Andrew Christopher Brunn

Public Service Was His Heart's Calling

March 1, 2002

Marie Losito fretfully watched her son answer his calling in life.

She "had concerns" in 1989 when she accompanied him to 1 Police Plaza, where he took a test to join the New York Police Department. "He was only 16 then," she said. "To be that young and to want to help people the way he did, he must have had a real understanding of what he wanted to do."

So her son, Andrew Christopher Brunn, chose to become a police officer, and later a firefighter, because "he thought he could do more good helping people," his mother said.

His dedication cost him his life: Brunn, 28, was one of 343 firefighters who died in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

There was evidence of her son's dedication to public service even before that 1989 trek to the city.

Brunn adopted Flipper, the family's 14-year-old, black-and-white cat, when he found him as a kitten in a schoolyard, in 1988, his mother said. "He loved animals and he loved people," she said, trying to recount the countless hamsters, fish and birds that her son befriended over the years. She remembered school nights when Brunn was a child, sending him and his younger sister Christina to bed at 8:30 p.m., watching another of Brunn's cats, Tiger, straggle behind her son into his bedroom in the family's Levittown home.

Their mother-son trips to Long Beach with a long board tied to the top of their car are still fresh memories for Losito. "He was a surfer," she said. Ever since he was 9, he liked "anything to do with the ocean." Losito said her son found peace whenever he was paddling away from shore. "He felt a freedom in the water that he never felt on land," she said. "And he always had great balance in everything he did. But I was always anxious."

After he graduated from Holy Trinity Diocesan High School in Hicksville in 1991, Brunn joined the New York Air National Guard. A staff sergeant in the 213th engineering and installation squadron, he was sent overseas to Germany, Italy and Iraq, his mother said.

At 21, Brunn got the call he had been waiting for since his trip to 1 Police Plaza six years earlier. He walked the beat in Harlem before being promoted to sergeant and spending seven years with the NYPD.

Last summer, Brunn received an offer to join the city's fire department, and he jumped at the chance. Stationed at Ladder 5 in downtown Manhattan, Brunn was sent back to a time when he and his family would take weekly "excursions" to Manhattan, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, or walking through Greenwich Village, his mother said.

"He loved New York City," she said. "And he loved the firehouse."

Brunn and 10 members of his company perished in the terrorist attacks. His body was recovered on the Friday after, along with his commanding officer and a "woman they were trying to help down the stairs," Losito said.

He and his wife, Sigalit, were set to close on their first home, in Hicksville, two weeks after the terrorist attacks. Boxes filled with books and clothes still clutter the couple's Flushing apartment. "In his heart, I think he knew he belonged in Long Island," Losito said. "I think he was coming back home, but he never made it."

There is a tree in front of Brunn's alma mater with the names inscribed on metal leaves of deceased alumni. Nine more leaves, representing deaths in the terrorist attacks, have been added since September.

Losito presented a plaque at her son's funeral at the Thomas Dalton Funeral Home in New Hyde Park on Sept. 17. The inscribed biblical passage read: "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friend."

In addition to his wife and mother, Brunn is survived by his father, Andrew Brunn, and his sister, Christina Brunn, both of Glen Oaks.

"He's my guardian angel," Losito said. "And he'll watch over me now."

-- Nick Iyer (Newsday)

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September 19, 2001

Ladder Co. 5 Looks For Five of Its Own

Five members of Ladder Co. 5 were killed when terrorists obliterated Tower One of the World Trade Center.

Lt. Michael Warchola and firefighters Andrew Brunn, Louis Arena, Thomas Hannafin and John Santore are confirmed dead.

Santore was known for playing Santa every year at the Christmas party. Their company trudged up a stairwell of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and apparently into the fireball.

On the night of the attacks, surviving members of the company dug with their hands through metal, plaster and mounds of rubble, looking for their men near their smashed ladder truck. They used hooks and shovels to clear debris. But nothing worked like their hands, and they dug until they were raw.

"Everyone was hoping to find someone alive and pull him out," said Stephen Sullivan, a retired member of No. 5 on the scene. "You hope. But you're afraid, too, of what you'll find."

The men of No. 5 and No. 24 were among the first to respond to Sept. 11's suicidal plane attack. They pulled their trucks, both brand-new, out on West Street, right up to the North Tower, and headed up the "A" stairwell.

"We made it up 37 floors carrying a lot of heavy equipment," said Marcel Claes of Engine No. 24, "and we got an urgent message to come right back down. I think the Ladder 5 guys may have proceeded up farther."

- Jo Craven McGinty (Newsday)

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Oct. 5, 2001
Andrew C. Brunn traded in his career with the New York Police Department for a crack at fighting fires. That way, family members said, he figured he would have a better chance at saving lives.

The day he died, Brunn was still in training but was on the 35th floor of the World Trade Center with four other firefighters when a radio call told them to get out, said Anne Sugrue, a friend of the family. Brunn and the others moved slowly, helping an injured man and woman escape.

They had made it to the fifth floor when the building collapsed. Their bodies were later found together.Brunn had walked a beat as a police officer and been promoted to sergeant at the city jail, but he loved being a firefighter, Sugrue said.

When fellow firefighters expected him to have an attitude as a former police sergeant, she said he surprised them by cheerfully washing the floor and doing dishes like the other rookies instead.

"They said he was always grinning and smiling, he was like a sponge soaking up the information," she said, adding that Brunn even marveled at the quality of the department's uniforms.

He was still almost two months away from becoming a full firefighter, but already was planning for the day he could become a lieutenant. Firefighters found an application to take the test in his locker after his death. "He was always challenging himself," Sugrue said. "He was motivated."

He also was dedicated to his wife, Sigalit, and excited about their pending move to a new home. Four days before his death, Brunn and his wife were supposed to close on a house on Long Island. They were halfway packed, their apartment full of boxes, when the purchase was delayed by a porch that wasn't up to code.

His wife has decided to remain in their apartment rather than move into an empty home without him.

After Brunn's death, friends and family shared stories for hours about the wild, funny man who loved to surf and skateboard.

They talked about the time he jumped on a bar in New Orleans to lead a Jets cheer, even though no game was playing. "He was a huge Jets fan, and of course, you have to be faithful to be a Jets fan," Sugrue said.

Firefighters also provided support, and the neighborhood turned the firehouse Brunn loved into a makeshift shrine with candles, flowers and photos.

At Brunn's funeral, the block in front of the church was packed with people in the three uniforms Brunn had worn--police, fire and Air National Guard.

"It showed how much he did in a short time," Sugrue said.

--Ted Gregory (The Chicago Tribune)

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