A gesture of compassion

Marisa O’Neil

Shirley McCormack was settled down, reading her Sunday paper the

morning of Feb. 13 when the knock came at her door.

At first glance she thought they were police officers, judging by

their black uniforms. Then McCormack, the mother of a Santa Clara

County fire captain, realized who they were and why they were there.

The battalion chief and the chaplain from the Orange County Fire

Authority came to inform McCormack that her son, 36-year-old Mark

McCormack, had died earlier that morning. He was fighting a house

fire in Los Gatos when he was electrocuted by a power line.

“I couldn’t even breathe,” the Newport Beach resident said as she

recalled hearing the news. “My heart felt like it was coming out of

my chest.”

The battalion chief and chaplain called 911 and stayed with her

until Newport Beach paramedic Adam Novak and his crew arrived and

took her to Hoag Hospital.

It was the first sign of the support local firefighters and those

in Mark McCormack’s department have shown his mother and the rest of

his family since his death.

“I went to her house [the next day] and asked, ‘Is there anything

we could do for you?’” Newport Beach Fire Capt. Jeff Boyles said.

“She said, ‘Well, I could use a ride to the airport.’”

Thursday morning, Boyles and other Newport Beach firefighters made

good on their offer. They picked up Shirley McCormack, her mother and

two daughters to take them to John Wayne Airport for their flight to

San Jose for her son’s memorial service.

“When they actually showed up ... we went outside and there was a

hook and ladder, another huge engine, a paramedic van,” she said.

“All these guys got out of their engines. They couldn’t have been

nicer. It went from there, and it’s been like that ever since.”

Once they got to San Jose, they got more of the same. Firefighters

they’d just met in December -- when Mark McCormack was promoted to

captain -- picked them up at the airport and put them up at a local

hotel, with one assigned to make sure all of the family’s needs were

taken care of.

“It just blows your mind,” Shirley McCormack said. “They really

scoop you right up and wrap you up in love and affection, whether

they knew him or not.”

That meant firehouse dinners, rides wherever they wanted and

firefighters waiting outside the home of his widow, high-school

sweetheart Heather McCormack, in case she needed anything.

Shirley McCormack said she had no idea of the level of kinship

firefighters feel for one another and for the families of fallen

firefighters.

“It’s important to us to take care of family,” Boyles said. “They

take the brunt of our profession. They deal with the kids, the leaky

roof, all of those things while we’re gone at work, sometimes for

days at a time.”

Mark McCormack was the kind of firefighter who always wanted to be

a better firefighter, his mother said. Ever since he was badly burned

by a stove as a child in his Capistrano Beach home, he was fascinated

by those whose job it was to help others.

He started his career as an explorer scout for a South County fire

department and later worked as a paramedic for private ambulance

companies. He also spent time with the Orange County Fire Authority

and as a firefighter for the California Department of Forestry before

taking the job in Santa Clara, his mother said.

There, he worked on the hazardous materials team and on the

department’s Honor Guard.

Saturday’s service, at HP Pavilion in San Jose, drew about 3,000

people and firefighters from more than 100 departments statewide, she

said.

A procession of firetrucks, including one that came from Dana

Point where Mark McCormick once worked, drove through the streets,

drawing crowds who saluted the family as they rode past.

“There’s the obvious pain you feel because he’s your son and he’s

dead,” Shirley McCormack said Monday at her home as she choked back

tears. “You have to look at all that ... when they brought in his

jacket and boots and put them on the stage. They had his new helmet

sitting on top of his casket. And then the bagpipes and the honor

guard ... I was overwhelmed.

“As a parent, you already know how special your child is. But then

you find out how special everyone else thinks your child is.”

Mark McCormack was a good son, she said, the kind who rented a car

and drove from San Jose to pick up his mother and bring her back to

visit when flights were canceled following the Sept. 11 terrorist

attacks. And the kind who phoned his mother late one night to tell

her how excited he was that he’d just saved an infant’s life.

No matter what, he always looked on the positive side of things.

And he would have treated the family of any other firefighter with

the amount of caring his was shown, his mother said.

“The comforting thing is that he was doing what he loved doing,”

she said.

Now that the whirlwind has calmed down, Shirley McCormack knows

that the reality of her son’s death will sink in further. But she

also knows she won’t have to face it alone.

Boyles and Novak picked her, her mother, Eleanor Twigg, and

daughter Leslie McCormack up from John Wayne Airport on Monday

morning. They told her that any time she wants, she’s welcome to come

visit their station.

“I thought, ‘That’s going to get me through a lot,’” she said. “I

know when having a day like that, I will call them. I will go there.

I will say, ‘Here I am; help me feel better.’”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4618 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil @latimes.com.