Three years ago, Firefighter Matthew Long was expected to die after he was run down by a bus as he biked to work during the city's transit strike.

Dozens of surgeries and hundreds of hours of therapy later, a determined Long learned how to walk again, one painful step at a time.

His recovery is about to take a stunning leap - one that is 26.2 miles long.

Long, 42, is set to run the New York City Marathon next Sunday, and he hopes to serve as an inspiration for others facing long odds after a devastating injury.

"I wanted to be an athlete again and I wanted to be myself again," Long said. "I'm not looking to be a hero, but I know I can be a role model."

Long was biking to the FDNY Academy on Randalls Island on the morning of Dec. 23, 2005, when he was crushed by a Bear Stearns charter bus that made an illegal right turn on E. 52nd St.

His injuries were catastrophic: a shattered pelvis, a broken leg, a broken arm, a dislocated shoulder and massive internal bleeding.

"This man should have died," said Dr. Dean Lorich, associate director of orthopedic surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell. Lorich performed the first operations on Long.

"He was ripped open from stem to stern," said Lorich, who was delayed reaching the operating room because a cop refused to let him pass a transit strike checkpoint that required cars to have four people inside.

"This same hospital treated the window washer [Alcides Moreno] who fell 47 stories last December and lived," Lorich said. "Matt was hurt much, much worse than that."

It took nearly a month for Long to regain consciousness. He dropped more than 50 pounds from his 180-pound frame while confined to a hospital bed.

A former triathlete, Long - who doesn't remember the accident - spent the next eight months trapped in a wheelchair.

"It was really depressing and frustrating to know what I used to be," said Long, whose father, Michael, is chairman of the state Conservative Party.
"Then I decided to change my attitude from 'I want to do something' to 'I will do something,' " he said. "And that made the difference."

An accomplished runner who ran the marathon in three hours and 13 minutes the month before he was hit, Long attempted his first jog after the accident this April in Arizona.

"I said, 'I'll give you a mile or three falls,' " Long said. "I don't have full control of my right leg, and because I'm not always sure - where's it going - it makes each step harder.

"But I didn't fall," he said...more>

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Support FDNY Firefighter Matt Long's "I Will Foundation"

In all his years with the Fire Department, Dennis O'Connell never made a daring rescue, didn't go into burning buildings, or cut people out of mangled cars.

But as a cool, steady voice, and with encyclopedic knowledge of the city, he sent firefighters where they had to go, juggling ladder and engine companies to save minutes, seconds, blocks - and lives.

"He'd be calm; he'd get them there," said Robert Engel, who met O'Connell when they were kids in the Fire Explorer Scouts, and worked with him in the Bronx dispatch office near the Bronx Zoo.

A week ago Sunday, the "6-5-2" message came over fire radios across the city:

"The Department announces the death of supervising fire alarm dispatcher Dennis P. O'Connell of Bronx Operations, which occurred Oct. 19, 2008."

O'Connell himself had read out many a "6-5-2" in his 37 years as a dispatcher.

On 9/11, he read out quite a few "4-5" messages, line-of-duty deaths, in between directing fire companies to fires and other emergencies that were going on in the Bronx and Manhattan while the World Trade Center burned and collapsed.

Scores of men he had known for years were killed that day.

And in the months after that catastrophe, as a bagpiper with the Fire Department's band, he played at the funerals.

Some days, there were three, even four.

O'Connell, known as "Doc," died at 56, of complications from a stroke.

Engel and O'Connell were close friends right up until O'Connell died.

"I grew up in the South Bronx, and he lived in Fordham, and we met when we were 10 or 11," said Engel, 56.

"The firemen taught us how to tie knots, climb ladders, do first aid," Engel recalled last Thursday after O'Connell's funeral.

"They took us on trips to the wilderness," he said, speaking of the Catskills. "Going from a brick tenement building to a forest was a big thing. They'd tell us, 'Here's a snake,' things like that."

They both attended Chelsea High School in Manhattan, with dreams of becoming firefighters.

"There was a firehouse right behind the school, and we'd hear the bells. They'd announce a second alarm on 14th St., and he'd be like, 'Come on let's go,' and we'd cut out and go to the fire," said Engel. "The teachers kept telling us we better get into the books, learn our history, but the next day we'd hear the banging on the bells and we'd go. We'd take the train to fires."...more>

Fire Lt. John Eccleston was in Mississippi for a week last month, after Hurricane Gustav hit, as a volunteer with the American Red Cross Disaster Assistance Response Team.

The DART team spent the time unloading trucks of supplies to stock warehouses in flooded areas.

"We usually load up a truck with food, water and supplies for repairs and go neighborhood to neighborhood and distribute them," Eccleston said.

