Philadelphia’s Fire Commissioner stores funeral cards in his hat, to keep firefighters’ lives top of mind

Soon after his arrival in Philadelphia as the city’s new fire commissioner, Adam Thiel attended a firefighter’s funeral and needed somewhere to put the small memorial card he’d picked up at the church.

He was wearing his uniform hat, which had an inner plastic pouch where he kept his business card, tucked there so that when he misplaced the cap — which was happening often — people could return it to him.

That day in 2016, he absently slid the funeral memento into the pouch.

A while later, at a funeral for another department employee, he stored the memorial card for that person in his hat, too. At a subsequent service, he did the same. Now, four years into Thiel’s tenure leading the almost 3,000-member department, the pouch in his hat bulges with dozens of funeral cards of those who died while actively employed.

And what began as a casual act of convenience has evolved into Thiel’s daily, literal reminder that his passed-on comrades should always be kept top of mind.

“When I put my hat on or take it off, I look in there and see the faces of the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice to the city,” he said.

Five firefighters have passed in the line of duty under Thiel’s watch: Gabe Lee, Kenny Green, Matt LeTourneau, Benny Hutchins, and Mike Bernstein. Thiel has affixed photos of the men to his computer monitor at work, along with that of Joyce Craig: the first female Philadelphia firefighter to die in the line of duty.

While Craig’s death happened two years before Thiel’s arrival here — she was battling a house fire in West Oak Lane — a federal review of the incident was not released until Thiel took office. So the ongoing recovery from her passing, he said, “happened on my watch.”

“I’m not in any danger of forgetting the service and sacrifice of those folks,” he said. “But just to be 100% certain, I make sure I see their faces every day as a reminder that we have to do everything we can to make sure that our people go home safely to their families.”

Those whose funeral cards slumber in Thiel’s cap may not have perished in an inferno, but death by fire is not the only dangerous consequence of their vocational calling: There is exposure to hazardous chemicals. Sickness caused by contaminated blood and communicable diseases. Heightened physical and emotional stress.

“We die from cancer at higher rates than the general population, we have higher rates of suicide, and a lot of our members experience post-traumatic stress injuries over the course of their careers,” said Thiel.

The current pandemic has added to the normal demands of the job. Department members have worked with the Office of Emergency Management (also under Thiel’s direction) and a host of other city agencies and organizations to transport folks to COVID-19 testing sites, for example, or assist in the city’s massive feeding operations, or distribute laptops and other equipment needed to manage the crisis.

“That’s not necessarily in the normal scope of our mission, which continues unabated,” said Thiel.

Their commitment can come at great personal peril.

On June 2, Eric Gore, a decorated veteran firefighter stationed at Engine 37 in Chestnut Hill, became the first department employee to die from COVID-19, after encountering a patient who was infected with the virus. Gore, 48, the son and younger brother of firefighters, had public service in his heart: Prior to joining the fire department in 1996, he had been a Philadelphia police officer. Thiel has just added a photo of Gore to those taped on his computer monitor.

Gore’s dedication was typical of department members, said Thiel. He tells employees as much in regular messages in the department’s weekly newsletter and in video messages sent to all employees. In person, he still visits firehouses the way he did prior to the pandemic, but these days there are no handshakes or hugs, and kitchen-table chats have been replaced by socially distanced conversations while standing in airy apparatus bays.

It can be harder to check in with medics and EMTs, he said, who are eternally busy.

“Frequently, the only way to find them is at a hospital,” said Thiel. “So I’ll go and sit outside the ER, and when our crews arrive or leave just make sure they have what they need, and say thank-you.”

As for those behind the scenes at the Emergency Operations Center on Spring Garden Street, where Thiel’s office is located, he pretty much sees them daily and is more easily able to check on their well-being.

“We have a lot of very dedicated folks working to make sure everything continues to get done” — procurement, resourcing, and the like — “because we’re still the same 24/7 operation, even with the overlay of COVID-19,” he said.

Thiel’s 28-year career has spanned the breadth of public safety. Prior to Philly, he was deputy secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security for the Commonwealth of Virginia and chief of the Fire Department in Alexandria, Va. He’s been an incident commander, company officer, hazardous materials team leader, paramedic, technical rescuer, structural/wildland firefighter, and rescue diver. He directly participated in response and recovery efforts for major disasters, including 9/11.

Still, the sustained scope of the current pandemic has him worried on a whole new level about the safety of the men and women he leads.

“Our mission makes us an inherently open organization,” he said. “Members work together in the firehouse for hours — often days — at a time and are, literally, in and out of hundreds of homes every day,” said Thiel. “They go where they’re needed.”

And sometimes, it costs them their lives.

Juggling the department’s ever-changing needs can be intense for the commissioner. For perspective, Thiel relies on the photos taped to his computer monitor and the funeral cards stored in his hat.

“They’re a salient reminder that, however difficult it feels for me on any particular day, there are folks who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to this city,” he said. “They remind me what’s important.”