Young NY Firefighter Collapses Suddenly

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JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER

Newsday

Yaphank Fire Department Assistant Chief James Bledsoe's family often worried about the dangers that came with his volunteer duties of fighting blazes.

The frequent departure from Sunday night family dinners to rush toward a burning building always made his wife, Amy Bledsoe, nervous. But what she wasn't prepared for, she said, was losing him to a mysterious collapse at their Yaphank home on Dec. 14. He was 29.

Bledsoe had seemed in good health when he collapsed that morning, said his wife, who noticed that he had been snoring strangely. He was pronounced dead at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue. The cause of death is unknown, she said.

About a week before Bledsoe died, he had been elected assistant chief, a position he served as acting in the previous year.

He had volunteered for the Yaphank department, where he was nicknamed "Moose," for five years, and previously had served with the Ridge department. At 16, he volunteered with Shirley Community Ambulance.

Helping rescue others "was his life," Amy Bledsoe, 29, said. "There were two things that mattered to him most: family and the fire department."

Married for 18 months, the Bledsoes had just started trying to have children, she said.

James Bledsoe, who worked as a heavy equipment operator for the Town of Brookhaven, had wanted a big family, his wife recalled. They were inspired to start trying to get pregnant because of their now 10-month-old nephew, Patrick Dobbins. She watched how her husband doted on the baby. "I knew then that he would have been the best father," she said.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, James Bledsoe attended many funerals, later saying it was because he considered firefighting to be a brotherhood.

"It wasn't until his funeral that I realized it really was a brotherhood," Amy Bledsoe said, recalling the Dec. 19 Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Patchogue, where firefighters from more than 20 Long Island departments attended.

"These people were his family," she said. "It was a very touching tribute to his life."

In addition to his wife, Bledsoe is survived by his parents, Richard and Geraldine Bledsoe, of Shirley; his sister, Karen Crisafi of North Babylon, and his grandmother Margaret Fervola of Islip. Interment was at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Coram.