Far Rockaway firefighter dies days after fighting blaze
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Jesse Gerhard, a 33-year-old firefighter with Far Rockaway FDNY Ladder Company 134, died of apparent heart failure Wednesday after battling a fire in Queens the day before. Photo via FDNY
By Jacob Kaye
Flags were raised to half-mast Thursday as the city honored a Queens firefighter who died of suspected heart failure while at his Far Rockaway station house Wednesday.
Firefighter Jesse Gerhard, 33, who served for seven years with the FDNY, collapsed while on duty and after battling a fire with Ladder Company 134 in Far Rockaway on Feb. 16, around 11 p.m., according to the authorities.
After hearing him fall over, his colleagues rushed to his aid. He was taken to St. John’s Episocopal Hospital where he died.
Gerhard, who lived in Long Beach, Long Island, worked as the “irons man,” the firefighter in charge of forcing entry into a building, while fighting a fire in a multi–story residential building on Beach Channel Drive on Tuesday. The Far Rockaway company was the first to arrive at the scene and Gerhard was responsible for leading the charge looking for potential people trapped inside.
While the cause of his death is yet to be determined, acting Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said she suspects it was the result of heart failure from a heart attack, the leading cause of death among firefighters.
“I cannot express enough the extraordinary loss this is to our department,” Kavanagh said. “He is exactly what we would want an FDNY member to be.”
While officials couldn’t confirm whether or not Gerhard expressed being in any pain or being injured during the fire the day before, they did say his role within the company is one of the most physically taxing.
“It was a very hot and smoky fire, there was a lot of fire on multiple floors of the building,” said FDNY’s Chief of Operations John Hodgens. “It’s a very strenuous position to be in, probably the most strenuous of all the different positions that we do work in.”
Mayor Eric Adams held a media briefing on Gerhard’s death Thursday and said that the firefighter dreamed of being a member of the FDNY.
He started with the department as an emergency medical technician in Manhattan in 2014 before being transferred over to Far Rockaway, where he became a firefighter.
“We’re united together in our grief,” said Adams, who spent many years of his career as a first responder with the NYPD. “We are united together to continue to lift up the men and women who are the first responders in this city. And we’re united together to ensure his memory lives on.”
Adams, who spent time at St. John’s Episocopal Hospital with Gerhard’s family, noted the bond between the FDNY member and his brother.
“The relationship between two brothers is just a bond that isn’t explainable,” Adams said.
“Watching him and his brother I remembered being with my kid brother when he became a sergeant and every time I heard something dangerous happening near him.”
“But my brother came home. Jesse’s not coming home,” the mayor added. “That’s the reality we’re facing.”
