Firefighter Bid Farewell

Waiting outside the church on Orchard Street, Engine 16’s shining fenders and rails were draped in black and ready to lead a funeral cortege in honor of pioneering firefighter Linda D. Cohens.

The lapels of the hundreds of her fellow fire fighters, paramedics, police officers, and other uniformed service members, and officials from towns all around sported a brighter color: the orange ribbons Cohens’ mother requested to reflect her fallen daughter’s positive, always-giving, and loving spirit.

That contrast – grief amid gratitude for having had Cohens in their lives – animated a moving service that filled the Beulah Heights First Pentecostal Church on Orchard Street to capacity Saturday morning.

The 18-year veteran firefighter and paramedic was found unconscious and with a head injury on the sidewalk near her Hamden home early on the morning of Jan.12. (Read about that here.) She was pronounced dead shortly afterwards at Yale-New Haven Hospital. (A Hamden police investigation into her death is continuing.)

Dressed in the red beret and cravat of the New Haven Firebirds Society, the city’s black firefighters fraternal organization, Erika Bogan was busy as one of the chief organizers of the service. Bogan helped break down barriers in the fire department with her friend and academy classmate Cohens, who was he city’s second, black female paramedic.

Bogan those bright orange ribbons to the hundreds of Cohens’ friends and admirers.

“Her mother [Cecilia] didn’t like the black ribbons” that are traditionally distributed to mark the passing of a fellow firefighter, Bogan said. ​“She said her spirit was brighter, and that’s what we want today to reflect, her light, spirit, and energy.”

The service did precisely that as speaker after speaker ascended to the cavernous sanctuary’s microphones and addressed the crowd. Surrounding Cohens’ blue-grey casket behind were three rows of her fellow firefighters and paramedics, and on two sides overflowing baskets of red and white flowers.

Before she read a municipal proclamation, Mayor Toni Harp recalled Cohens ​“as the girl with the contagious smile and strong hugs for everyone.”

She was also someone who knew how to save lives, and did so on numerous occasions.

“It’s what we do for others that matters most in life,” the mayor concluded.

Bogan recalled that she bonded with Cohens when they were the only two black women — and both single moms — in their firefighting academy class.

They raised their kids together. When Cohens lost her only child, Brendan, in an accident (he was hit by a train), ​“even in losing her child, her only son, she would ask about mine. It was real, and it humbled me.”

Bogan said that the only way she has come to understand that extraordinary quality in Cohens is that ​“she was a warrior, for her family and the fire department.”

As tears flowed among the congregants and ushers passed out handfuls of tissues down the rows, Bogan remarked ​“the bravery and courage associated with firefighters is being challenged today.”

Then Bogan presented to the family on behalf of the Firebirds a plaque ​“in loving memory of our fallen comrade.”

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal noted that ​“she was born one year after Martin Luther King’s [‘I Have A Dream”] speech. But Linda [too] had a dream: to heal and to serve. She was a pioneer, and she broke glass ceilings.”

He called Cohens a model of public service.

The Firebirds’ former president, Lt. Gary Tinney, then rose to speak on behalf of the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters, of which the city’s Firebirds are a chapter: He bemoaned that nationally only 3 percent of all firefighters are female. ​“Linda was a soldier who stood fast for her belief that we need more females in the fire service. Linda was the only African-American female paramedic in our department,” he said.

Then he asked all the females in the fire service to stand.

“It’s not enough. Linda stood for diversity. Only ten stood up,” Tinney noted. ​“I challenge everybody in the room to help make the change.”

Then he anchored that challenge in a specific vision: ​“Imagine having a paramedics program in Linda’s name.”

When the service concluded, Cohens’ casket was brought down the steps of the church past a gauntlet of saluting fellow firefighters. It was placed in the hearse beside the black-draped fire engine.

Then Orchard Street, which had been blocked at both the Munson and Henry Street ends, was reopened. The funeral procession formed up making its way to the Beaverdale Cemetery, at Fitch Street and Pine Rock Avenue, for interment.