Name: When Fires Turn Fatal | FDNY Veteran on His Toughest Calls
Uploaded: 2026-02-12T17:30:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'When Fires Turn Fatal | FDNY Veteran on His Toughest Calls' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-02-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'When Fires Turn Fatal | FDNY Veteran on His Toughest Calls' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-02-12. Transcript available.

You know, yeah, you know, we were a busy truck back then because we had a lot
of fires, a lot of occupied fires, which are really, they're a lot more intense
than a vacant fire or, you know, something like that.
You know, you got a lot of people bailing out and sometimes they're trapped and,
you know, you got to get to them, the truck, that's their job.
Take me through like some of the times where there was somebody in there, like
how much of a different scenario is that?
Is the energy different when you get there?
Who lets you know if somebody's in there or do you even know?
Like take me through that process of like right when you get there and then
take me into one of like a fire where it was inhabited.
Well, this one fire where we lost this little girl and that one really hurt me
a lot because we got to the apartment and my lieutenant, he was a little Irish
guy, the bravest guy I've ever met, Lieutenant Maloney.
And I would chase him up to the fire at the door, the caller, and he would
knock on the door with his little crowbar, fire department, open the door.
You know, it sounded like some cartoon, you know, the Irish broke.
So these people open the doors and we walk in and there's a card table sitting
there, about eight people playing cards.
They're eating.
We're standing in the kitchen, the three of us, and we're like, my lieutenant
says, what the hell did you call the fire department?
So they're looking up, they're like, yeah, I think something's burning in the
back.
It was a big apartment.
So we're like looking at each other, something's burning in the back.
What the hell is this?
So now we go down the hallway, my lieutenant's cursing under his breath, you
know, he's like, all these other motherfucking fucking shit.
Yeah, they're still playing cards.
Cards is fun though, cards can be fun.
They were, but we get into the living room and there's like these French doors.
I don't know if you know the French doors, probably from, uh.
Is it like that kind of?
They're glass paneled and they're like two doors, you open to a room.
They're called French doors.
You think there's going to be somebody French in there, but there ain't.
Yeah, no French people.
There never is, dude.
There never is.
Typical French.
You'll send the doors, we'll be there.
They're not.
Typical French.
So anyway, I, uh, I opened the French door and the room is on fire.
We're like, holy shit.
Close the door.
We get down on our knees, start putting our masks on and we're calling 1075.
That means we got to work in fire.
He's telling the battalion, you know, the engine now, they're coming up with
the line.
So right before they got the line, I says, all right, guys, it's right here.
I put my mask on.
I said, showtime.
And I went to open the, uh, the French doors and I get a call over the handy
talkie.
There's a kid in the room.
My friend, the OV is with the mother out in the street.
Oh, so now we bust into these doors.
They're hitting.
Thank God we had the water hitting.
And I'm frantically looking for this kid in the dark and black smoke.
I'm on the bed.
I'm feeling all over the bed.
I want, I got to find this kid.
And is it mostly feeling?
How far can you see?
You don't see anything.
I can put tape over your eyes.
It's nothing.
And you're feeling with gloves on too.
Yeah.
Sometimes gloves.
Sometimes you forget your gloves, but yeah.
What?
Yeah.
Back then we were like, less equipment, better.
You want to get in, you want to get in, you want to get out quick too.
No, that sounds like a guy who forgot his equipment.
Ah, yeah.
That's always air in the can.
Yeah.
Put some air in your can, Tony.
That's always that guy's excuse, you know?
Exactly.
But that's a great attitude to take.
Like, nah, guys, if there's air in his can, we're going to have to be here all
afternoon.
Yeah, yeah.
We're in and out of this joint.
I could have probably put that, maybe put it out with the can, but anyway.
So the engine, I'm in there, I'm going around, and finally I'm going around the
wall.
I can feel, I'm, oops, sorry.
I'm under the bed feeling around, trying to find this kid.
And I get to a window.
I break the window out, and I look out the window, and I see my Irons man that
was with
me.
He's in the street with the kid, a limp, limp kid, you know?
And they take in the kid.
They open the battalion car door.
They go in there, and they rushed off the Columbia Presbyterian.
How'd the kid get out?
No, he carried, she was unconscious.
Oh, he found her.
She didn't make it.
She didn't, the kid was dead, unfortunately, she was burnt.
They tried to revive her at the hospital, but it didn't work.
So I'm overhauling now, and I see my lieutenant, and I said, I just saw Jeff in
the street with
the kid.
He's like, oh, Anthony, the kid was right there behind the door.
And I was like, oh, I was crushed, man.
I shut that door.
I felt like I killed that kid, you know?
So we go to Presbyterian.
Oh, so before we leave, now the deputy shows up, because now we got a 1045,
which is a
body.
And he's like, well, what happened here?
And we're in this apartment.
The people are still playing cards.
So my lieutenant says, well, we came up to the apartment, and I said, I'll tell
you what
happened.
And now the deputy looks at me, you know?
I go, you see these motherfuckers over here?
I said, they didn't bother to fucking tell us there might be a kid in that back
room, and
I'm throwing F-bombs at them.
And the deputy says, Lieutenant, you better control your man.
So the boss puts his arm around my shoulder.
He says, come on.
Come on, Anthony.
He called me Anthony.
That's Anthony in a brogue.
Anthony, let's go down to the street.
You know, and we went down to the street, and we went, and we picked up my
friend Jeff
at the hospital.
I said, how'd they make out with the kid?
He said, they were trying to revive her.
