Mayor Bill de Blasio identified the firefighter early Monday morning as Steven H. Pollard, 30, who joined the New York Fire Department about 18 months ago.
“It’s a very sad night here in our city,” the mayor said at a news conference Monday. “This is particularly painful because we’ve lost a young man serving our city as a firefighter.”
At about 10 p.m., Pollard responded to the scene of a two-car accident in the westbound lanes of the Belt Parkway on the Mill Basin Bridge, said Daniel A. Nigro, New York City fire commissioner.
Pollard arrived on the eastbound span of the parkway, which is separated from the westbound span by a 2- to 3-foot gap, Nigro said.
When he tried to get from one side of the bridge, which had recently been rebuilt, onto the other to reach the crash — a car that had flipped over with two people inside — he fell more than 50 feet in the gap between the two spans, Nigro said.
Pollard was taken to Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, where he was pronounced dead.
“It’s a terrible loss for the department, to lose a member just at the beginning of his career like this is devastating to us,” Nigro said.
Two people involved in the car accident were also hospitalized. As of early Monday morning, one was in serious condition and the other had minor injuries, a Fire Department spokesman said.
Details about the conditions that led to Pollard’s death were still unclear Monday morning. Fire Department officials declined to discuss any specific conditions that may have caused Pollard to fall. Nigro said the department was investigating the circumstances.
Pollard was a rookie firefighter who had joined the Fire Department in June 2017. He finished an 18-month probation period in December, a Fire Department spokesman said, and was assigned to Ladder Company 170 in Brooklyn. Pollard came from a family of firefighters: his father, Ray, retired after more than 30 years as a New York firefighter, and his brother is an 11-year veteran of the Fire Department who is currently assigned to Ladder Company 114 in Brooklyn, the department said.
“This is a family that has done so much for New York City and now they’re going through this loss,” de Blasio said. The mayor said that he had ordered flags throughout New York City to fly at half-staff Monday to honor Pollard.
“He devoted his life to the people of our city, like his brother, like his dad, he was trying to do such a good and important thing,” de Blasio said. “It’s just a very, very tough loss.”
New York City Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill said on Twitter early Monday that his department sent its condolences to Pollard’s friends, family and colleagues. New York City “will never forget your sacrifice,” he wrote.
The last time a New York City firefighter was killed on duty was in March, when Michael R. Davidson, 37, died while fighting a massive blaze in a Harlem building being used as a set for a movie directed by Edward Norton.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.