Firefighter honored two years later for saving a woman’s life

God didn’t want you. You have more life to live.”

Jimmy Martinez Firefighter, Hose Company 3

On Nov. 27, 2019, then 1st Lt. Jimmy Martinez of Baldwin Fire Department Hose Company Three was driving home from work. He was headed east on Sunrise Highway, his normal routine, but it was interrupted by the sound of a crash. Glancing to the westbound lanes, he saw a vehicle pinned under a box truck, the occupant trapped and, in Martinez’s mind, likely dead already.

Nonetheless, he got out of his vehicle and headed straight into the inferno the car had begun to unleash, where he saw a woman still alive but critically injured. She had a compound fracture of her leg as well as other injuries to her lower extremities. Martinez had virtually no visibility because of the flames and smoke, and was without his usual protective equipment, but rushed into action anyway.

He found it nearly impossible to open the car door, but he and a bystander managed to pull the woman from the wreckage just before the car became fully engulfed. She was struggling to breathe, and he covered her face with his Fire Department sweater and comforted her as best he could through her screams of pain. Before long, the Lynbrook Fire Department and paramedics arrived. One noted that if Martinez hadn’t pulled the woman out, she certainly would have died.

For his act of heroism at great personal risk, Martinez was presented with the Lifesaving Award at the Second Battalion Fire District Arthur Kuss Jr. 2022 Awards Ceremony on April 3. Postponed during to the pandemic, the ceremony hasn’t been held for the last two years, but Martinez’s act of valor hasn’t been forgotten by the community he serves — or by his family from Ecuador, who surprised him at the awards ceremony. “I was overwhelmed,” he said of the surprise.

Recounting the event nearly 2½ years later, Martinez said he was simply in the right place at the right time. “It’s just something that is the right thing to do…,” he said. “At the Fire Department they train for this type of incident — we train constantly. I just thank God [she’s alive]. I literally thought she was dead. I was surprised when she got up and started reacting.”

In the aftermath of the event, the woman, Heather Smith, connected with Martinez. Now they are friends, he said, and she comes to his barbecues and calls him around the holidays. She called a month after the accident, while she was rehabilitating in a hospital, and left him an emotional Christmas Eve voicemail “that made my eyes teary” Martinez recalled. He called her back and told her it wasn’t her time to go. “God didn’t want you,” he said. “You have more life to live.”

Something of a late bloomer, Martinez began his firefighting career 10 years ago, at age 49, joining the department after checking the firehouse out with his son, who was interest in joining the junior firefighters. He started at Hose Company One, and seven years ago moved to Hose Company Three, which was closer to his home near Baldwin Avenue, working his way up the line of command and becoming captain in 2020.

He is now a 2nd lieutenant and still in love with being a firefighter. “There is nothing else I love [more] than being a part of a great set of guys,” he said. “We’re a family … I love Baldwin and giving back, because Baldwin has given me so many things back, my kids are well educated, and it’s a great place to raise a family.”

For his act, Martinez has also won the Nassau County Silver Medal of Valor, Hose Company Three’s Distinguished Service Award, and the Arthur Kuss Jr. 2019 Firefighter of the Year award. “Sometimes I feel it’s too much,” he said, adding that any other reasonable person would have stopped and helped.