They were bringing her to the burn center.
So that was the last we heard of.
But there's no way you could have known that, right?
Because you go in, and the kid was hiding behind the door.
You think somebody would tell us there could be a kid back there?
Oh, it's heartbreaking.
Oh, man.
Do you ever find out why they wouldn't let you know what was going on there?
I guess there was like an SRO bid or something.
They were renting out that little back room to this woman and a child, you know?
So it was pretty bad.
And I had a few of those.
I mean, right after I was getting over with that one, I got another one where
we showed
up without our masks on because it was the middle of the day.
Yeah.
No, I get it.
There was nothing showing.
We get out, and the guy says, hey, they're working on the oil burner all day.
And we had a lot of oil burners.
You know, they would smoke up.
So we're like, ah, 1020, he says, on the box, which means all the other
companies, take
your time.
Don't blow the red lights and shit.
So now we're heading up to the stairs to the caller's apartment.
It's, you know, the forcible entry team, me, Lieutenant Clipper, and this guy,
Jimmy Lynch.
And we get to the door, and the woman opens the door, and we own the apartment.
And it's like a slight smoke condition in there, but slight.
So we're like, what do we have here?
So my boss says he was a smart fireman.
He was from Rescue 2.
He said, I think we're, we got something above us.
Usually it's below us, you know.
But this, I guess, because the light, the smoke was so light.
So now we get up.
We don't have no masks or nothing.
We get to the, I see smoke coming out of the doorway, you know, the locked door
in the
hallway.
So I turn around, I donkey kicked the door open, like three kicks.
It kicks open, and we got a black wall of smoke.
We're like, holy shit.
Now we got, after the 1020, we got to give a 1075, which means now we have a
fire.
So now we're crawling in.
No masks.
No masks.
We're on our bellies.
Was it better or worse without a mask in this place?
Worse.
It was worse.
Yeah.
Because you could feel the heat?
Yeah.
You know, back in the day when they didn't wear masks, like in the 60s and the
50s, everything
was wooden cotton.
Then once the 60s and 70s, and everything's vinyl and plastic, and it's a whole
different smoke,
you know.
It's poisonous, so it gets you quick.
That's a great point, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Back then, you could suck the cotton and the wood, you know.
Yeah.
It's like, yeah, you were probably, yeah, you were smoking.
Like smoking a pack of cigarettes.
You're like, hell, shit, I wish somebody had a couple tobacco plants in here, I'd
crawl
around for another two minutes in here.
Exactly.
That's what it was like.
And things would burn slower back then, too, wouldn't they?
Well, back then, yeah.
Plastics will take off a lot faster.
God.
So anyway, he crawls in, and we're like, oh, shit, we got to go in.
Jimmy goes in ahead of him, and I'm the last guy in.
We're like almost on our bellies crawling in, and I hear the horrible words.
We got bodies.
I'm like, oh, my God.
Now we got to give 1045s.
So we had 1020, that means don't come, take it easy getting there.
Now we went 1075, now we got two 1045s, two bodies.
So with that, I get a body, a little girl come, they pass it back to me, and I
like shimmy
out of the apartment.
Because you don't know if she, do you know?
I don't know any, I can't see nothing yet.
I still can't see nothing until I get to the stairwell.
I knew I had a kid in my arms.
I see it's a little girl, you know, face is all darkened.
So now I'm like, oh, shit, I'm going to run her down to the, EMS is going to
take her
in the street.
And I go running down to the street, and there's nobody there.
And all the people are screaming, you know, they're yelling and screaming, and
I'm holding
this kid, and I'm looking around, because we gave the 1020.
We were, there was nobody there yet.
Yeah, they're at the malt shop.
I put the kid down, I do CPR on this little girl, and I, you know, I put her
down, I cup
her head, and I pretty much, all I knew was like a 15 and two, you know?
You know, you get two breaths into her, and then you give her 15, and this went
on for
like 10 minutes before I got relieved.
And the sound that she was making when the air would come out, they call it
machine gun
breath, because it's like, and the smell, because I had the smell of the burnt
lips.
So finally, somebody came over, and they started taking over, and then the EMS
came.
After 10 minutes, they let me go.
So now I'm like, I'm walking around the sidewalk, all these Dominicans are very
emotional, they're
all screaming and yelling, and crying, and everything.
Praying, some of them probably.
Praying, everything.
Yeah, for sure.
I figured, let me go back up to the floor, because my, the other two guys were
working on
the mother.
And when I got there, the EMS already took over, and I was like, holy shit.
And it was like the first fire we had where the windows didn't break open.
And they were the new windows that the Gambino crime family put in, and all of
Manhattan.
And they didn't break like the old windows, so it never got air.
So it smoldered, and they died from the smoke.
God.
And that stayed with me for years.
I would like, sometimes I would smell and taste the burnt lips and everything,
and oh,
it was horrible.
That's heartbreaking.
Yeah.
Like, who do you even talk to about that kind of stuff?
Do you guys go to some of the services?
What is some of that like?
I got back in the firehouse.
The guys were listening up.
They knew.
I took my, my turnout coat off, and I just went in.
I took a shower.
We all took showers.
And then the boss says, into the office, you know, let's talk about it.
So he says, you know, we did everything we could.
There really wasn't nothing else we could do.
I mean, not having the mask didn't hamper us at all, because we still got the
bodies.
And so then I went home.
My wife heard about it already on the news.
And so when I got home, they all greeted me.
And that was pretty much, you know, all I got was some nice hugs and some tears
at home.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.