By Jason Scheer
Last Jan. 23, the job proved more than difficult. It proved deadly. Meyran, 46, a lifelong Malverne resident and a member of Battalion 26 in the Bronx, was one of six firefighters who rushed to the fourth floor of a building on the corner of East 178th Street and Grand Concourse after hearing that tenants were trapped.
The fire on the third floor eventually broke through to the fourth and, faced with the options of burning to death or jumping out the window, the firefighters jumped.
Meyran didn't survive the 50-foot leap - he was pronounced dead shortly afterward at St. Barnabas hospital. In addition to his wife, he left behind three children, Dennis, 17, Angela, 10, and Deanine, 7. His brother, Dennis, lives next door to the family in Malverne..
Now his widow is suing the FDNY, saying that by taking away his safety rope, the department jeopardized his life. "I'm doing this because this was a wrongful death," she said of her reasons for filing the lawsuit. "My husband did not have to die that way. The Fire Department of the City of New York ... I'm holding them accountable for their actions and their inaction."
The FDNY stopped issuing the ropes in 2000. The argument was that they were too bulky and cumbersome to be carried into fires, and that they got caught on objects and impeded firefighters' ability to move quickly while battling a blaze. "That's nonsense," Jeanette Meyran said. "My pocketbook is bigger than the pouch that [the ropes] come in."
In any case, the department is planning to reissue the ropes, and a report released recently found that the lack of ropes did contribute to the perilous situation in January. However, firefighters were faulted for not repairing a hose, thawing out frozen hydrants or letting officers know that some of the men were trapped inside.
Meyran wasn't the only firefighter to lose his life that day. John Bellew, 37, also did not survive the fall. The four other firefighters who rushed into the blaze, Brendan Cawley (Ladder 27), Jeffrey Cool (Rescue 3), Joseph DiBernardo (Rescue 3) and Eugene Stolowski (Ladder 27), survived, with serious injuries.
Laura Postiglione, a spokeswoman for the New York City Law Department, which will handle the lawsuit on behalf of the FDNY, said the office had not received the legal paperwork yet. "We will evaluate it thoroughly upon receipt," she said.
Jeanette Meyran is also suing the owner of the building, which was illegally subdivided and, with walls put up where they shouldn't have been, created a trap the firefighters were unable to escape. Even if she wins the suit, she said, she and her family will always be victims - they will always feel the pain.
"There'll never be any closure," she said. "His death was untimely. But [the FDNY] needs to be held accountable. I have to raise these three children alone now, and I have to think of their well being for the rest of my natural life."
Meyran joined the department in November 1989, and was cited for bravery while working at Ladder 161 in 1991 and again while at Ladder 123 in 1997.
Comments about this story? JScheer@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 234.
