Yonkers firefighters to get escape-device training YONKERS City firefighters will be trained to use a special life-saving device that

officials say might have prevented the 2009 death of Yonkers firefighter Patrick Joyce. A training session on the Personal Escape System will be held at 1 p.m. Wednesday, May 2, at the Westchester County Fire Training Center, 4 Dana Road, Valhalla. The devices have a harness, a rope and a hook to help firefighters rapidly exit the upper floors of a burning building. The equipment is now required by the state, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the National Fire Protection Association, city officials said. In 2009, Joyce and two other Yonkers firefighters were searching for tenants in an intentionallyset house fire when a blast of flames and smoke trapped them in a stairwell and they had to exit through an upper-floor window. Joyce, a father of two girls and a 16-year veteran of the department, either jumped or fell to his death; the other two firefighters were severely injured. Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano will be on hand at Wednesdays training along with City Council members and Fire Commissioner George Kielb.