Mourners at the funeral yesterday of the fireman who died while fighting a fire at a Co Derry hotel at the weekend, were told the victim refused to be sedated in hospital until after he'd told his wife, for the last time, that he loved her.
Mr Joe McCloskey (50), a father of five, had been a part-time member of the Northern Ireland Fire Brigade for 25 years. He died in Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry last Sunday, hours after he had been extensively burned while fighting a fire in the Gorteen House Hotel in Limavady. The police have said that the storeroom fire was started deliberately.
Among the 500 fire officers who attended his funeral in Dungiven, Co Derry, were the five fire officers who were injured in the same blaze while trying to rescue Mr McCloskey.
Fire officers Steve Loughlin, Gavin Miller, Darren Hylands, Glen Anderson and Nigel McIlmoyle flanked the coffin, which was draped in the flag of the Northern Ireland Fire Brigade, as the funeral cortege made its way from Mr McCloskey's Station Road home to St Patrick's Church for Requiem Mass.
The funeral procession was led by a lone piper from the Dublin Fire Brigade and by sub-officer Peter McDermott, who was also at the hotel fire.
Sub-officer McDermott, who carried his dead colleague's fire helmet, was followed by the McCloskey family, Ms Marie McCloskey and her five children Sean, Siobhan, Seamus, Colleen and Breidge, who carried her father's brigade cap.
During his homily, local curate Father Andrew McCloskey, who was not related to the deceased, said Mr McCloskey was taken to Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry suffering from terrible injuries. "Joe knew he was going to die, he said so to a nurse, he told the medical staff not to sedate him until his wife Marie had arrived. He wanted to tell her, for the last time, that he loved her," said Father McCloskey.