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A pair of rookie Omaha firefighters, Loren H. Desler, 28, and Samuel M. Douchey, 24, were exiting a smoky fire at the Swanson Building, 8401 West Dodge Road, on June 4, 1965.
Their chief told them to return to the building to search for a woman still inside.
They followed the chief's orders, and Desler and Douchey didn't make it out alive. An investigation revealed that their air masks had no low-air warning device. They become disoriented and died of smoke inhalation.
In honor of the two firefighters, a flag presentation ceremony was held Wednesday at Station 53, four blocks from the site of the fatal fire.
About 40 family members and friends of Desler and Douchey and 20 Omaha firefighters attended the memorial, which began with the Pledge of Allegiance.
Fire Chief Mike McDonnell spoke about the need to remember the two men, as well as the 53 other Omaha firefighters who have died in the line of duty, including 11 since 1960.
“Those men and their families paid the ultimate sacrifice for the citizens of Omaha,” McDonnell said.
That debt can never be repaid, said Steve LeClair, president of the city's fire union.
The two deaths led to heavy criticism — and later improvements — of the Fire Department, as well as long-term operational changes.
Then-Mayor A.V. Sorensen called the department's leadership “chaotic.” A formal inquiry, led by the state fire marshal, criticized fire training as poor.
At Wednesday's ceremony, a replica was unveiled of a bronze statue of a firefighter holding a coughing child in one hand, his other arm over the shoulder of a winded fellow firefighter. The statue will be the centerpiece of an Omaha Fallen Firefighters Memorial under construction near the riverfront.
Douchey's widow, Geraldine, traveled from Bellmore, N.Y., for the ceremony. When he died, Samuel Douchey left behind three children, including a 3-week-old daughter, Vicki.
Desler's daughter Julie Desler Myers — one of his four children — came from Norfolk. Her mother, Eleanor, lives in Silver Creek, Neb., but was too ill to attend.
After a moment of silence and the ringing of a memorial bell, McDonnell presented the families with folded American flags and International Association of Fire Fighters' pins.
Geraldine Douchey said men like her husband, who also served five years in the Navy, deserve to have the public behind them.
“He was filling in for someone who was sick that day,” she said. “It wasn't his fire. It happened 44 years ago, but you think about it every day.”
Contact the writer:
444-3150, joel.fulton@owh.com
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