Firefighter Honored for Saving Captain from a Bad Fall

A split-second decision that likely saved one of his friends from serious injury was just a piece of what earned Firefighter Mark Bickford this year's Firefighter of the Year award from the Merrimack Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Bickford was one of four emergency services personnel from Merrimack honored by the VFW on Saturday night for outstanding service to the community.

According to Fire Capt. Brian Dubreuil, who nominated Bickford for the award, it's not just one night's actions that earned him the award, but his overall attitude toward his job, toward promoting the Merrimack Fire Department and to improving upon himself in his job on a regular basis.

"It's not just one thing," Dubreuil said. "Mark is a consummate professional."

That said, Dubreuil is very thankful Bickford was on the roof with him at a house fire in Bedford back in late October.

Bickford recounted the story.

They were called on Oct. 23 with the first alarm of what would end up being a three-alarm fire in Bedford.

The third truck to arrive to 30 Ledgewood Road, they got to work laying out supply line to bring in water from down the street. The fire was large, it had been spotted by an off-duty firefighter who called it in.

After getting another line of water set up, Bickford, Dubreuil and Keith Hines climbed Bedford's ladder truck to vent the steeply-pitched gable roof. Bickford was last up the ladder with a roof ladder in tow. However after a few minutes up there, the smoke condition was so bad there was almost no visibility.

The fire was reaching a dangerous point and Bickford said Bedford blew the horn signifying for people to get out of the house and off the roof.

“The smoke was so bad I was at the ladder yelling and banging on it so the guys could find their way back.

As Dubreuil made his way back across the roof toward the ladder, saw in hand he slipped and started to slide down the steep roof.

He was close enough that Bickford heard him going down and was able to make him out in the smoke. It was a split second decision when he hooked his feet in the ladder and reached down to grab a hold of Dubreuil who was sliding toward the bottom of the roof.

Dubreuil, said he probably slid about 10 feet down the roof.

“Ten feet seems like half a mile when you're sliding down a roof,” he said.

Bickford was in the right place at the right time.

“I caught hold of the handle of his saw,” Bickford said. “Then his arm and I pulled him back up.”

It was one of those moments working in this profession that they don't talk about a lot. In the moment it was a spoken thank you and acknowledgement and then back to business fighting the fire.

“It was instinctive,” Bickford said. “If we flipped roles and it was me walking across the roof, he would have done the same thing.”

They didn't talk about that moment again until quite a bit later in the night. Once they started talking about what happened they acknowledged that it could have been a really bad fall, Dubreuil would have fallen 30 feet to the ground if he had gone over the side of the roof.

“It feels like we averted something pretty bad,” he said.

Dubreuil said there are things like this that happen, situations that if one thing was changed could turn out very differently, but they generally don't dwell on those situations. And thankfully, they are few and far between, Bickford said.
Bickford is a seven-year member of the Merrimack Fire Department. Before that he was for five years a call firefighter in Londonderry, where he lives with his wife and 13-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter.

Originally from Massachusetts, he was working as an EMT in the Boston area for nine years before Londonderry. Bickford said he had wanted to be a firefighter since he was very little. Having grown up in East Boston a few doors down from the fire station and having seen firefighters at work during the Chelsea conflagration of 1973, it became a lifelong dream, but a difficult one to accomplish in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts being a civil state can make it harder for non-minorities to get a job in the field.

Bickford said he tried many times but kept getting put to the bottom of the list before deciding maybe it was time to make a go at it in New Hampshire.

Bickford said he appreciated the recognition, but he, and no one else in the department do what they do for the award, they have each other's backs and they work together in an attempt to keep people safe – the public and themselves.

“Risk is inherent in the job,” Bickford said. “You accept that level of risk when you sign on the dotted line, so to speak. When you raise your hand and take that pledge.”

Bickford was awarded along with EMT of the Year Jeremy Penerian, Police Officers of the Year Paul Wells and Daniel Jacques and Teacher of the Year Michael Dupont. Also recognized at the VFW's Loyalty Days celebration were Marjorie Boyer and Matthew Guyotte, who earned first and second place, respectively, in the Voice of Democracy Essay competition and Nicholas Kennedy who earned first place in the Patriots Pen Essay.