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Mostly Cloudy Michael Esposito suffers heart attack fighting fire
Blaze consumed 2870 Grand Ave. as former fire chief battled for life
Michael Esposito, a 43-year-old former captain with the Baldwin Fire Department, died early on the morning of May 18 of a heart attack. He was taken ill while en route to a fire at 2870 Grand Avenue around 3:30 a.m..
The fire was reported via a phone call at 3:38 a.m. on the morning of May 18. North Bellmore dispatcher number six alerted the Baldwin Fire Department to a house fire on Grand Avenue and firefighters sprang into action.
On the way to the scene in Engine 201, Michael Esposito, a three-time captain of the department, began to complain of chest pains. When the company arrived at the scene of the fire, he was taken by ambulance to South Nassau Communities hospital in Oceanside.
Esposito’s companions remember him joking as he was loaded into the ambulance. “You guys fight the fire, I’ll take a little ride to the hospital,” fire department chief Kevin Smith recalled Esposito saying. Unfortunately, the unmarried brother of a second Baldwin firefighter, Todd, succumbed to a heart attack and was pronounced dead at 5:02 a.m. — he is survived by two brothers, two sisters and his father, Gerald.
Blaze extinguished, allegations sparked
While Esposito fought for his life, firefighters put three lines into operation to quell the fierce blaze consuming the house. They worked first on an exterior wall, then concentrated their efforts inside the 2 ½-story home. In all, it took some 90 minutes to control the blaze. No other injuries directly resulting from the fire were reported.
Emery Jackson, who lives directly north of the house where the fire occurred recounted his experience the morning of the fire, “I was asleep around 2 a.m. when suddenly someone came knocking on my door,” said Jackson, 69. “It was a blonde woman. She said, ‘you have to get out of here.’ I looked through the kitchen window and saw that the house next door had gone up like tinder. Sparks were starting to fly in this direction.”
Jackson woke his sister, Anne, and the two sought safety outside. “The fire department came and did a heck of a job saving my property,” Jackson said, adding that his home was largely undamaged in the incident save for some smoke stains on an exterior wall.
