It’s been nearly eight years since FDNY hero Michael Fahy was killed in the line of duty – but he was not forgotten as the department promoted 63 of New York’s Bravest at a Randall’s Island ceremony on Tuesday.
“Today is definitely with Mike,” newly anointed Deputy Assistant Chief Michael Wood told The Post.
“He said, ‘There’s not a greater noble cause than to be a firefighter.’ So, ever since I heard him say that it resonated with me and I try to live every day with that in the back of my head and try to do the right thing.”
Wood, a 34-year FDNY veteran, joined dozens of other firefighters at the ceremony, including 32 promoted to lieutenant and 30 others to captain to help fill the department’s upper ranks.
“Leadership is obviously one of the greatest challenges and honors we can take on in any place, especially in the world’s greatest fire department,” Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh told them.
“Not only are you saying it was already enough to be physically brave, to put your life on the line, but you’ve decided to have moral courage and to lead those people that you love in this department, keep them safe every day,” she said.
“To be there for them in their good times in their bad times, to coach them, to make them a better team, to struggle through with them every day the joys the hopes the difficulties of being a member of the New York City Fire Department, and that is the greatest gift of all and the greatest challenge of all.”
The promotions follow a tumultuous year that saw 10 top chiefs ask for demotions in the wake of Kavanagh’s shake-up in the department’s upper ranks.
An earlier promotion ceremony in March was marred by controversy when a group of pro-Trump attendees booed New York State Attorney Letitia James, who spoke at the event.
But nothing marred Tuesday’s promotions.
“It’s a great accomplishment,” said firefighter Prentis Jackson of Engine 34 in Manhattan, who was promoted to captain. “I picked this day out right when I started.”
“I always wanted to be a captain,” he added. “Nineteen years later, I got here.”
For Wood, who is assigned to Division 7 in the Bronx, it was about his fallen pal.
Fahy, a 33-year firefighter whose dad also served in the department, was killed in an early morning explosion at a Bronx marijuana grow house in September 2016.
“You always are concerned about getting that phone call, and I remember getting that phone call that morning when Mike Fahy passed away,” he told The Post.
“I had worked with Mike two days before, so it really hits hard. Aside from 9/11, that was probably my darkest day,” he said. “You try to learn from those and hope that we don’t have any more of those. It’s a dream that can’t be attained but at least it’s something I try to do every day.”
