouse and the tight-knit Uncas Street neighborhood, those who knew him were stunned. A retired New York Police Department officer, now a firefighter, seemingly in his prime, was gone.

"Marty was always looking out for younger guys," said Sean Kitt, 29, of Seaford, a firefighter who worked with Simmons at Ladder Co. 111. "He was one of the guys we could look up to for advice. His life was that fire department. His life was his family. ... A great man. A great firefighter."

Neighbors said Simmons was a fixture at the annual block party held in the late summer who kept to himself about the often risky job he did in Brooklyn.

Miguel Castro, 38, has lived next door to the Simmons family in Nesconset for about four years.

"He was always involved with his boys," Castro said Thursday, adding that their front-yard chats usually involved the travails of the Jets and their kids.

"Marty didn't really talk about his work as a firefighter," Castro said.

A funeral is planned for Monday at Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church in Nesconset.

Thursday, state police escorted Simmons' casket from Kennedy Airport to a funeral home in Smithtown after its cross-country flight from Lake Tahoe.

Outside the mortuary, his wife, Judi, wrapped her arms tightly around her three boys, Joseph, 13, Kevin, 10, and Ryan, 8, as FDNY firefighters in dress uniform removed the coffin from the hearse and carried it inside.