Hundreds mourn the death of teen firefighter

Francesco Posillico, 17, loved the outdoors, aspired to be a chef and planned to join the Westbury Fire Department.

Known to most as Frankie, the high school senior was full of energy and did everything to the maximum - always with a bit of flair.

"Frankie was a special person," Mario Posillico said Saturday in eulogizing his younger brother. "He never hated anyone and always had a big smile."

More than 450 relatives, friends and firefighters filled the pews and lined the walls of St. Brigid Church in Westbury to mourn the teen, who died Tuesday night in a car crash that seriously injured the two teenagers in the vehicle with him, friends who also attended W.T. Clarke High School. He was the driver.

Posillico joined the fire department's Explorers at age 14, and the department was processing his paperwork so he could become an active firefighter upon graduation. He already had a helmet listing his name and assignment - Hose Company 2, Chief Patrick Cody said.

In death, he was accorded the ritual of an active firefighter, with pallbearers, an honor guard and fellow firefighters lining the walkway as his coffin was carried from St. Brigid's.

"I kind of ran out of tears," freshman Kassie Lodico, 14, said afterward. Though grades apart, she and Posillico shared an art class. "He would stick up for everybody," she said.

Sixty Westbury firefighters and 50 others from surrounding areas - Massapequa, Wantagh, Mineola - attended the service, black tape over their shields.

The Rev. Msgr. Ralph Sommer, who officiated, said it was understandable to be angry and question why Posillico was taken so young. He believes God cried the day Posillico died. "We know that Frankie is OK, that he is healed, he doesn't suffer, that God is going to take care of him," he said.

Sommer urged people to take what they loved about him and bring it forward in their own lives. "Frankie is the one who had so much joy in his life," he said. "The one who would say the right thing and get people past their dark times."

Police said Posillico went through a stop sign in Westbury at Bowling Green Drive and Salisbury Road, broadsided a car and flipped his 2006 BMW, a Christmas present.

His friends, Daniel Roche and Joseph Scaperrotta, both 16, remain hospitalized. Roche was in critical but stable condition at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola and Scaperrotta was in stable condition at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, hospital officials said Saturday.

The woman in the other car was not seriously injured.

At the funeral Mass, prayers were said for both teens. Near the end of the service, Sommer said, "Be more careful with life and be more careful with each other."