For one firefighter, Fernando's smile will never fade - Reprinted from Boston Herald

"For one firefighter, Fernando's smile will never fade"
by Peter Gelzinis, Boston Herald
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 

It was the 911 call that never failed to touch his heart.

About once or twice a month, when Boston Firefighter Corey Crosson was assigned to Engine 22 in the South End, he would find himself standing inside the William E. Carter School , tucked away at the very end of Northampton Street.

 

It may have been a call for a child in the midst of a seizure or running a dangerously high fever, but rolling up to a public school where he would encounter some of the most profoundly disabled children in this city was always a humbling experience for this veteran firefighter.

 

Fernando Vargas was one of those Carter students on the other end of a 911 call, a boy whose youth and boundless smile was confined to a wheelchair, yet still managed to greet Corey Crosson with a blend of pure innocence, wonder and courage.

 

“I have an 11-year-old daughter,” Crosson said yesterday, “and each time we’d arrive at that school, I’d look at those children and thank God for their incredible spirit and for all the (teachers) who were taking care of them.”

 

Crosson was not among the first responders who rushed into East Boston’s Orient Heights project at dawn Friday to find 15-year-old Fernando Vargas betrayed by the whims of electricity and a back-up battery that should have kept him breathing.

 

Yesterday, Vargas’ classmates visited the Galleria Mall. If not for the chance of thunderstorms, they would’ve made their regular Tuesday journey to Castle Island to bask in the sun and feel the sea breeze on their faces.

 

Marianne Kopaczynski, principal of the Carter School , doubted that Fernando’s fellow students, 24 in all, could comprehend his absence. But that did nothing to diminish the heartache in her voice. “We’re still in shock,” Kopaczynski said. “It’s been a terrible jolt to our staff, but my heart goes out to all our parents. I’m sure that what’s happened to Fernando must be crushing to all of them.

 

“Our parents have struggled in ways that few of us could ever imagine,” she said. “You fight for your child and you work and you fight some more . . . and most of all, you come to take nothing for granted. Everything, no matter how insignificant to the rest of us, becomes a milestone to our parents. They’ve fought for years to raise (more than a million dollars) to create the ‘ Healing Garden ’ we built in our schoolyard.

 

“These parents fight day in and day out for any way to help free their child from the afflictions that have imprisoned them. To love your child that much and know you could lose them in such a way has got to be their worst nightmare.”

 

Indeed, one they dare not imagine, but can hardly ignore. Several years ago, when a power outage shut off the heat to the Carter School , Kopaczynski saw it for what it was - an omen. Beyond the dropping temperature, the principal took note of all the back-up batteries pressed into action. Marianne Kopaczynski lobbied the city for a back-up generator and they wisely agreed.

 

What has humbled the Carter School ’s principal in these past few days is the heart of a mother who lost her son Friday morning and the compassion of a firefighter who remembered the simple power of one 15-year-old boy’s smile. Fernando Vargas’ mother, Ilia Torres, has asked that those wishing to honor her boy’s memory do show by sending a donation to the Carter School .

 

Galvanized by the memory of his 911 visits to the Carter School, Corey Crosson has enlisted all of Boston’s firefighters in a union-wide drive to solicit $10 from each and every jake to go toward creating another dream for the Carter School - a physical therapy pool, dedicated to the memory of Fernando Vargas.

 

Both the school principal and the firefighter were moved by Ilia Torres, a woman who refused to let the cruel twist of fate that claimed her son blind her to the special needs of those just like him.

 

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1108575