Boston firefighters find Lt. Ed Walsh’s wedding band in rubble of fire
On Tuesday, at the wake for Lt. Edward Walsh, Boston Fire Department District Chief Richard Magee presented Lt. Walsh’s widow Kristen with her husband’s wedding band. It had been missing for almost a week.
After learning of its disappearance from Kristen Walsh, firefighters from Engine 33 and Ladder 15 were convinced it would be in the Beacon Street building where Lt. Walsh died. They were right, but it took some doing to find it.
I urge you to read the entire column about Lt. Walsh’s wedding band written by Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen. Here’s an excerpt:
Magee’s charges from the investigation unit, Lieutenant Kevin McCarthy and Firefighters Richard Taylor and Patricia Kenneally Donovan, took charge of the Beacon Street fire scene Tuesday afternoon. They went right for the spot where Walsh’s brother firefighters had pulled out his body.
It was dirty work, sifting through the charred debris and soot. They searched for hours, and at one point Kevin McCarthy worried they would never find it. He and the others were on their hands and knees, like prospectors, just hoping to get lucky.
And just before 6 p.m., Patty Kenneally Donovan, the first woman appointed to the Boston Fire Department and a veteran firefighter whose father, husband, and two brothers were on the job, found the ring.
“I’ve got it!” she yelled, and it was the first joyous moment for an entire department, an entire extended family, indeed a whole city, in a week.