Gustav didn't wreak the havoc that was predicted, so his team was sent home.

"Thank God, Hurricane Gustav wasn't nearly as bad," Eccleston said. "But I'm glad to be in a position to help."

For 10 years, Eccleston, 50, has put himself in disaster spots all across the nation and in Puerto Rico, helping people re-cover from hurricanes, tornados and floods.

That's aside from a 25-year career with the Fire Department.

"He is a model of volunteerism," FDNY Chief Salvatore Cassano said.

For his tireless efforts and putting himself in harm's way to help restore ruined lives, Eccleston is the Daily News Hero of the Month...more>

An SUV jumped a sidewalk Sunday and crashed into the patio window of a crowded upper West Side restaurant, sending terrified diners diving for cover, cops said.

The gray Honda Pilot carrying a Haitian senator in the U.S. on a hurricane relief fund-raising mission spun toward the Indus Valley restuarant after colliding with a yellow cab about 2 p.m., police and witnesses said.

"The car just came at us," said Kabin Hamal, 21, a waiter from Queens who dove under the bar during the mayhem. "All the glass came flying. People were hiding under the tables."

No one in the restaurant was injured, cops said.

Seven passengers from the two vehicles were treated for minor injuries at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, cops said.

The Honda  shuttling Senator Cemethyse Gilles was headed south on Broadway when it made a left onto 100th St., clipped a yellow cab and spun out of control, cops said.

The SUV shattered the glass-enclosed sidewalk patio of the Indian restaurant, which was bustling with a lunchtime crowd, witnesss and cops said.

Firefighters had to cut off the roof of the SUV to free its passengers, including Gilles, who is in the country on a fund-raising mission for the storm-ravaged country, witnesses  said.

"The outside part of the restaurtant is the only thing that got damaged," said Phuman Singh, 48, the restaurant's owner, as he picked through the glass.

"I'm just glad nobody else was [seriously] hurt."

A 70-year-old man crossing a Brooklyn intersection was killed Thursday when he was hit by a city garbage truck, witnesses and cops said.

Frank Negron was pinned underneath the truck on Flushing Ave. near WilsonAve. in Bushwick for several minutes until the FDNY pulled him out.

He was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital Center after the 4:15 p.m. crash and died minutes later, said cops.

"He was under the truck," said onlooker Johnny Majia, 23. "He had a lot of blood on his face."

The driver and his partner, who both had started their jobs in August, were taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center visibly traumatized by the crash, said a Department of Sanitation spokesman.

Cops said it was unlikely that the driver would face charges.

Witnesses said Negron was a longtime Bushwick resident who was on his way to buy a cup of coffee.

Flames tore through an apartment building in Little Italy Monday night, sending smoke and flames skyward and leaving residents to huddle helplessly on the street below.

Standing behind yellow police tape outside of 196 Elizabeth Street, a six-story walk-up home to a mix of old-world immigrants, yuppies and hipsters, Blaire Scheibal described the events.

“The glass from the windows exploded down on the firemen,” said Scheibal, 21, a hostess at Public restaurant — which shares a sidewalk with the now charred building. “There were these huge roaring flames.”

The 6:15 p.m. three-alarm blaze began ignited inside Acela DeJesus’ top floor apartment, said residents.

Medics wheeled the elderly DeJesus in a stretcher while family members walked at her side down Elizabeth Street.

A FDNY spokesman said one woman was taken to Beth Israel Medical Center and another to St. Vincent’s Hospital, and both were treated for minor injuries.

It took more than 100 firefighters nearly 90 minutes to quell the fire, said the FDNY. The cause was under investigation last night.

“I couldn’t breathe,” said fourth-floor resident Joan Bender. “In two minutes it went black.”

Bender, 37, grabbed her cat King Oreo and her dog Lucky, but lost Max the feline to the blinding smoke.

Three firefighters were taken to Beth Israel Medical Center, and two were brought to St. Vincent’s Hospital, all for minor injuries, said the FDNY.

A fast-moving fire ripped through a Brooklyn apartment early Sunday, claiming the life of a beloved great-grandmother, grieving relatives said.

Margarite Carboud, 61, was battling a series of health issues and was unable to escape the choking smoke that filled her Atkins Ave., East New York, home at 1 a.m.

Panicked neighbors who smelled the smoke were unable to reach Carboud, who was helping raise her great-granddaughter, Heaven. The 10-year-old was staying with another relative when the fire broke out.

"The first thing, I was calling for her," said Dalmaris Villafana, Carboud's neighbor from across the hall, who was unable to penetrate the dark smoke. "I was so scared."

Carboud, who moved from Puerto Rico when she was 3, battled crippling asthma and a series of leg infections to become a part-time guardian, her relatives said.

