Leduc

TIVERTON — They feel they owe him a perfect sendoff.

Such is the brotherhood of firefighters that the pallbearers for Gerald R. Leduc have spent a total of nine hours rehearsing their paces in advance of his funeral today.

At the town’s fire headquarters in North Tiverton, an honor guard of 12 men practiced the solemn choreography of measured steps that will accompany the casket of the fallen firefighter, who died from an apparent heart attack last Sunday as he was diving in Stafford Pond for a missing boater.

They worked indoors yesterday morning, marching toward a practice casket, putting their hands on the handles and hoisting the weighted mass in unison.

Fire Chief Robert Lloyd sent one of his minions to look in storage for a bright red helmet that will be part of the funeral procession.

Another firefighter, who works in the Bronx but has ties to the area, fitted a brand new lieutenant’s patch — Number 14 — to the front of the helmet.

In life, Leduc was a leader among firefighters, recalled a longtime friend, retired Fire Department Capt. Howard Passwater.

Leduc was at one time chief of the South Tiverton Volunteer Fire Department, but he never aspired to any rank, Passwater said in an interview earlier this week.

Leduc was promoted posthumously to lieutenant.

Leduc had worked 25 years as a fulltime firefighter, although he began his career in the volunteer force as a teenager.

In his honor, Providence sent Tiverton a 1942 hose tender, a ceremonial vehicle to serve as a bier in the funeral procession.

The truck pulled off Main Road in North Tiverton, to the side of fire headquarters, shortly before noon yesterday.

Then the Tiverton honor guard brought their practice casket outside, taking quarter turns in cadence, and carrying the coffin to the back of the tender. Onto the truck it went. And off it came.

Several times, the men repeated the process under the direction of Earl S. Lincoln, of Hooksett, N.H., a member of a national network of firefighters who come forward when one of their own has died.

Lincoln said the sole purpose of the volunteer teams, organized by state and region under the auspices of the National Honor Guard Commanders Association and the Fallen Firefighters Foundation, “is to support the community in a hugely emotional event.”

Other members of the national honor guard of firefighters, including state leaders from Connecticut and Massachusetts, watched as Lincoln put the pallbearers through their paces.

Unseen, these officials had been coordinating myriad logistical details connected with the funeral, which is expected to bring thousands to Tiverton.

Lincoln’s role as the coach for the pallbearers provided a tactile and visual focus for the preparations, which served to help Leduc’s co-workers cope with the grief of their loss.

Passwater, the retired Fire Department captain, said he has spent several sleepless nights this past week wondering about the fragility of life.

Leduc, 52, had been on his day off last Sunday, enjoying Stafford Pond on a jet ski, when the call came in about a man overboard in the vicinity.

“He would bend over backward to do anything for anybody, which is how he ended up dying,” Passwater said.

Leduc had “more friends than he could count,” Passwater said.

“He was very cool under pressure. It was very hard to rattle Gerry.”

Passwater, Leduc, and another firefighter had been on a triple date one night in 1982 when they were walking to their cars and heard the unmistakable sounds of a car-pedestrian accident; the squeal of brakes followed by a thud.

A drunken driver on Stafford Road had struck a man named Joseph Arruda, shearing off one leg and sending him 20 feet into the air as he was trying to cross the street to his car.

In flash, Leduc and Passwater took off their belts. Leduc got to the man first, fashioning a tourniquet.

Arruda, who survived, credited Leduc and a police officer, Mark Pelletier, with saving his life.

“There was a lot of blood,” Arruda said in a phone conversation this week.

“I wouldn’t have made it if they weren’t there.”

Passwater said he and Leduc never had to talk much about what needed to be done on the job.

They could read each other’s thoughts, he said, recalling the time when firefighters had driven down a narrow lane to fight a fire on a farm but didn’t have enough clearance in the woods to line up two fire trucks so they could get the water off one vehicle into the hoses of the other.

Passwater and Leduc looked at each other, Passwater recalled, and they both moved as one to unload a portable gasoline pump from one of the trucks and get it going.

But the highlight of their shared experiences must have been the time they delivered a baby together in the back seat of a car parked outside the police station, just off Route 24, Passwater said.

It happened during the 1970s, when they were young volunteer firefighters, still green in experience. He remembered how their shared terror gave way to elation with the birth of the child.

“I remember that it was cold, because there was steam coming off the baby,” he said.

Another man who worked with Leduc, fire Capt. Kevin Ratcliffe, said it was fitting that Leduc’s last call involved diving and rescue operations, the things he loved most.

Yesterday, Ratcliffe stood outside the fire station, watching as the honor guard deposited 12 pairs of white gloves on the top of the casket, concluding the rehearsal.

The honor guard stood around. They are Dan Murphy, Pat White, Joe Plocica, Mike Peloquinn, Rich Tierney, Jay Andrade, Jim Miranda, Paul Vollaro, Josh Ferreira, Aaron Almeida, Pete Manchester and Bill Pannicia.

Before they broke up, their instructor, Earl Lincoln, told them, “I know you’re a little nervous, but you have come light years since yesterday.”

If they have any questions, Lincoln told them, they shouldn’t hesitate to call him before the start of the funeral today. His cell phone will be turned on at 5:30 in the morning, Lincoln said.

The funeral will be at 8 a.m. from the Auclair Funeral Home, 690 S. Main St., Fall River, with a 10 a.m. Mass at St. Theresa Church at Stafford and Eagleville roads in Tiverton. Burial will be in Notre Dame Cemetery on Stafford Road in Fall River.

Shuttle buses will take mourners from designated parking at the New Harbour Mall on Canning Boulevard in Fall River to the church, and back again.

At the church, an outdoor sound system will be set up to accommodate the crowd.

gmacris@projo.com