April 30 will mark the 60th anniversary of the tragic accident that claimed the lives of three volunteer firefighters and a crossing guard when two Lynbrook fire trucks collided while responding to a reported house fire.
On that fateful day in 1963, shortly after noon, and just after a rainstorm, Lynbrook firefighters responded to a reported fire. Engine Company No. 1 responded with six volunteers. Tally-Ho Engine Company No. 3 also responded with six volunteers.
At the same time, Rosalie Roy, a crossing guard at the village school, was crossing children at the busy intersection of Hempstead and Peninsula. Both companies were responding to Earle Avenue, just two blocks past the intersection.
The two fire engines, with lights on and sirens and horns blaring, were driving towards this intersection from different directions. As they approached, Roy was walking 9-year-old Joe Calderone, a student at Our Lady of Peace on his way home for lunch, through the busy intersection.
Calderone told me years later that he heard the fire trucks coming as Roy held his hand. He said she pushed him to the curb before turning and running back to the intersection. He saw her at the intersection raising her arms in both directions. It was reported in the newspapers that both drivers may have believed that the crossing guard was at the intersection to stop vehicular traffic for the benefit of his fire truck.
Moments later the two fire trucks entered the intersection. Drivers were unable to stop on the rain-smooth roadway and crashed into the deafening sound of twisted metal that was louder than sirens and horns. The Tally-Ho slammed into the back of Engine Company and spun her around the intersection hitting the crossing guard before she had time to run back to the curb. She was thrown onto the lawn in front of the apartment building on the northeast corner. He died instantly.
Engine Company then cut the power pole in half at the corner before finally coming to a stop. The power transformer at the top of the pole blew out when the truck hit it, knocking out electricity in the area.
The street was lined with firefighters who had been thrown from their trucks. Nine firefighters were injured. The most seriously injured were William Koch, 57, Joseph Fischer, 36, and Peter Moody, 20, who were all riding in Engine Company’s rear hatch. All of the injured were taken to Mercy Hospital in Rockville Centre. Koch died on arrival and Moody and Fischer remained in critical condition. Other injured firefighters were treated at the scene.
On May 2, 1963, Moody died of his injuries. Fischer died the next day. Three volunteers and a school crossing guard died in the line of duty in one of the worst tragedies for the village of Lynbrook since it was incorporated in 1911.
In newspaper articles following the crash, the crash was attributed to “the treacherous surface of Peninsula Blvd.” It was also reported that “the road surface was slick with oil and water.” Also, accounts said Engine Company left the firehouse late due to engine trouble. The papers said, “Otherwise, the two trucks would never have been at this intersection.” Another newspaper reported that the Engine Company had also been stopped at the village’s main Five Corners intersection just a few blocks away by a bus that had blocked that intersection.
Former Chief Karl Thuge of Engine Company and the first deputy chief on the scene that day recently confirmed that a bus had blocked the intersection blocks, otherwise Engine Company would have gone through the intersection where the accident occurred. None of the fire engines were reported to have been speeding and the fire call the trucks were responding to was a malfunctioning steam valve in a furnace.
Koch, an employee of Ruppert’s Brewery in Brooklyn, was the secretary of the Engine Company and a member of the VFW after serving with the Navy Seabees in the Pacific during World War II. Koch left a wife and a daughter. Moody was not married and had only been a volunteer for two years. He was survived by his mother, father, brothers and a sister. Fischer, an oil burner mechanic, was also a veteran who served in World War II as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne. He left behind his widow. All three lived on the same block, Marion Street.
Roy, 37, was married with three children and had worked as a crossing guard in the village for three years.
The names of the three firefighters are commemorated on the Firefighter’s Memorial at the corner of Sunrise Highway and Earle Avenue. Every October, Lynbrook firefighters remember them and three others who died in the line of duty in this community. Roy is remembered by a stone marker on the lawn of the apartment building where she died.
On April 30, Engine Company members will hold a memorial service on the 60th anniversary of this tragic event at the Firefighters Memorial from 9am. Following this service, firefighters will go to the intersection of Peninsula Boulevard and Hempstead Avenue to remember Roy at 9 a.m. his stone marker on the lawn of the apartment building.
