By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A firefighter who charged into the burning Deutsche Bank building as shouts of "mayday" flooded his radio didn't even recognize the soot-covered face of his dear friend, Joseph Graffagnino, as he tried to breath air into the dying man's lungs.
Brown said he had met Graffagnino at the fire academy in 1999. He described the father of two as "the best" and "the kind of guy you would want your little sister to marry."
"I got two or three decent breaths in before they took him away," Brown testified Wednesday during the trial of three building demolition supervisors accused of causing the deaths of two firefighters — Graffagnino, 33, and Robert Beddia, 53 — when they allegedly cut out several feet of standpipe in the building's basement, leaving the firefighters without water as they tried to battle flames on the building's 14th floor.
Brown testified that as Graffagnino was carted off to the hospital, he then saw a second firefighter, Beddia, carried out of the building. He described Beddia as "gray" and "ashen."
The difficulty that they and dozens of FDNY responders had in fighting the blaze on Aug. 18, 2007, was due to a broken standpipe system. If the standpipe had been intact, that would have allowed the responders to get a water supply to the fire in minutes, Brown said.
He testified that the longest time he had ever waited for a water supply in his 12 years on the job had been ten minutes. That day responders waited over an hour for water to reach the building.
When prosecutors asked the firefighter how important access to water was, he answered, "That is the single most important thing."
"...without water, fires don't go out. You lose more property, people get hurt and killed. Any time there is a major problem, it's due to water," Brown said.
Despite the dangerous issues at the site, Brown and other members of Squad 41, from the Yankee Stadium area of the Bronx, charged into the flaming skyscraper, battling the intense heat, minimal visibility and clutter of a hazardous demolition site that was like a "cave" once inside, the firefighter said.
"You don't usually retreat," Brown explained of the brave move into the building prosecutors called "a death trap."
"Part of it's pride, and you don't want to give up ground to the fire. It's just going to get bigger," he added.
Site workers Mitchel Alvo, 52, Salvatore DePaola, 56, and Jeffrey Melofchik, 49, are charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the deaths of the two firefighters that day. Prosecutors allege that the men had ordered the crucial standpipe be dismantled in order to pass an unrelated site inspection. They decided not to replace the vital fire prevention tool so that they could save money in the costly project, according to prosecutors.
After Brown's testimony Wednesday, Robert Miller, the chief financial officer of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation — the organization that owned the Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St. and had commissioned its demolition — began his testimony.
Miller was expected to provide several hours of testimony about the demolition agreement LMDC had with general contractor Bovis Lend Lease and subcontractor John Galt Corp., the latter of which was criminally charged in this case.
Defense lawyers claimed that the defendants on trial were "scapegoated" in the tragic deaths of Graffagnino and Beddia, citing the fact that neither the LMDC, Bovis nor any other government agencies and inspectors involved in monitoring the demolition have been charged.
Miller's testimony will continue Thursday in the Manhattan Supreme Court trial, which is expected to last at least four months.
