NY Daily News

When firefighter Jim McNulty put in a 24-hour shift recently, it turned out to be a long day's journey into FDNY history.

He rescued two people, in two separate fires, in one work day.

FDNY Chief of Operations Salvatore Cassano said that in his 36 years in the department he did not remember a firefighter doing double duty like that.

"It's quite an incredible feat," he said.

Battalion 58 Chief Richard Alles said that although such exploits are expected of firefighters, McNulty "showed great initiative, intelligence and bravery, and did a great job."

But McNulty, 33, who has been on the job less than five years, shrugged off the praise.

"It's what you do. You feel good about it, but it's nothing anyone else in this job wouldn't have done," he said.

For his remarkable accomplishment, McNulty is the Daily News Hero of the Month.

The double dose of derring-do happened two weeks ago when McNulty was working from 9a.m. on Nov. 17 to 9 a.m. Nov. 18 at his company, Ladder 170 in Canarsie, Brooklyn.

Two hours into his shift, the firefighters were inspecting a hydrant at E. 103rd St. and Avenue L when an alarm came in for a fire 10 blocks away.

As their truck turned the corner at E. 93rd St. and L, "smoke was pushing out of the top of the building, a lady was screaming, 'Help me, please. I can't breathe. ... Get me, please!'" McNulty said.

"She looked like she was ready to jump out the second-floor window."

The FDNY inside team was battling flames at the entrance of the brick rowhouse. McNulty, acting as the outside vent man, figured he'd use the bucket ladder to get the woman down.

His lieutenant, Bill Croak, tried to calm her, telling her not to jump.

"There was a lot of smoke. She was taking a beating," McNulty said. "Her eyes were tearing, and she had black smoke on her face. He reassured her."

McNulty was raised in the bucket to the window, where the woman leaned out before he got close enough.

"I said, 'Wait, wait.' And I pulled her in, [broke] the windows and brought her down. She seemed happy, but then she passed out," he said.

The woman, later identified as Tiffany Fayarr, was taken to an ambulance.

"It's lucky we were out, and nearby, because she was ready to jump," McNulty said.

After Engine 257 put out the fire, "we went back to the firehouse and had burned meatball sandwiches," McNulty said. The rest of the day was anticlimactic, marked by calls to an elevator emergency and carbon monoxide detectors going off.

But at 2:20 a.m. the next day, someone tossed Molotov cocktails through two windows of 946 E. 96th St. in Canarsie. The one hurled into the second floor didn't explode, but the device thrown through the third floor window landed on a couch, sparking a blaze that trapped a couple and their adult daughter.

Again, the truck pulled up as heavy black smoke pushed out from the building's top-floor windows.

McNulty, once more the outside vent man, grabbed a 24-foot portable ladder and ran down the alley. In a third-floor window he saw two people screaming: Vivian Lindsay, 66, and his daughter, Tricia Lindsay, 27.

"Once you know people are trapped, you're going to go the extra mile," McNulty said.

He threw down his tools and raised the ladder to the window. He helped the semiconscious man get out, got him safely to the ground, and brought him to the street, where an ambulance was waiting.

Meanwhile, Firefighter Marty Morrow of Ladder 174 went up the ladder to get the daughter.

"She's screaming, 'My mother's here!' and I told Lt. Croak there was an additional victim," McNulty said.

Winifred Lindsay, 59, was unconscious in a back bedroom.

McNulty began to climb the ladder to assist Morrow in getting Tricia Lindsay down, but Morrow slipped down the ladder, hitting McNulty, and the two fell. Morrow hit a fence and was injured. McNulty hurt his neck and back.

Despite their injuries, the two went back up the ladder, but the woman had lost consciousness and fallen back into the apartment, where Croak and Firefighter Greg Chevalley rescued her and her mother without the protection of a hose line. Croak put his air mask on Tricia Lindsay, who was semiconscious.

The family was taken to Brookdale University Hospital, where they were treated for severe smoke inhalation.

McNulty went to Brookdale for oxygen and X-rays. He then went on sick leave, and he returns to work this week.

"Thank God the bottom [Molotov cocktail] didn't go off. There were six people in that house, and it would have been difficult if there were two floors of fire," he said.

McNulty's wife, Liz, is a nurse at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and they have two children, James Timothy, 3, and Caitlin, 16 months.

"This is all very embarrassing for me, but my wife is very proud," he said.

Referring to the Lindsays, McNulty said, "They're expected to live. To know they're going to make it, I think that's why we do this job."