When firefighter Martin Walsh was called to a fire in the middle of the night, his wife Valerie would wake up as well.
“I’d get him out the door,” she said. “He always used to say that if I wasn’t there to help him to get out, he didn’t know if he could do it.”
Martin Walsh, among nine firefighters recognized Sunday at the 11th annual Canadian Fallen Firefighters Foundation memorial, received his last call on April 11, 2013. The 66-year-old died suddenly on his way, behind the wheel of his vehicle. His widow said the exact cause of death is unknown.
Walsh and relatives of the other firefighters who died on duty or from work-related illnesses were brought to Ottawa this weekend from across the country to meet one another and hundreds of firefighters in town for the memorial.
Walsh, whose husband was a volunteer firefighter with Kennetcook District Fire Department in Nova Scotia, said she was mostly feeling “pain” after the ceremony, which included marches, a moment of silence and remarks from Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.
“It brings it up as if it were yesterday,” Walsh said, clutching a memorial firefighter’s helmet in recognition of her husband, who started firefighting in 1976. But she said being with other firefighter families helped her.
Chaplain Bruce Rushton told the crowd he’d spent three days with the families before the memorial. “None of us can begin to know what it is to get that call,” he said. “Or to walk through the journey of the illnesses that some of our firefighters experience because they’ve given and sacrificed their lives.”
There are now almost 1,200 names on the memorial wall. As well, names of retired firefighters who died from work-related illnesses were read at the ceremony. Among them was retired Ottawa firefighter Richard Mason, who died last year from work-related cancer, said John Sobey, vice-president of the Ottawa Professional Fire Fighters Association.
Elizabeth Baron, 31, was at the ceremony to recognize her father, former deputy fire chief Antonius Lippers from Caledon, Ont. Baron said her father died from brain cancer, which is recognized as work-related. “He started really young and equipment wasn’t what it is now,” she said.
Valerie Walsh said her husband didn’t aspire to fight fires. But when a volunteer spot came up, he went for it. “From day one, he was a fireman,” she said. “He loved the training, he loved going into burning buildings, he loved helping people.”
He went on to be fire chief, she said, and had just recently stepped down from that position when he died. “To be really honest, I guess I was seeing the toll of all of this on him,” Walsh said. “I wanted him to, kind of, retire and relax a bit more.”
