Sharon Hill offers a salute to a hero
Words are funny things. Use them enough and they start to lose their meaning.
Hero is such a word. It gets tossed around in common, everyday conversation and its impact starts to get diluted.
But the designation of hero should be reserved for those whose actions merit such high praise. For people who rise up and perform great service.
When people do that, we rightly heap praise on these special people and offer ways to memorialize them. At least they do in Sharon Hill. They gathered Friday night to commemorate and honor one of their own. One who most certainly would qualify under the designation of “hero.”
We don’t normally think of teenagers as having gained the status of “hero.” But then Michael Reagan Jr. was not just any teenager.
Already imbued with a keen sense of community, this young man dedicated himself to serving his town, to offering back, to being everything that we think of in a public servant.
Michael Reagan Jr. was a volunteer firefighter.
That is what he was doing on Sept. 26, 2007. He had responded to a garage fire on Coates Street in the borough. For that sense of community service, he paid a steep price. It cost him his life before his 20th birthday.
Reagan entered the fully engulfed structure in an attempt to quell the blaze. He was struck in the head by a collapsing beam in the garage. His fellow firefighters extricated Reagan from the burning structure and rushed him to Crozer-Chester Medical Center. He succumbed to his injuries a few days later, on Sept. 29.
Ten years to the day, family, friends, fellow firefighters and the community gathered to let that their hometown hero know that he had not been forgotten.
The borough renamed a street Michael Reagan Way.
Officials gathered at the intersection of High Street and Roberts Avenue to hang the signs that would tell all that Michael Reagan Jr. was not forgotten.
Among those at the ceremony were Sharon Hill Mayor Harry Dunfee, Fire Chief William Benecke, borough council members and first responders from across the area.
In these days when fewer and fewer are answering the call for volunteer community service – and in particular the call of being a first responder – Mayor Dunfee asked a question we all might consider.
“What makes a young man decide to be a fireman?” he wondered.
Luckily, the mayor was able to supply his own answer.
“It’s a calling, it’s not a choice,” the mayor said. “Michael, at some time during his life, was touched by the actions of other firemen. Things he witnessed in his life that inspired him to be what he saw.
“The choices weren’t his, it was pre-destiny. We stand here in honor not of the day he passed, but of the life he lived and the friends he made and the people he touched.”
Sharon Hill Fire Chief Benecke knew he had a rare find with Reagan, a young man who wanted to give back to his community. He described Michael as “full of life.”
“He loved life and loved people,” the chief explained. “Even to this day he’s still inspiring people to do (firefighting). With the fire services, you’re either in or you’re out … He was in and he wanted to serve the people by doing the fire service.”
Perhaps the two men who could most closely appreciate Reagan’s sacrifice were on hand for the special event. Chris Miller and Joseph Tesauro also were injured when that beam fell inside that burning garage. Both survived.
Friday night they helped to hang the new street signs honoring their fallen comrade.
Reagan’s mother, Sue, also was on hand. She was clearly surprised – and deeply moved – by the borough’s decision to honor her son.
“I still can’t believe that they did that … I’m very proud that they did it,” she said.
Sue noted the bond between her family and Sharon Hill Fire Co. runs deep. She refers to the firefighters as her “family.”
Reagan was one of 106 on-duty firefighter deaths in 2007, according to the National Fire Protection Association. From 2008 to 2016 there have been almost 700 more deaths.
It was left to Dunfee to put the event in proper perspective.
“There’s going to be times kids are playing in the streets and they’re going to be looking at these street signs,” the mayor said. “And they’re going to want to know who Michael Reagan is, and we’re going to be able to tell them: He was a young man that didn’t think of himself, gave of himself.” In other words, a hero. We add our salute to Michael Reagan Jr.