Tales of selfless heroism told at FDNY medal ceremony

A Queens woman pleaded for someone to save her husband from their burning apartment. While she had managed to escape into the hallway, her husband was still in his pajamas and trapped between a dresser and a wall.

In rushed FDNY Capt. Colm Brennan that early March 2023 morning — through high heat, thick smoke, almost no visibility.

“I was able to get him out,” Brennan, 52, said Wednesday at New York City Hall after being awarded a medal for what the FDNY deemed courageous and remarkable rescue efforts, which included going back inside to search for more victims.

The Oakdale resident was among 75 firefighters, supervisors, medics, fire marshals and other FDNY personnel to be honored at Wednesday’s Medal Day, a tradition dating back to 1869. Among the honorees’ feats: pulling trapped victims out of windows high into the Manhattan sky, saving two swimmers from drowning in the waters off the Rockaways and extinguishing a raging home fire in Staten Island despite the rescuer running out of air.

Brennan, who’s been a firefighter for 27 years, wasn’t the only Long Islander to be awarded a medal. Other FDNY honorees came from Bayport, Bellerose, Floral Park, Garden City, Holbrook, Levittown, Long Beach, Massapequa, Medford, New Hyde Park, Northport, North Merrick, Setauket, Wantagh, Westbury and beyond.

At Wednesday's ceremony, hundreds of friends, family and fellow FDNY personnel cheered the honorees, hooting, singing and applauding as Mayor Eric Adams and Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh helped hand out the medals.

“Medal Day stands as a testament to our department’s triumphs, to those moments of unparalleled bravery when our members risk everything to safeguard the lives of their fellow New Yorkers and of one another,” Kavanaugh said.

The honorees were chosen by an FDNY committee comprising all ranks on the job, reviewing firefighting feats and considering factors such as bravery, danger and severity of injury, according to FDNY spokesperson Jim Long.

FDNY Lt. Ryan Daley, who’s from Lindenhurst, was honored Wednesday for rushing into a burning home in Queens in January 2023 to rescue a baby from near-death. Though the basement door had been barricaded shut, and a civilian assured him that everyone was safely out of the building, the sounds of a lullaby coming from a toy led Daley, 52, to hone in on the child as the music grew louder.

“I didn't even realize there would be a kid down there,” said Daley, an FDNY firefighter for 25 years who also worked on the pile at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

It takes a certain kind of person to work for the FDNY, said firefighter Artur Podgorski, 29, of Whitestone, Queens, who was honored for rappelling down a rope to perform a lifesaving rescue in Manhattan in November 2022.

“It’s not for everyone, that’s why the FDNY is so special,” said Podgorski, who has been with the FDNY for four years. “You know that if you don’t do it, no one else is going to.”

With Matthew Chayes