Like father like son in firefighter’s heroic rescue
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Captain William Grant stands at attention at the FDNY annual Medal Day. Photo: Getty Images
Saving a neighbor trapped in a raging fire was déjà vu all over again for a fourth-generation firefighter.
Capt. William Grant received a medal with other firefighters Wednesday for an act of valor remarkably similar to one performed by his dad in 1970.
Grant was asleep in his Staten Island home last July when an explosion in a neighbor’s hot tub woke his family. Although off-duty and without his protective gear, Grant and his NYPD son raced to help.
“We kicked the front door in, but there was so much fire and smoke and flames that we weren’t able to get in,” he recalled.
The two rushed around back, grabbed an old aluminum ladder and the elder Grant climbed inside.
“We had to go move as fast as we could, or she probably wouldn’t have survived,” he said.
The ladder broke as Grant carried down his neighbor — but she survived.
Grant — who along with other firefighters received medals at the annual FDNY ceremony at City Hall — learned from a pro, his deceased dad.
In 1970, when the family lived in Flatbush, his father, who was also an off-duty firefighter at the time, responded to a fire in a neighbor’s house on East 40th Street.
“He was able to get in there and rescue two victims of that fire,” he said. “I had to be around 14 or 15 … It’s like déjà vu.”
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