- 36 years ago, my next guest nearly died
while trapped in a fire in her New York City apartment.
She was just four years old.
Ever since she has wanted to find and thank
the heroic firefighter who saved her life.
Then, in the middle of working as a nurse
on the front lines of this pandemic, she found him.
This is a crazy story.
Let's bring her in to share it.
Hey what's up Deirdre, how you doin'?
- I'm good how are you?
- I am actually lovely, I'm doing lovely.
So take us back, this is the craziest, coolest story.
I'm so excited to have it on the show.
But take us back to the fire, when you were a kid, right?
You were only four, right?
- I was, yeah.
So I don't remember all the details from that day,
but I do know that it was a really cold day
in late December and the fire had broken out in our loft.
It was just my mother and I living there at the time.
And there was a man from our building
who was able to run outside looking for help
and much to our luck there was a fire truck
just parked on the street.
They had been called to check out some broken water pipes
down the road.
The man from our building
was able to get a hold of one of the firefighters
that was in the truck, named Gene.
But because they weren't there on a fire call
they didn't have all of the fire gear with them,
and so Gene just grabbed his axe and a hat
and raced down the street and up to the sixth floor
where my mother and I were trapped inside
and he was able to rescue my mother first.
But the fire was fully charged at that point
so there was a lot of smoke,
and he had to crawl on his belly
in order to find me and by the time he got to me
I was unconscious and wasn't breathing,
and he gave me two quick breaths
and I began to cry and he got me down to the street
to safety and was able to hook my up on a respirator.
But I am sure that if it wasn't for Gene,
I would not be here today.
- You've actually dedicated your life to service.
Can you explain to everyone how?
- Yeah, I guess you could say that.
I joined the Connecticut Army National Guard
on my 17th birthday and served for about 12 years.
I eventually became an officer and was a helicopter pilot
but when I was- - What? That's so cool!
- Thanks, but yeah I met my husband in flight school
and when I decided that I wanted to get married
and have children, I left the service,
and went back to school and became a nurse.
And when everything was happening in New York
I kinda felt called to help out
and I sat my family down and we had a big discussion
and I took a travel nursing assignment
to go up to New York City and I worked at
a hospital in Brooklyn.
I worked at NYU Langone in Brooklyn for eight weeks
and Gene had always been on my mind
and so when I decided to head up to New York City
I brought the newspaper clipping,
our rescue had made the front page
of a New York City newspaper back in 1983
and I packed that in my suitcase and decided
that I was going to try and track him down
when I was up in New York.
- So, I wanna talk about the call
that ended up happening with Gene, but first,
we need someone else in this conversation obviously.
So let's bring Gene in, out from our waiting room.
Hi Gene, how you doing?
- Pretty good, how 'bout yourself?
- I am in awe of this story.
I know it's not really a story, it's your life.
But I just, ya'll's just testimony and your lives
is incredible, it just speaks to how connected
we really all are.
So I mean, both of you, like, tell us about your first call
with each other, I'll start with you Deirdre.
You go ahead and tell us.
- I had been working in an emergency department
and people were constantly dropping off food for us.
New Yorkers really came out to support
those of us on the front lines in a big way
and one night some firefighters had dropped off some pizza
for us and I followed them out into the ambulance bay
and just kind of shared my story briefly with them.
And one of the young firefighters happened to have
the captain's phone number for the ladder company
that Gene used to work with.
And so, when I got off of work the next morning
I picked up the phone and gave the captain a call
and he knew immediately who Gene was.
And so, you know part of me felt like,
if it was that easy I really should have called the station
a long time ago, but I was really happy.
I hung up the phone and about 40 minutes later
Gene called me and I had the opportunity to say thank you.
- I mean, once again, it's just an incredible story.
So I mean, Gene, you get this call.
How incredibly awesome is that?
- It was just wonderful.
It was just a wonderful experience
and it continues to be.
I was in the right place at the right time.
And thank God I was there, you know?
And she turned out to be just a super person.
Just a wonderful young woman.
Yes, so. And to get all these accolades 37 years later,
just a nice experience also.
- It's an incredible thing and I'm so glad
that you came on this show and ya'll let us share this story
because I think more now than ever
we need to hear these amazing stories
of happy things and positive things
and people putting their lives on the line
and putting themselves out of their comfort zone maybe
and helping others,
we need those stories more now than ever
so thank you so much for coming on and sharing it with us
all right?
- My pleasure.