Aug 23, 2007 6:58 pm US/Eastern
Hundreds Gather To Honor Fallen Firefighter
By Dave Carlin, CBS 2 News
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
A sea of blue honored a hero who lost his life protecting our city. Thursday was the final farewell for firefighter Joseph Graffagnino, one of the two firefighters killed battling the massive fire last weekend at the Deutsche Bank building at Ground Zero.
The emotional goodbye was held at St. Ephrem's Church in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. Loved ones and colleagues packed the funeral mass in the morning to for the 34-year-old they remembered as with the "wonderful smile that lit up the world."
Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined hundreds of firefighters at the service inside the brick church. The skirl of bagpipes accompanied the arriving casket before giving way to the tolling of a lone bell as the thick crowd stood silently.
Graffagnino, an eight-year FDNY veteran who left behind a wife and two small children, died along with 53-year-old Robert Beddia. Both worked out of a Greenwich Village firehouse that lost 11 members in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and both survived the brutal day that claimed the lives of 343 firefighters.
The adjoining 40-story Deutsche Bank building on Liberty Street was rendered useless by the attack. Construction crews were in the process of dismantling the skyscraper when the fire broke out, and the cause of the blaze remained under investigation.
Graffagnino and Beddia became trapped on one of the burning floors, dying of cardiac arrest after inhaling the thick smoke that floated above lower Manhattan. The firefighting effort was crippled when a failed standpipe system sent thousands of gallons of water into the building basement, rather than the fire hoses.
Friends and family were overcome with a mix of sorrow and anger over the deaths.
"If there weren't any lives to be saved why would you send men into harms way?" asked family friend Maureen Killen. "Why would you do that?"
The wake for the other victim, Beddia is being held Thursday afternoon at the Harmon Funeral Home on Staten Island. His funeral will be at St. Patrick's Cathedral Friday morning at 9:45.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
