A Bronx pot grower sentenced to prison Friday in an explosion that killed an FDNY chief called the fallen Bravest his “hero’’ — while a colleague of the victim said the rescue of the perpetrator was “the most regrettable’’ of his career.
Julio Salcedo — one of two men convicted in the blast at the marijuana grow house that killed Battalion Chief Michael Fahy — said in a letter read by his lawyer in Bronx Supreme Court, “Chief Fahy saved my life and for that I will forever be grateful.
“Chief Fahy is my hero. If he wouldn’t have come to the house that morning to tell me to evacuate, I would not be alive today,” Salcedo wrote in the letter read by lawyer Dawn Florio.
“From the bottom of my heart, I want to apologize to Chief Fahy’s family, any member of the Fire Department that was injured and to the community that was affected by the explosion,” the letter added.
Meanwhile, FDNY Lt. Richard Ruebenacker, who was one of the injured in the 2016 blast that left Fahy dead, ripped Salcedo during his victim-impact statement at the sentencing hearing for Salcedo and Garivaldi Castillo.
“My inside team escorted you, Julio, out of the dwelling to safety,” Ruebenacker said.
“Yours was certainly not the only — nor was it the first — life that I have ever been involved in saving through my career,” he said. “However, as it stands today, you were my last, and you are my most regrettable.”
Ruebenacker added, “You had your life saved by a group of complete strangers — firefighters — who were risking their own lives to save yours. And in saving your life, one of those strangers, one of those firefighters, lost his.”
He asked the defendants: “Was any of it worth it? Did you make enough money to make it worth it?”
Castillo, 33, and Salcedo, 36, had pleaded guilty to manslaughter and criminal possession of marijuana.
As part of the deal, Castillo will serve two to six years in prison for manslaughter and five years on the marijuana rap, while Salcedo landed one to three years behind bars for manslaughter and four years for the marijuana charge. Their sentences will run concurrently.
Fahy, 44, a father of three, was fatally struck in the head and chest by a piece of roof debris from the explosion as firefighters investigated a gas leak at the two-story Kingsbridge building. The blast also injured 20 others, including firefighters and police.
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