by ETHAN ROUEN
Twenty-two days after tumbling 30 feet from a ladder bucket to almost certain death while fighting a Bronx fire, Brian Smith will leave the hospital Monday feeling like a new man.
"It's only been three weeks, but I already feel like a new person," the 13-year veteran firefighter said from his bed at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell. "I don't understand it. It's still kind of a dream to me."
Smith, 43, assigned to Ladder Co. 44, was breaking out windows on the third floor of a Shakespeare Ave. apartment building to vent a fire when he fell from the cherry picker. The cause of the fall is still under investigation.
Medics took Smith to St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, where doctors said he broke his C1 vertebra - the one that regulates arm and leg movement. He also had a cracked pelvis, punctured lungs and two broken ribs. Smith was moved the next day to Weill Cornell's intensive-care unit for further tests and treatment.
"We know that guy has will power, but he needed the luck of God," said Capt. Steven Luisi, Smith's commanding officer.
During Smith's grueling recovery, firefighters kept a 24-hour vigil at his bedside, dripping water into his mouth from a lollipop-shaped sponge. They also brought home-cooked meals to the hospital room for his wife and two daughters, 4 and 8.
Smith, who gets around with a walker, is being taken today to a Rockland County rehabilitation center and has hopes of being home for Christmas.
Already the firefighter in Smith is emerging, Luisi said. He is eager to get back to work and is concerned about repaying the kindness he has received.
"Everyone has their own family," Smith said. "Taking time away from them to spend with me means so much."
With Jonathan Lemire
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