Firefighter
Carl Bedigian
Engine 214
(Promoted to Lieutenant)
Laid
to Rest
on November 5, 2001
Living
With an Angel
Sometimes, Carl J. Bedigian did not seem real to the woman who
had been his wife for less than a year. A firefighter with Engine
214 in Brooklyn, he once donated his bone marrow to a 4-year-old
boy in Europe he had never met, Michele Bedigian said. He had
a "magical" smile, and "a beautiful way of making people comfortable
around him," she said. "Sometimes I think he's an angel. Sometimes
I think he wasn't really a person." In 1998, Mr. Bedigian fell
ill with a rare condition that paralyzed him, but he defied
the odds and walked again within weeks out of the sheer power
of his will, Mrs. Bedigian said. The experience made the couple
live every day as if it were their last. They traveled, they
planned a family. And Mr. Bedigian, 35, stayed committed to
the Fire Department and had "a constant ambition to do more
to help people," she said. Mr. Bedigian was buried Nov. 5. "That
was Carl's calling," his 31-year-old widow said of his life
as a fireman. "As painful as it is, I'm incredibly proud of
him." Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on November 12,
2001.
Newsday
Article
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