Farrell, Terrence

Terrence Farrell, Res.4 About Terrence Patrick Farrell This profile was originally published in 2001/2002 She sat slumped in the seventh pew of St. Patrick’s Church in Huntington on Thursday, a 13-year-old girl from Nevada, gazing at the coffin of rescue Firefighter Terrence Farrell, her “Mr. Nice Man.” It isn’t fair, thought Chantyl Peterson, listening to stories about Farrell, who lost his life Sept. 11, fighting the flames of the World Trade Center. There was the one about the devoted 45-year-old father of two. And another about the quiet Irish man, always ready with an easy smile and a wisecrack. And finally, one about a man who eight years ago donated his bone marrow to save a little girl. A stranger suffering from a deadly blood disease. Her. “He didn’t save her life, he gave her life,” said Sheri Peterson, Chantyl’s mother. “I’m so proud to know that my daughter has his blood, his Irish fighting blood, running through her veins.” Wednesday, Sheri and Robert Peterson and their three children – Chantyl, Jared, 15, and Savanya, 8 – flew from Las Vegas to New York for the funeral of Farrell, who was a member of Rescue 4 in Woodside and was assistant chief of the fire station in Dix Hills, where he lived. It was the Petersons’ third reunion with the Farrell family, which includes Farrell’s wife, Nora, and children, T.J., 14, and Rebecca, 8. In 1993, Chantyl underwent a successful bone marrow transplant operation, curing her of T-cell lymphoma. The families met one year later. Chantyl surprised Farrell at the New York Blood Center’s awards ceremony, personally presenting him with a plaque. “Is she beautiful or what?” Farrell said upon meeting her, Sheri recalled with tears, as Chantyl smiled on shyly. After the first meeting, the two families talked on the phone and swapped pictures and Christmas cards. He called her his “daughter by proxy;” she viewed him as a second father. Two years ago, the Petersons flew to New York for another surprise visit, hoping to begin a tradition of reuniting every five years. That dream ended Sept. 11. After overhearing a phone conservation between her mother and Nora Farrell on Sept. 12, Chantyl sensed something was wrong. She walked out of the bathroom and asked if Terry needed her help. “Does he need some of my blood?” she wanted to know. More than a month later, the family learned Terry’s body had been found. The Petersons sat Chantyl between them on the couch. “They found Terry,” they told her. “Great,” she said, all smiles. “No, they found his body,” her mother said. “I cried,” said the slight seventh-grader with long dirty-blond hair. “I was sad. I was angry.” The Petersons weren’t sure they could make it to Terry’s funeral because of the cost. The drop in tourism had caused Sheri, a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas, to lose her job. But when Nora Farrell got off the phone with Sheri on Monday with a distraught look on her face, Richard Schmidt, a city firefighter and Terry’s best friend of 26 years, wasn’t going to stand for it. He quickly raised more than $3,000 from city firefighters to cover the Petersons’ expenses. And so on Thursday, the Petersons and their three children were at the funeral, seated in the front of the church. They were treated like part of the family, escorted by a Hicksville fire department van during the funeral procession. Chantyl joined Farrell’s family members at the burial, placing a red carnation on Terry’s coffin. And her name was invoked numerous times during the memorial service. Dennis Farrell, one of Terry’s five siblings, recalled how his brother never even told him about the bone marrow donation until Terry asked him to record an episode of “Inside Edition” because his VCR was broken. That night watching the show, Dennis learned the “beautiful story” of a firefighter and a 5-year-old girl. “If the VCR was working, he probably wouldn’t have told me,” Dennis said after the funeral at the Dix Hills fire department. “Terry would never blow his own horn. He was a very selfless person, almost to a fault.” At the close of the service, Chantyl was called to read part of the closing prayer. Wearing a deep purple satin dress, she glided up to the altar, her words ringing through the cavernous church. With that, she tiptoed back to her seat, sliding in between her parents and collapsing in grief. – Sumathi Reddy