His father's remains were never recovered. Dowdell, who has two sons and a daughter and lives in Rockaway, is being promoted on his dad's birthday. "To get his rank on his birthday, it's special," Dowdell said. "It just makes it like a full circle moment."
He'd been involved in a ton of fires and emergencies, but he always found time to say, 'You might see this, but I'm O.K.,' Dowdell recalled. "We still held up hope for a while. Every time the door opened, we'd be looking to see if it was him ... Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks."
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