"She was a fighter," said her daughter Valerie Rosa. "She was very sick, and every time we thought it was was her time to go, she would always have that last kick in her, she would always come back."

An FDNY source said fire marshals were exploring the possibility that the blaze was sparked by a carelessly discarded cigarette.

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A man was dragged down a Harlem street Sunday afternoon after an SUV plowed into him and the driver didn't realize a person was stuck underneath the vehicle, witnesses and police said.

The 47-year-old victim was crossing W. 134th St. and Lenox Ave. about 2:55 p.m. when a burgundy Chevrolet Suburban careened into him, then dragged him up to W. 135th St., witnesses said.

The man was rushed to St. Luke's Hospital, where he was treated for nonlife-threatening head injuries, said cops.

Police sources said driver Charles Joseph will not face criminal charges.

Joseph, 66, of the Bronx, has a long history of violations for driving without insurance, state records show.

Officials suspended his registration three times during the past 11 years because he did not have coverage.

Sunday's accident didn't turn deadly, thanks to quick-thinking onlooker Herman Solomon.

Solomon, 78, ran up to the SUV, screaming at Joseph to stop, witnesses said.

"He told me that he didn't know that there was anyone under his truck," Solomon said.

The FDNY safely pulled the man from under the vehicle's undercarriage, a spokesman said.

While doctors tended to the man Sunday night, witnesses to the accident said they will pray for the best.

"I hope he is still alive," said Jerome Bernor, 55.

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NY Daily News 10/19/2008

A neighbor called 911 after seeing thick black smoke pouring through the bottom of his door shortly after 5 a.m. "The smoke was thick - pouring in through the cracks of the door like sheets," said Aurel Stanaciu, 57. "The smoke was flowing out of her apartment like thick waves of dark

The 10-year-old boy who was the only member of his family to survive an inferno in their Chelsea apartment was taken off life support Thursday, his heartbroken relatives said.

Jonzan Balbuena Valdez died at Jacobi Medical Center. He had battled for days after Saturday's horrific blaze, but his family finally lost hope.

"This was our little dream," said his choked-up uncle, Miguel Saeteros, who had hoped to adopt the boy. "[Wednesday] I was going to be a father and now I won't be a father."

"We are completely destroyed," he said.

Manny Fernandez still remembers the "boom" he heard on that tragic day in 1966.

He was a 32-year-old firefighter with Engine 18, battling an inferno that engulfed several buildings in Chelsea.

"I started yelling '18!18!' and I figured somebody would answer," he recalled sadly in an interview last week. "Nobody answered."

The Oct. 17, 1966, fire claimed the lives of 12 New York City firefighters. It was the worst loss of life in the department before the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

As the 42nd anniversary of that date nears, Fernandez is renewing his pledge to honor his fallen comrades.

He wants fire officials to reestablish the Hispanic Society's Medal of Valor - which he founded in their memory back in 1968 - as an annual award.

Fernandez, of Jackson Heights, survived that terrible day only because he was stationed with the rig.

"I made a promise that they [fallen firefighters] would never be forgotten," said Fernandez, who still chokes with emotion when remembering the fire...more>

Firefighters battling a Queens house fire Sunday morning found more than just flames inside, cops said.

After dousing the blaze, rescuers found two rifles and a shotgun inside the two-story home on 98th St. in East Elmhurst, an FDNY spokesman said.

Police rushed to the home and arrested residents Jason Clarke, 20, for having the shotgun and Caprise Scott, 35, for owning the two rifles, said cops.

Both men were charged with criminal possession of a weapon, said police.

Fire officials were investigating last night whether the 9:45 a.m. fire was intentionally set, said an FDNY spokesman.

No one was hurt in the fire.

The fire was just inside the front door, but Firefighter Chris Pirrone of Ladder 12 was able to knock it back with his extinguisher just enough for his lieutenant and another member of their company to press into the apartment.

Lt. Peter Cooney and Firefighter Kevin Neenan continued past the burning kitchen and down the smoke-choked hallway, knowing they could become as trapped as the family they hoped to save.

"There's only one way out," Deputy Chief James Daly observed. "And they had no way of knowing if they're coming back out."

The firefighters also knew that moments could make the difference between life and death. These two undeniably brave and noble souls continued on into the blinding blackness, feeling their way into a bedroom.

For the second time in as many days, fire took the lives of a New York child and a man.

Both perished just after midnight in the three-story house in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood.

The 12-year-old boy and 33-year-old man were taken to Wyckoff Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. It was not immediately clear whether the victims were related.

Authorities did not release their names, pending notification of family.

Fire marshals are investigating the cause of the blaze.

On Saturday, fire took the lives of five members of the same family. A sixth member — a 10-year-old boy — is clinging to life at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.