2 Bravest awarded Medal of Valor

When Firefighter Brendan Gaffney arrived with Ladder Company 36 to the lobby of an Inwood building that had caught fire, he was told by residents that there were people trapped inside of a fifth-floor apartment. Gaffney bounded up the stairs. 

Braving rooms cloaked with thick smoke and intense heat caused by an exploded lithium-ion battery, Gaffney found an unconscious pregnant woman and a child trapped in the apartment. He took the child, shielding it from the flames and smoke, to safety and then sprinted back to rescue the woman, on whom he then performed CPR. Both survived. 

For his actions at the Feb. 5, 2023, fire, Gaffney was awarded the Presidential Medal of Valor by President Joe Biden.  Also receiving the Medal of Valor that day was FDNY Lieutenant John Vanderstar of Ladder Company 44. 

Vanderstar received his medal for actions he took at an Oct. 23, 2022 fire on the top floor of an apartment building in the Bronx. To save residents trapped inside, Vanderstar crawled into the apartment and sheltered with a mother and toddler inside the dwelling's back room until other firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze that had blocked their exit.  

Vanderstar was eventually able to remove the toddler while other firefighters removed the mother. Both he and firefighter Gaffney received medals during the FDNY’s Medal Day ceremonies in successive years. On Jan. 3, both firefighters were among eight first responders from across the country to receive the medal, the nation’s highest award for valor by a public safety officer.

“Every day, FDNY members do amazing work serving the people of New York,” said FDNY Commissioner Robert S. Tucker, said in a statement. “We are incredibly proud of Lieutenant Vanderstar and Firefighter Gaffney for receiving the Medal of Valor for their extraordinary actions.” 

FDNY Firefighter Brendan Gaffney and President Joe Biden at the White House Friday. Photo: Adam Schultz/The White House

Biden said of the eight awardees that they were “the best America has to offer.” 

“What they did — they allowed people to continue their lives in ways that they never would have been able to,” the president said. “There's a lot fewer empty chairs around the kitchen table and dining room table because of what these guys did.” 

The other awardees included five police officers from the Nashville Police Department who confronted and killed an active shooter inside of The Covenant School, an elementary school in the Tennessee capital. The eighth recipient is Sergeant Tu Tran of the Lincoln, Nebraska, Police Department. Tran saved a woman from drowning in a frigid pond.  

Biden also thanked the families of the eight awarded first responders who, he said, often worry about receiving a dreaded phone call alerting them that their spouse or parent had been harmed. First responders wouldn’t be able to do their jobs “without the support of their spouses and their families,” he said.