Freeport firefighter's daring rescue leads to statewide honor

He arrived on the scene to find fire raging and two of his fellow firefighters searching the cavernous commercial ambulance garage for workers who might have been trapped inside.

Lt. Petros Mestheneas didn't know how the minutes to come would change his life and those of his fellow Freeport firefighters D'Jaun Matthews and Matt Lafleur.

On Thursday, Mestheneas, 53, assigned to Freeport Excelsior Hook and Ladder No. 1, Church Street Truck, as the village volunteers know it, was named the state's Firefighter of the Year by the Firefighters Association of the State of New York.

The honor comes for his daring rescue of Matthews and Lafleur, who had become disoriented inside the 30,000-square-foot garage belonging to Emergency Ambulance Service during a fire at its Commercial Street site in Freeport on April 1, 2023.

'This was the hand'

The rescue was triggered after Matthews and Lafleur sent a "mayday transmission," saying they were trapped and running out of air, said Freeport Fire Executive Director Ray Maguire.

"I didn't have a partner; I didn't have a search line," Mestheneas said Thursday. "I didn't really have a choice, either."

"This was the hand," he continued. "The option is you're going in and coming out with them or you're going in and going to die trying, because there's no other option. I did the same as any member of Church Street Truck would've done."

The fire was not 10 minutes old, a call triggered by an automatic alarm and 911 phone calls by two workers who firefighters Matthews and Lafleur thought might still be in the garage. The firefighters went in after them.

Mestheneas had barely arrived from his job as a village building inspector and was still gearing up as he heard air cylinders and gas tanks exploding inside the building. Then he heard Matthews and Lafleur send their mayday.

Mestheneas grew up in Port Washington, joining the fire department there as a 17-year-old in 1988. He has been a firefighter in Port Washington, Hempstead and Freeport and was employed by New York City EMS and as a Nassau County paramedic before taking a job as a municipal worker in Freeport about six years ago.

"As a code enforcement officer and building inspector and as a firefighter answering automatic alarms I'd been in the building before," Mestheneas said of the fire scene. "So I had an idea of the layout and that was invaluable ... I knew they [Matthews and Lafleur] had transmitted the mayday, they were out of air, and I had a rough idea from all I knew of the building where I should go look for them. That was key."

Pitch-black hellscape

By the time Mestheneas entered the building, conditions had deteriorated to the point where smoke engulfed the floor and he faced a choking, pitch-black hellscape punctuated by random explosions.

Hugging the walls, and listening to what he later said was banging by the men on a glass block wall, Mestheneas felt his way to offices, where he located Lafleur in a closet and Matthews in a bathroom. Matthews' air had run out and he was holding his breath. Lafleur's air ran out just as the trio made their way out of the building.

"It was," Matthews, 23, recalled Thursday, "one of the most humbling experiences of my life because I got to see firsthand what many firefighters don't get to see — what's it's like to be the victim we're trying to save ... It was pitch black, you couldn't see anything — and then he [Mestheneas] reached out and grabbed me and uttered the words, 'Are you Mayday?'

"It wasn't until I got outside and was on the stretcher where I could see the whole scene and realize just how much it had all deteriorated from when we went inside.

"It's all absolutely amazing — and I'm grateful every day."

As Freeport Mayor Robert Kennedy said: "We would've had two less firefighters if not for the job he [Mestheneas] did."

"The whole situation created a tremendous amount of anxiety," Maguire said Thursday. "But once [Mestheneas] got on the air and said, 'I got 'em, I got 'em,' well ..." 

Maguire continued: "What [people] don't realize is the amount of commitment necessary to be a firefighter. Nobody gets killed in the line of duty working at the chamber of commerce. Being a firefighter: it's a very, very dangerous job, and things can change in a matter of seconds."

"That day, what Petros did? God blessed his dedication to us," Maguire said.

This is the second straight year a Long Island volunteer firefighter has been honored by FASNY. Last year's winner was Lt. Justin Berry, of Riverhead.

And Long Island firefighters have now been honored seven times since 2016 and 29 times since the award was first given in 1955 — 21 of those since 1988.

Mestheneas is the second Freeport firefighter honored by FASNY. Firefighter Matthew F. Merecka was honored in 1997.

Mestheneas was previously honored with a Nassau County meritorious gold medal of valor in a ceremony at the Tilles Center in Brookville in April. In June he received the prestigious Firehouse Magazine Michael O. McNamee Award of Valor, named for a Worcester, Massachusetts, fire chief.

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”