The helmet of fallen FDNY hero Christopher J. Siedenburg has found a home — his alma mater, Monsignor Farrell High School on Staten Island.
Siedenburg’s family donated the helmet — which he was wearing when he was killed after battling a SoHo apartment blaze on March 28, 1994, known throughout the FDNY as “The Watts Street Fire” — on Wednesday, which would have been his 54th birthday.
“You’ll see tucked inside is the prayer card for the patron saint of firefighters — St. Florian. And yes, there’s still ashes on it [the helmet],” said an emotional Charlie Siedenburg, Chris’s brother, at the tribute.
The dedication was the latest in a long line of deserved tributes to Siedenburg, 25, who made the “ultimate sacrifice” a day after battling the fire, which also claimed the lives of two other Bravest: James Young, 31, and Captain John Drennan, 49, who died 40 days later.
The three men were members of the same firehouse, Engine 24/Ladder 5 in Greenwich Village.
“No matter what happens, this is still the greatest job in the world — helping people,” were among the last words spoken by the fearless, critically injured Siedenburg, a 1987 Farrell graduate, as the ambulance rushed the 25-year-old to the Cornell Burn Center.
The helmet is now prominently displayed in the school’s lobby, flanked by the maroon granite walls of the Monsignor Farrell Alumni Hall of Fame and the Wall of Valor, which bear the names and photos of all of the Farrell men who gave their lives in uniformed service.
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Said Farrell’s president Lou Tobacco, who was a freshman at the school when Siedenburg was a senior: “Chris’s helmet will not only serve as a reminder of that night and his ultimate sacrifice, but I’m hopeful that it will remind everyone who walks past it to stop for a moment and think… That we are on this Earth in service to others, to each other. That is what this helmet means and that is who Chris Siedenburg was.”
