BRAVEST HONORED
City hero died in 2019 serving in Marines
Fallen city firefighter and U.S. Marine reservist Christopher Slutman wasn’t just a dedicated first responder, husband and father — he was a superhero, his widow said Thursday.
“A close personal friend said Chris reminded him of Captain America. Chris would usually just laugh him off. He thought it was funny,” Shannon Slutman said at Ladder 27 in the Bronx, where a plaque was dedicated in her late husband’s honor two years after his death. “But over the last couple of months the girls and I have watched a lot of the Marvel series and there are a lot of similarities.
“Captain America is a paragon of duty, honor and loyalty and so was Chris,” she said. “He’s our Captain America, without a doubt.”
Slutman, 43, was killed during a roadside bombing near the Bagram Air Base in northern Afghanistan on April 8, 2019. Two other U.S. service members and an American contractor were also killed in the blast.
The FDNY was planning to honor the father of three girls with the plaque dedication on the first anniversary of his death, but the pandemic forced the department to postpone the ceremony.
Shannon Slutman said her husband always wanted to improve himself, a compulsion that led him to both the FDNY and the Marines.
“He was attracted to excellence because he was excellence,” she said. “He always wanted to be around the people who were the best because he wanted to be better.”
Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said Slutman’s death is still felt keenly among his fellow Bravest.
“His officers described him as a total professional and a firefighter everyone wanted to have in their firehouse,” Nigro said.
The 6-foot-5 Slutman joined the FDNY at 27. He became a Marine reservist at 30 and became a staff sergeant, something that’s pretty much unheard of, his wife said.
“He was older than his drill instructors,” she said. “You’re not supposed to join the Marine Corps at 30. It’s just not normal.”
In 2014, Slutman received the FDNY’s Fire Chiefs Association Memorial Medal for pulling an unconscious woman from a burning apartment in a South Bronx high rise a year earlier. Together, Slutman and Firefighter Francis Lemaire “dragged the woman past the fire and out into the public hallway” where she was given medical assistance, according to FDNY records.
Mayor de Blasio remembered handing Slutman his medal on that special day.
“In that joyous moment, I met this good young man and did not know I’d never see him again,” de Blasio said. “He was there to protect all of us. He didn’t have to be there, he chose to, and that makes him an even more remarkable man.
“We’re saluting a hero,” de Blasio said. “In this city, we need our heroes.”