The Adamsburg and Community Volunteer Fire Department is proud to honor our deceased firefighters.\u00a0 We appreciate all the time and services they provided to the betterment of this company and all the lives that were changed, touched, and helped by these members.\u00a0 Through there unselfish acts they helped build the foundation for the current fire department.\u00a0 We realize without these individuals this department may not be here today to serve the community.\u00a0 Please take a moment to honor these members, and remember the sacrifices made everyday by public safety workers around the world.<\/p>\n
![\"Jack\"](\"http:\/\/adamsburgpafire.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/Jack-300x300.jpg\" "\\"Jack\\"")
<\/h1>\nFIREFIGHTER DIES SAVING HIS FAMILY<\/p>\n
Courtesy of the Greensburg Tribune Review – Friday, August 4, 2000<\/p>\n
With a fire raging and suffocating smoke filling his home early Thursday, Jack Gazalie did what came from years of training as a volunteer firefighter and rescued his mother and daughter.
\nHe couldn’t however save himself: Firefighters found his body on the bedroom floor near the window shortly after extinguishing the fir eat his Jeannette home.
\n“He did what any firefighter would have done,” said Dan Stevens, who worked with Gazalie, a telecommunications offer for Westmoreland County’s 911 center.\u00a0 “As far as were concerned, if it wasn’t for him, there would have been three fatalities.”
\nAn autopsy showed that Gazalie, a member of Adamsburg and Community Volunteer Fire Department, died of smoke inhalation, said deputy coroner Dennis Johns.\u00a0 The autopsy also showed that Gazalie had heart problems that contributed to his death, Johns said.
\nBy the time firefighters reached the blaze at 721 Clay Ave., it was too late to save Gazalie.\u00a0 Gazalie, 46, spent his finale moments ensuring his mother, Norma Simpson, 71, and daughter, Jackie Gazalie, 20, were able to climb out the window.
\nAs two Jeannette Police officers and a passer-by beckoned for Gazalie to get out of the building, Gazalie vanished into the smoke.\u00a0 Simpson and Jackie Gazalie, who lived with her father in the apartment, were treated at Monsour Medical Center, Jeannette, and released, a nursing supervisor said.\u00a0 The extent of there injuries were not disclosed.
\nThat two people were able to make it out alive at all is a miracle, according to George Taylor, a Greensburg resident who happened to be driving by the home at the moment it erupted in fire.
\nIt was just happenstance Taylor, who was out for a night of spotting deer and drinking dinner coffee until just after 2:00am, decided to cut through Jeannette en route home.\u00a0 He saw smoke pouring out of the eaves and pulled over to the curb to investigate.
\n“As I approached the door, I could feel the heat from inside,” Taylor said.\u00a0 Behind the door he could hear objects exploding and crackling.\u00a0 “There was a tremendous amount of heat and smoke inside and I literally beat on the door with all I had to awaken someone, but I got no response.”
\nTaylor rushed back to his van looking for a fire call box or a telephone booth.\u00a0 He found none, but managed to find a young women sitting on a porch and asked her to call 911.
\nWhen he returned to the fire, he could see Gazalie standing behind a window, flames ripping from the roof into the night’s sky.\u00a0 Moments later officers Mark Allen, and John Ryan from the Jeannette Police Department arrived on scene.
\n“They were the first two people to arrive on the scene, and they were able to pull the mother and the daughter out.”\u00a0 City police chief Carol Shifko said.\u00a0 “Those people would not have made it if hadn’t been for them.”
\nTaylor was credited for quick thinking when he and the officers were unable to get anyone to jump from the onto the side walk, a drop of about 15 feet and steeply sloped.\u00a0 Taylor, a former firefighter, backed his van up to the building beneath the window, and one of the officers climbed onto the roof and began pulling the women out.
\nThe first fire trucks were just now screaming down the street when Taylor looked up at the window behind which Gazalie was standing.
\n“The fire was everywhere, smoke was everywhere: it was intense,” Taylor said of the home.\u00a0 “That’s the last time I saw the gentleman.”
\nJeannette firefighters made several attempts to rescue Gazalie, but all failed.\u00a0 Fire crews squelched the blaze in less than an hour, but no cause has been determined as of yesterday afternoon.
\nGazalie was widely known among emergency personnel.\u00a0 He had worked at the 911 center for the past nine years and was remembered warmly yesterday by fellow worker Stevens.
\n“He was a good guy, no trouble.” Stevens Said. “A lot of people in the room used to look to Jack to lighten things after a bad call.\u00a0 He was able to cheer them up.”
\nShiefko remembered Gazalie, who was captain of Jeannette’s auxiliary police force, as easy-going and well liked.
\n“He was the kind of guy who was easy to work with and very cooperative,” Shiefko said. “He liked helping people.”
\nJeannette Fire Department Chief, Mike Bertolino knew Gazalie both professionally and personally because of Gazalie’s membership with Adamsburg Fire Department.\u00a0 When the call came in across his scanner at 2:19 a.m. yesterday, Bertolino knew where he was going.
\n“I knew it was his house just by the address,” Bertolino said yesterday mourning after returning to the station house from the fire scene. “It touches home.”
\nAnd while Taylor spent part of the yesterday wondering if something more could have been done to save his Gazalie, others said Gazalie did exactly what they thought he would have done.<\/p>\n
\nDe<\/span>ceased Active Members<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\nDavid Musick<\/td>\n | Joseph Teacher<\/td>\n | George Lasko<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | John Jactkovitz<\/td>\n | Cyrus Frye<\/td>\n | Tom McRoberts<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | James Bartok<\/td>\n | Paul Stewart<\/td>\n | Fred Macrania<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Theodore Rogina<\/td>\n | Frank Vinkler<\/td>\n | Earl Gaskin<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Albert Haubrich<\/td>\n | Charles Cook Jr.<\/td>\n | Steve Bartok<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | George Flasik<\/td>\n | Rich Serembo<\/td>\n | Jack Gazalie<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Chauchy D. Jones<\/td>\n | Robert M. Youngstead<\/td>\n | Samuel Cortese<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Charles McMahon<\/td>\n | Charles Smeltzer<\/td>\n | Jay Waite<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Emery Buterbauch<\/td>\n | James Srembo<\/td>\n | Emil Shoplik<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | George Yurcisin<\/td>\n | Walter Barbish<\/td>\n | \u00a0Mike Lupinacci<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n | <\/p>\n
|