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click on the picture for larger image from ChicagoBreakingNews.com
Thousands paid tribute to Chicago Firefighter Corey Ankum during his funeral Thursday morning. Ankum and fellow Firefighter Edward Stringer died December 22 when the roof collapsed during a fire at an abandoned dry cleaners.
From ChicagoBreakingNews.com:
“If you were trying to draw up a description of the ideal firefighter, you’d come up with someone very much like Corey. And I know because he told me every time I was with Dameka how great the fire department was,” said Mayor Richard Daley. “Every time I spoke to him, all the time, it didn’t matter where I was or who I was with, the first thing he said was ‘I love the fire department.’”
Firefighter Corey Ankum Remembered at Funeral: MyFoxCHICAGO.com
Firefighter Ankum’s wife is Mayor Daley’s personal secretary. He also leaves behind two daughters and a 1-year-old son.
Hear Chicago Fire Chief Robert Hoff’s words about Firefighter Corey Ankum from NBCChicago.com:
More from ChicagoBreakingNews.com can be found here, from MyFoxChicago.com here, and from NBCChicago here.
Click here for photos from the Chicago Tribune and here for pictures from the Chicago Sun-Times.
YouTube video from an overpass:
Previous related stories from FireTruckBlog.com:
Funeral services are scheduled to begin at 11 am CST.
If the stream is not working, click HERE to watch live coverage of Chicago Firefighter Corey Ankum’s funeral.
Engine 63 brought the casket of Firefighter Edward Stringer to St. Rita Chapel where hundreds of family, friends, and fellow firefighters paid their final respects Tuesday morning. Fellow firefighters from Engine 63 served as pallbearers. MyFoxChicago’s coverage of the funeral can be found here.
Stringer and Firefighter Corey Ankum were killed when a roof collapsed in an abandoned dry cleaners where they were battling a fire on December 22. Click here for previous coverage on FireTruckBlog.com.
Ankum’s funeral is later this week.
from WGN-TV
Two Chicago firefighters were killed Wednesday morning and 19 were injured battling a fire in an abandoned building, and the roof collapsed.
Corey Ankum and Edward Stringer were both taken to Chicago area hospitals. Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford told ChicagoBreakingNews.com both firefighters died of trauma.
Photo from Chicago Sun-Times
Engine Co. 98 was among the apparatus which escorted Firefighter Stringer’s body from the hospital.
More pictures can be found here on the Chicago Sun-Times and here from the Chicago Tribune.
The brother of a firefighter on the scene describes what happened after the collapse in ChicagoBreakingNews.com:
Steven Ellerson, a 20-year veteran, rushed in with others to rescue them. “He heard someone calling for help and he looked for him,” Ellerson’s brother Maurice Matthews said.
Ellerson found Ankum on the floor, gasping.
“He found him and knew he was struggling to breathe so he took off his mask to give him some oxygen,” Matthews said. “Corey’s head was stuck somehow and they couldn’t get him out. So my brother went to give him his coat but they came and got my brother out of there. My brother didn’t want to leave him, but there was no choice.
“It was a chaotic scene,” Matthews said. “These guys put their lives on the line every day.”
STATter911.com has extensive coverage including more about Firefighter Ankum and Firefighter Stringer, the Mayday call, the Chicago Fire Department press conferences, reports from the scene, and Mayor Richard Daley’s statement here.
Chicago Tribune and Chicago History Museum
These deaths come on the 100-year anniversary of the Chicago Stockyards Fire. Twenty-one firefighters, including the chief, were killed that day when a six-story brick wall fell while they were battling a fire that started in the basement of Warehouse 7. They had rushed to the fire with their horse-drawn steam engines and trucks.
Two days ago, the Chicago Tribune published a story called “100 years since Stockyards fire raged: Remembering Chicago’s ‘forgotten tragedy.’” You can read it here. The headline refers to the title of Bill Cosgrove’s book “Chicago’s Forgotten Tragedy.” More about him and the book can be found here.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Cosgrove was approached by Chicago Firefighter Bill Cattorini in 1998 about establishing a memorial to the firefighters after passing by the spot of the 1910 fire. They decided the memorial should honor all Chicago firefighters who died in the line of duty. The memorial was dedicated on December 22, 2004, and a ceremony now takes place every October 8–the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire. More on the story here.
This video from 2008 shows old photographs from the fire, and Cosgrove describes the apparatus arriving at the scene of the Stockyards Fire:
Click here for MyFoxChicago’s coverage of the 2010 ceremony at the memorial.
The video below is a montage of photos from the 2010 remembrance and pictures of the 21 killed in the Stockyards fire set to music.
