Bill Ellison rode to his grave Friday on Engine 6, leading a procession of fellow firefighters who know that their work sometimes ends this way.

PHOTO GALLERY

Bill Ellison's funeral

        Thousands spent the day saying goodbye to the man known to his friends as “Doc” and described as a practical, big-hearted prankster and a brave and generous hero.

        They stood in the bright sun as his flag-covered casket traveled from his Anderson Township station to a downtown Cincinnati cathedral, then to a Fort Thomas cemetery.

        The 38-year-old firefighter/paramedic died Tuesday night from burns he suffered in a March 8 house fire in Miami Township in Hamilton County. The woman who lived there wasn't in the house at the time. But he didn't know that and went in looking for her.

        “It's a sad day,” the Rev. Benedict O'Cinnsealaigh told the crowd packed into St. Peter in Chains Cathedral.

        “It's a terrible day. It's a day we did not expect.”

        When Harry Hinson jumped behind the wheel of the firetruck and took off for a burning house on Jordan Road two weeks ago, Bill Ellison was beside him.

        They'd known each other about a decade, meeting when they both worked on a hospital paramedic unit that served parts of western Hamilton County. Later, they were among the first paramedics hired by Miami Township.

        The assistant chief stopped the engine. Mr. Ellison strapped on an air pack and headed toward the house.

Ellison

        Sometime later Assistant Chief Hinson heard that a firefighter was hurt. He called to the other assistant chief, Steve Ober: Find Ellison. Something told him it was his partner who was the firefighter down.

        He remembered Friday the last words he said to his friends as firefighters pulled Mr. Ellison out of the house: “Damn it, Doc. Damn it!”

        Firefighters came in uniforms bearing shoulder patches from dozens of departments. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Sidney. Cleveland. And virtually every Tristate fire department.

        “It's unwritten, you don't have to ask people to show up,” said Steve Sage, a firefighter who drove an hour from Moraine Township in suburban Dayton. “It's a support issue. If something like this happened to us, everyone would be there too.”

        The Cincinnati Fire Division's 28 recruits stood shoulder-to-shoulder outside the church. They would've been taking their weekly test, but their trainer, Capt. Dave Roginski, said this was more important.

        Inside the church, mourners learned that Mr. Ellison was a devoted husband, father, son and brother. And a big brother to all firefighters.

        We never know about the number of days allotted to each of us, Father O'Cinnsealaigh said.

        People everywhere sleep well, the priest said, because they know people like Mr. Ellison stand ready. The Clermont County man performed his duties at Anderson Township, Miami Township and for the Western Joint Ambulance District.

        The priest urged everyone to spend the next days and months praying for Mr. Ellison's wife, Victoria, and their two little girls.

        Something about the funeral Mass made Assistant Chief Hinson feel better.

        He walked the 20 steps down from the cathedral and started to drive the medic unit to St. Stephen Cemetery in Fort Thomas where his friend would be buried. He had driven with him to the fire. Now, as a pallbearer, he would carry him to the grave.

        “Bill's not gone,” he said. “Bill's right there with us. He's watching us and everybody else. I'm all right with it.

        “God,” he said, “I feel better.”

        More than 150 emergency vehicles escorted Mr. Ellison to his grave. Police motorcycles. Fire engines. Staff cars. Life squads.

        People lined the streets along the procession route. Traffic was blocked. Mothers, some with tears running down their faces, held their children. Men took off their hats and held them over their chests. Firefighters and police officers saluted.

        Julie Parece of Covington stood on a curb in Fort Thomas, with her 8-month-old son, Joel, and a handmade sign which read: “Our prayers are with you.”

        Mr. Ellison's gear was in one of the trucks.

        “He's a missing man, he's one of us and now he's gone,” said Dee Dee Schubert, a first-responder with Camp Springs Fire Department. “It's respect for our fallen comrade.”

        Though he was composed and dressed in his crisp, blue uniform, Assistant Chief Hinson braced for the tears that might come.

        It was hardest when the procession passed firefighters saluting or students standing in front of their schools, hands over their hearts.

        "It brings (home) the reality it could happen to any of us, any time. I have dreaded today,” he said. “I never thought that I would be in this position.”

        The priest took a break during the graveside service while Mrs. Ellison tended to her youngest daughter. Five-year-old Michaela wailed: “I want my daddy, I want my daddy!”

        Mourners listened to an audiotape of her and her sister, 8-year-old Marissa, singing about being in the arms of angels. “Hi, Daddy. I love you,” they said. “Hi, Daddy. I love you.”

        Then, the dispatch over emergency radios:

        “Bill has completed his last alarm and has returned to quarters for the final time. Rest in peace, Bill.”

        As the service ended, Mrs. Ellison held Michaela. Marissa carried her dad's helmets — one from the place where he worked full-time, the other from the department in whose service he died.

        His family bent over the casket; Mrs. Ellison patted it and kissed it.

       Chris Mayhew contributed to this report.
       

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