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JAN. 20, 2019, BROOKLYN WEEKLY
Goodbye to Bravest
Borough lays to rest local fi refi ghter who fatally fell from parkway’s Mill Basin Bridge
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
It was a Kings send-off.
Thousands of mourners gathered on Jan. 11
to say goodbye to one of New York’s Bravest, who
died on duty after falling from the new Mill Basin
Bridge days before.
Mourners packed the pews at Marine Park’s
Good Shepherd Church to pay their last respects
to fi refi ghter Steven Pollard of Canarsie’s Ladder
Company 170, the Fire Department’s 1,151 member
to make the ultimate sacrifi ce in the line of
duty and a true hero, according to his chief.
“Steven was everything we want in a fi refi
ghter: strong, smart, hard-working, dedicated,
and above all else, brave,” Fire Commissioner
Daniel Nigro said at the service.
Bravery was in 30-year-old Pollard’s blood,
according to Nigro, who noted that the deceased
followed in the footsteps of his dad, a retired 32-
year veteran of Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Ladder
Company 102, and his brother, a current 11-year
member of Sunset Park’s Ladder Company 114,
who both attended the funeral with Pollard’s
grieving mother Janet and his girlfriend.
“No doubt, he had been preparing his entire
life for this moment — to be a fi refi ghter. He
worked so hard for this career, to follow his father
— and his brother — into the world’s greatest fi re
department,” Nigro said.
Pollard, who lived in Marine Park, took his fatal
fall after he and his crew rushed to the scene
of a two-car collision on the Belt Parkway’s recently
opened bridge near Floyd Bennett Field on
Jan. 6 just after 10 pm.
He plummeted 52 feet after slipping through
a three-foot gap in the span, which he tried to
cross from its Bay Ridge–bound side in order to
help victims injured in the crash on the span’s
Queens-bound side — a heroic fi nal act that
ended his life far too soon, according to Mayor
DeBlasio.
“What Steven Pollard saw was a fellow New
Yorker, a fellow human being in a crumpled SUV
out on the Belt Parkway. He did not hesitate. He
saw someone in danger. He saw that someone
needed help. He rushed forward and at that instant
he gave his life,” Hizzoner said at the funeral.
And friends, family, and offi cials were not the
only ones who grieved for Pollard — the athletes
on his beloved hometown hockey squad, the New
York Rangers, also expressed their condolences
to the late fi refi ghter’s loved ones.
“#NYR observe a moment of silence in honor
of fi refi ghter and Blueshirts fan Steven Pollard
and his family, and to acknowledge all the men
and women in uniform who put their lives on the
line, each and every day,” the team Tweeted the
day before the funeral service.
Following the ceremony, a motorcade featuring
dozens of motorcycles, Police Department
helicopters, Fire Department bag pipers, and
Ladder 170’s truck — which carried Pollard’s
fl ag-draped coffi n — made its way to Green-
Wood Cemetery, where the local hero was laid
to rest.
FINAL FAREWELL: (Clockwise from above) Police Department choppers
soared above the motorcade as it made its way to Green-Wood Cemetery with
the remains of late fi refi ghter Steven Pollard, following his Marine Park funeral
service on Jan. 11. A fi refi ghter presented Pollard’s family and girlfriend
with the dead hero’s helmet. Members of New York’s Bravest lined Batchelder
Street near Avenue S to honor their fallen brother. A fi re engine carried a
fl oral arrangement designed to recall the logo of Pollard’s beloved New York
Rangers hockey team. Photos by Steve Solomonson