Coronavirus Nurse Reunites With Firefighter Who Saved Her In 1983

NEW YORK, NY — The call for healthcare workers to fight the coronavirus crisis in New York City helped spark a reunion 37 years in the making.

Deirdre Taylor, a Virginia-based nurse volunteering in New York City during the pandemic, decided to use her time in the Big Apple to track down the FDNY firefighter who saved her from a 1983 fire in SoHo when she was just 4 years old.

And this week, she got her wish.

Taylor and now-retired firefighter Eugene Pugliese reunited in an emotional phone call on Memorial Day, the department shared on the FDNY's social media.

"When I heard she was here, I was on cloud nine," Pugliese said. "I cried all day."

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Taylor, an Emergency Room nurse who has been working at NYU Langone Hospital, said she asked a firefighter who attended one of the nightly 7 p.m. celebrations for frontline workers at the hospital if he could help her track down Pugliese.

She had brought a 1983 copy of the Daily News with Pugliese's name all the way from Virginia.

"The name of the firefighter that rescued me was always with me," Taylor said. "...I had always wanted to track down the firefighter who saved me, so I could say thank you. I didn’t know if I had waited too long, but when the COVID-19 crisis started developing, I decided to come to New York City and help."

Pugliese, assigned to Ladder 20 at the time, had been fixing a pipe on the street December 29, 1983 when a man came up and told him about a fire in Taylor's apartment building at 64 Wooster St., the department said.

With no time to put on his gear and armed with only a helmet and an ax, Pugliese rushed into the smoke-filled building and rescued Taylor and her mother from their sixth-floor apartment. He was later awarded the Walter Scott Medal for his bravery.

"I went into the apartment and found a woman. She was yelling ‘my baby, my baby!’" Pugliese said. "I carried her into another room and proceeded into the room that was on fire. I found Deirdre and I was so glad."

Pugliese crawled on his belly to get Taylor, who he had to give two breaths before she woke up and began crying, he said.

Taylor would grow up to be a captain and helicopter pilot in the United States Army before becoming an ER nurse.

"She turned out to be a wonderful young woman," Pugliese said.

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