Dec. 19--Hundreds of firefighters from across the state and continent gathered at a Southwest Side chapel on Friday to mourn Chicago firefighter Daniel Capuano, who died falling down an open and unmarked elevator shaft while fighting a warehouse fire.
They began arriving hours before the funeral service, packing the vestibule of the St. Rita of Cascia High School chapel dressed in their formal uniforms, somber and quietly whispering to one another as they lined up to enter the church. More firefighters, police officers, paramedics and other emergency responders crowded on the grass outside the church. They stood in formation, shoulder to shoulder, quietly allowing the light snow to blow around their faces, sometimes shivering in the bitter cold.
Capuano's firetruck Tower Ladder 34 idled outside, decorated with flowers, bunting and the words "in memory of" above Capuano's name.
The first to file into the chapel were his wife of 20 years, Julie, and three children Amanda, 16, Andrew, 13, and Nick 12, along with other close relatives. They were given time to say goodbye in private as other mourners waited outside.
During the funeral service, firefighters who served as pallbearers read letters from Capuano's immediate family. Julie Capuano, in her letter, said she and her husband were supposed to be on vacation in Florida, relaxing before Christmas.
"Instead I'm here with you but definitely not in the way I want to be," she said in the letter. "It breaks my heart into a million pieces to know you will never get to walk Amanda down the aisle or sit with me while we watch Andrew and Nick play hockey. I'm broken inside by losing you, Dan. I'm just not sure what I'm going to do. I will miss your hands and face, your funny sense of humor, your loving touch, your kisses and our conversations together."
The Rev. Tom McCarthy delivered the funeral Mass homily, calling Capuano a hero.
"We have to make a choice," he said. "Are we going to let this destroy us? Or are we going to move and live and by doing that, we honor Dan, our hero."
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who sat in the front pew across from Capuano's family, thanked the fallen firefighter for his service.
"He endured the smoke so that others can be safe," he said. "And with care and compassion in his heart he rushed into the chaos of a burning warehouse in South Chicago and made the ultimate sacrifice for the city he loved. So while our hearts are broken because of Dan's loss, they're full of gratitude for the life he lived, for the example he set and for the heroic service he rendered to the city of Chicago."
Capuano, 43, died Monday battling a blaze at a vacant warehouse in the 9200 block of South Baltimore Avenue, his second fire of the day, according to family members. As he grappled with thick smoke while searching the second floor for the fire's source, Capuano fell down an open elevator shaft and died hours later.
City building department officials said the building's owner didn't have proper permits and the removal of the elevator was unauthorized. Court filings call the building "an immediate and ongoing threat of irreparable harm" to the public. Firefighters Union Local 2 President Tom Ryan has said buildings with those kinds of alleged hazards are hard to police, but firefighters encounter them too often.
Capuano's family filed a lawsuit against the building owner Thursday, alleging negligence in violation of Occupational Safety and Health Administration and city standards.
"There is an investigation going on, but if you take a look at first blush of what happened, a senseless way to lose his life," Chicago fire Commissioner Jose Santiago said to reporters after the funeral service. "Simple things could have been done, but we'll let the courts figure that out."
Santiago added that firefighters from as far away as New York, Boston and Canada attended the funeral.
"It's the fire service, we all come out to pay respect to a fallen brother or sister," he said.
Capuano was a 15-year veteran of the Chicago Fire Department and a part-time firefighter in Evergreen Park for more than 16 years. He was also one of four paramedics who helped save a golf caddie who suffered a heart attack in 1999 during the Western Open at Cog Hill.
This is the second death of a firefighter from Tower Ladder 34 in five years. Corey Ankum, 34, along with Edward Stringer, 47, of Engine Company 63, died while battling a blaze at an abandoned laundry in the South Shore neighborhood Dec. 22, 2010. They died when the building's roof collapsed.
After the service, ladders from two south suburban firetrucks stretched high over 111th Street west of Cicero Avenue, an American flag flying between them over the busy road.
The funeral procession of purple cloth-draped firetrucks and other emergency vehicles wound through the neighborhoods of Beverly and Mount Greenwood, passing trees and poles wrapped in purple and black ribbons in Capuano's honor.
Kathy Beauregard, 55, watched as the line of vehicles slowly rolled down 111th toward the fallen firefighter's final resting place at Holy Sepulchre Catholic Cemetery in Alsip.
She said she had never met Capuano and didn't know his family, but nonetheless came out to support them.
"It's just very sad when a firefighter falls to his death like that," she said at the cemetery's entrance.
Hundreds of uniformed emergency responders stood silently as a firetruck carrying Capuano in a coffee-colored casket pulled up to his grave. Shortly before the end of the burial, Capuano's fellow firefighters dropped their uniform gloves on his coffin as his family watched nearby. The casket lid was adorned with a photo of him, along with his name and birth and death dates.
Among the mourners on Friday was Mary McNamee, who also lost her husband in the line of duty. She said she and other members of the Chicago Fire Department Gold Badge Society attended out of compassion for Capuano's next of kin.
"We are so sorry," she said, as if speaking directly to Capuano's wife and three children. "We've all walked this walk. We are so sorry -- especially for the children. They've lost their dad, and there is no getting that back. And it's Christmas. I hope, in time, they find their way through."
Lolly Bowean and John Byrne are Chicago Tribune reporters. Nick Swedberg is a freelance reporter.
Chicago Tribune's Angie Leventis Lourgos and Daily Southtown's Mike Nolan contributed.
eleventis@tribpub.com
