January 12, 2015
The city held a memorial Monday for Joyce Craig-Lewis, Philadelphia’s first female firefighter to die in the line of duty.
Craig-Lewis, a mother of two serving the department for 11 years, died on Dec. 9 while fighting a basement blaze in a two-story brick rowhouse on Middleton Street near Woolston Avenue, Philly.com reported. She was posthumously promoted to lieutenant.
Monday's memorial marks the city’s 30-day mourning period, NBC 10 reported.
Reporting on the incident, the Philadelphia
Daily News said that when firefighters discovered Craig-Lewis
was missing, they sprinted back inside the blaze, finding her unconscious in the
basement.
"They were not able to get her out before she passed," [Fire Commissioner Derrick] Sawyer said. "We conducted first-aid CPR on the scene and en route to the hospital. Upon arrival to [Albert Einstein Medical Center], she was pronounced."
Craig-Lewis' self-contained breathing apparatus was sent to a federal lab for inspection Friday, as is protocol following a line-of-duty death.
