Firefighter James Lee Jr. of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) has been named the 2017 Ray Downey Courage and Valor Award recipient. The award will be presented on Wednesday during the Opening Ceremony of FDIC International 2017 in Indianapolis, Indiana. See a list of the other nominees HERE.
A description from his nomination of the event:
Firefighter (FF) James Lee rescued an 81-year-old man from the top-floor rear window of a five-story Old Law tenement that had two railroad flats per floor. The building had no rear fire escape. The wooden stairway to the second floor was damaged by fire. On the second floor, the entire railroad flat where the victim, Mr. Duffy, lived was fully involved, and fire was burning in the public hallway and stairway up to the floors above.
Lee was lowered over the rear edge of the building on a live-saving rope to make the rescue.
FF James Lee was assigned the Roof position in Rescue 1 for the night tour. He made his way up to the roof via exposure 2’s interior stairway. Once on the roof, FF Lee observed that fire was blowing out of the enclosed light and air shaft at least 30 feet in the air and that the roof and bulkhead of exposure 4 was on fire. The rear of the building had a four-foot iron fence that was eight inches from the back edge of the roof. Conditions on the roof, as well as at the rear of the building, were rapidly deteriorating. FF Lee heard someone give a report of a victim at a top-floor rear window.
Because of the heavy smoke and heat pushing straight up and over the rear of the building, FF Lee quickly moved toward the exposure 2 side of the building to get an angled view that would enable him to get a visual look as well as establish contact with the victim. The windows of the apartment where the victim was had now failed, and heavy smoke and heat were venting out over the victim’s head. FF Lee told the victim that help was on the way and to stay in the window.
Heavy smoke and heat were pushing even harder up and over the rear of the building. FF Lee moved to a position on the roof that was in line with and over the victim. He could hear the victim but could not see him. FF Hawkins tied off the life-saving rope (LSR) to a short 3 Ã 3 chimney that was approximately 10 feet back from the edge of the roof and centered in the building. FF Lee untied the bowline on a bight to avoid running the rope over the top of the iron fence, which could have damaged the rope or compromised the anchor/system. He passed the LSR hook under the four-foot wrought-iron fence, fed it back over the fence, and then attached it to his personal harness.
Conditions were becoming unbearable on the top floor. At one point, FF Rush noticed Mr. Duffy had disappeared from sight.
FF Rush called him back and told him to stay at the window and that a firefighter was being lowered down to him by rope.
FF Lee climbed over the four-inch iron fence and stood on the narrow eight-inch of roof between the fence and the rear edge of the building. FF Lee could hear Mr. Duffy yelling for help and saying that he was “burning.” While reassuring Mr. Duffy and using Mr. Duffy’s voice as a guide, FF Lee positioned the anti-chaffing device on the edge of the building. FF Lee, without hesitation, and at extreme personal risk, dismounted into the high heat and black smoke that was now pushing violently from the top-floor windows. Once over the edge and on rope, FF Lee was