“It’s been hard. It has,” his wife Christine Gardner said.
She’s still coming to grips with the sudden loss of her husband after he returned home from a fire call in January 2023.
“Everything was fine. He made dinner and then we went to bed like we normally do and that was it,” Christine recalled.
Bob suffered a heart attack that night, leaving a gaping hole in Christine’s heart and in the community. He was a firefighter for 20 years before retiring from the Richmond-Carolina Fire Department as a deputy chief. He then continued on as a volunteer firefighter.
“We’d joke and call him the mayor because you couldn’t go anywhere without anybody him knowing somebody,” Christine said. “If you needed him, all you needed to do was call. He would drop everything.”
Even on special occasions like Christmas Eve and their anniversary. Christine said the two had been married for 33 years after first meeting at Bobby’s Rollaway in Pawtucket.
“We started out as friends. Then, he told me he loved me, and I was kind of shocked. We have been together ever since every day. We have never been apart,” Christine said.
She calls it a once-in-a-lifetime love that was taken too soon and too suddenly.
“He wasn’t sick. There was nothing. It was just a normal everyday,” Christine said.
The couple had three sons, who all continued their father’s legacy of serving as firefighters. Christine hopes the community does the same.
“Everybody needs volunteers. Every department needs volunteers. Get out there. Help your community. Volunteer and be safe,” Christine said.
The family will head down to Emmitsburg, Maryland, to honor Bob and the other 226 firefighters who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
Only 89 of those deaths actually happened last year, however. The majority are firefighters whose death now meets the criteria of an on-duty death.
“We are learning that there are other things that are killing firefighters that we didn’t know before,” CEO of the National Fallen Firefighter Foundation Victor Stagnaro explained.
The firefighter fatality review found a majority of those firefighters died of COVID in previous years, but the leading causes of death last year were heart problems, trauma and cancer.
Causes of Death
2023
Previous Years
Burns
2
–
Cancer
15
34
Cardiovascular
35
20
COVID-19
–
62
Drowning
1
–
Electrocution
1
1
Other
–
1
Trauma
32
4
9/11 Related Illness
3
15
Data: National Fallen Firefighter Foundation’s Firefighter Fatality Review
The National Fallen Firefighter Foundation is creating programs to help firefighters become more resilient. An affiliate organization called First Responder Center for Excellence was also created to research these fatalities to bring about a change in policies.
“It’s focus is to have fewer firefighters to honor,” Stagnaro said.
He said it’s something people at home can also help out with.
“Check your smoke detectors. Try to do everything you can to prevent the fire from occurring, so those firefighters don’t have to risk their lives on a fire that could have been preventable,” Stagnaro said.
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