Eugene Whelan: Guilty of Serial
Hugging
"He
was no saint!" said Eugene Whelan's mother, Joan, her
laughter bubbling up. "Yeah, he could be a giant pain!"
her husband, Alfred, added, chuckling about the ninth of
their 10 children.
But examples eluded them.
While Firefighter Whelan, 31, undoubtedly jettisoned
saint eligibility at some Rockaway pub or Grateful Dead
concert -- a captain called him "the king of fun" -- he
was still terrific. He kept extra winter jackets in his
Jeep in case he spotted a shivering homeless person. He
was a persistent serial hugger, spreading those burly
embraces known as "Eugene hugs."
He was a Mr. Fix-it and human Velcro to kids. In
Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, the neighborhood served by
Engine Company 230, children would arrive at the
firehouse with broken bicycles for Firefighter Whelan to
make whole.
During a school visit, he asked why one child was left
in the bus. The child was paralyzed, a teacher replied.
Mr. Whelan carried the child to the fire truck. "He
understood what life was really about," said his father,
"so we feel pretty good about him."
.
