‘My Heart Was Always Here’

Citizen’s Engine Co. firefighter Randi Lewis was sure he was toast.

Perched atop a ladder on the roof of a Roosevelt Drive building, Lewis watched as flames shot up through the roof, licked at his uniform and threatened to devour him. 

I was getting torched,” he said.

Suddenly, the ladder moved below his feet, and Lewis felt a rush of cool air.

Jamie Corcoran, volunteer with Citizen’s Engine Co., No. 2. had moved the ladder out from the flames, and brought Lewis to safety.

It happened 35 years ago, but it came up again this month, as volunteers at the Seymour Fire Department swapped stories with Corcoran about the good old days volunteering at a good-bye party in his honor.

After 39 years with the company, Corcoran, 73, is leaving this weekend when he moves to Virginia to be closer to family.

These guys have been good to me,” Corcoran said. I’ll be back every once in a while, when I get bored down there. My heart was always here.”

Corcoran has served as the department’s chief driver, and trained many of the department’s current fire truck drivers.

The only truck Corcoran still drives is the department’s muster truck, used in competitions. 

Corcoran is one of the few original members of the department’s muster, or competitive firefighting, team. 

Around the same time he pull Lewis’ ladder out of the flames, he made another save for the department: A 1939 coal truck.

Some 35 years ago, he and several members of the department spent hundreds of hours fixing up the competition truck to be shown for prizes.

It was kinda sad, we just pulled it out of the mud and cleaned it up,” Corcoran said. 

ContributedAmong the fixes to the truck were new lights, new switches, a new dashboard, wires and fuses to make it more roadworthy,” he said.

But Corcoran is understating his contribution, said his daughter Vikki Ronnau, who lives outside Richmond, Virginia. 

The truck would often sit in the family driveway while Corcoran tinkered with it, she said. 

As a child, Ronnau said she often helped her father polish brass fixtures on the truck to get it ready for parades and competitions.

Corcoran took on the muster truck again more recently.

After he retired, he started hanging out here a couple years ago during the daytime, and the truck was in need of some work, so he started taking on some projects to bring truck back to where it should be for competitions,” Fire Chief Scott Andrews said. He dedicated a lot of time and energy, and even some of his own money, into that old truck.”

Corcoran is someone everyone can look up to,” Andrews said. 

He’s just a great all-around guy,” Andrews said. He’ll do anything for you and help out with anything.”

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