{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/zp3vt1jj86/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Hector Torres Interview and Stills, 1992-07-07"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/053/original/cropped-marmia-logo-copy1.png?1586173104","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["https://marmia.libraryhost.com/repositories/2/archival_objects/25709"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["1992-07-07 (Creation)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Be advised that this video may contain sensitive, triggering, and offensive language and content. (Content warning)","Digitized with funding provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources' \"Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives: Amplifying Unheard Voices\" grant program. (Funding note)","Firefighter, Hector Torres is interviewed about his job, family, and being on the television show, Code Three. (Scope and Content Note)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["1 Betacam"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["WJZ-FLDTP-006-034 (Identifier)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Series Title"]},"value":{"en":["Field Tapes"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Be advised that this video may contain sensitive, triggering, and offensive language and content.","Digitized with funding provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources' \"Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives: Amplifying Unheard Voices\" grant program.","Firefighter, Hector Torres is interviewed about his job, family, and being on the television show, Code Three."]},"provider":[{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["MARMIA"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["MARMIA"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/053/original/cropped-marmia-logo-copy1.png?1586173104","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/253/874/small/thumbnail_253874_1728349291.jpg?1728349294","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - open-uri20250109-552-emfc07.mp4"]},"duration":1023.607,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/253/874/small/thumbnail_253874_1728349291.jpg?1728349294","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-marmia.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/253/874/original/open-uri20250109-552-emfc07.mp4?1736438831","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":1023.607,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["AUTO_TRINT_WJZ-FLDTP-006-034.mp4 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Okay. So this is operation. What do you say? I slouched William, slouching. You. You're looking pretty good. Yeah. It's really the place where I get. And you want me to talk to you right now? That's pretty good. Okay, good. Now, did you click on your film with a camera? Everything's. Everything's work okay? All right. All we have to do now is talk about your orbit. Okay. You. You're not a Baltimore boy. You were born and raised in New York, right? I grew up in the South Bronx. I was born in. Why should I give away my. My date of birth? Absolutely. I was born in New York, in the South Bronx in 1952. Grew up. Born and raised in the city. Kind of a tough section of town. Have fond memories of it, even though it was a fairly bad neighborhood. I look back on it with real fond memories. Where's your accent? I lost that. I've been here quite a while, so I've dropped in New York accent. It was a requirement for this job. I just went with the word to the cab. Okay. Look right here of me. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. Okay, so now tell me again. What happened to the accent? As part of the condition of employment for Baltimore City Fire Department, I had to drop that New York accent. We have a couple of guys of that other day. They say three. Tree. Three. Tony. Tony. Yeah, you are. From what I understand, you had some relatives here in Baltimore. Yes, I did. I had an aunt that lived here in Baltimore, and I would come down and on several occasions I came to Baltimore as a kid, spent some summers here, actually would spend quite a bit of time in Baltimore.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874#t=14.82,142.27"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I was very fond of it. You know, from from early childhood. And then a little Baltimore girl caught your eye. Yes. I met my wife here on one of those visits. I guess I was about 17 years old when we first met. And the rest is history. She got you down. She got you down the aisle? Yes, she did. We were we were 19. Very young, very foolish. But things worked out. We we got married very young. So you've been married how long now? We've been married 20. I'm going to get in trouble here. 22 years. And how many children? We have two kids. A boy and a girl. Wonderful kids. My daughter is attending Townsend State University now and my son is in middle school. Fantastic kids. How did a New York kid winding up in Baltimore ever get in the fire department? Well, when when I married my wife, I was going to school. In fact, I continued to go to school, went to college, and actually had never really had a real big interest in the fire department, although I thought what they did was was somewhat interesting. A friend of ours told us that the test was being given for the fire department and suggested that I take the test and I did take the test, did fairly well on the test. Got called in for an interview. And after going through the interview process, I decided if they offered me the job, I'll go ahead and take it. And it wasn't about a week later that I heard from them and did take the job. I love it. It's been a lot of fun. Been here 20 years now and I wouldn't have I wouldn't trade for anything else.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874#t=142.69,242.95"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I really enjoy what I do. So you joined the fire department? When? In 1973. I was 21 when I came into the fire department. You hit the books and you made rank pretty quick by 1983. You were. I was a captain by 1983 and in fact, spent some time in the field as a captain, went to the fire academy as an instructor after a while and enjoyed doing that. I enjoyed teaching. In fact, when I was going to college, that was my my goal. I wanted to become a teacher. So this kind of worked out for me. I, I joined the fire department, but yet I was able to teach and I really enjoyed what I was doing and stayed out there for seven, eight years. And it had Flynn, who is the PIO guy before you, you kind of filled in for him a couple of times when he was on vacation and he he made the announcement. I quit. Yeah. Had surprised a lot of people. I think he, out of the blue decided that he wanted to retire. He spent a lot of time in the department. I think Pat had over 40 years in the department and enjoyed it tremendously, but decided one day that I guess it was time for him to leave and surprised everybody and said, Hey, I'm retiring. At that point, I had more or less asked about the job. Inquired about job a little bit. And when. Pat. Decided to leave. People came up to me and said, Hey, if you're still interested, the job is open. Would you would you want to take it? And I said, I jumped at it. I thought it looked like a very interesting job. I had done it a few times when Pat was on vacation, and I'm glad I did it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874#t=243.25,342.75"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"It's been very exciting, very interesting. A little bit different than than what I've been used to in the fire department up to now. I've been very actively involved in suppression and training and things that that deal specifically within the department. Now, a lot of the activity is is outside of the department with charity organizations, with the media. And it's a little bit different. But but pretty exciting. Pretty, pretty interesting. 10 or 12 years ago, they had a very serious fire in Las Vegas. Some people were killed on a high rise apartment or a high rise hotel out there. Baltimore City said the same thing perhaps could happen here. They got a team together and you were solicited to become a part of it. Yeah, we we put a team together back about 1979, 1980. And again, it was it was done to to address the problem of high rise fires and where a lot of high rise fire is out west at that time. And we put this team together in the city in the event that something like that would occur here in Baltimore, the department was very progressive. They wanted to try and address that problem. And basically what the team was all about was a rescue team for problems in high rise buildings. If people were trapped on the on the rooftop of a high rise building, this team was supposed to come in, evacuate people off of the rooftops and make it safe for everybody. It seemed very exciting at the time. And when I was asked if I was interested in taking part in something like that, I said yes and in fact was a member of the team back in 7980 and became the team leader, I think about 1984.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874#t=342.87,443.22"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So the team became my team and we trained, fortunately in the city. We never had a problem. We never had never had to put the team into use. All right. You said it was exciting. Yeah. Not too long ago you had a chance to find out. Yes, we did. We had. We had a call for a three electricians who were trapped up on on a water tower in south Baltimore. And when we when we arrived on the scene, it was something that we had actually anticipated. We had we had talked about different scenarios that could occur with this team, and this was one of them. What if we had somebody trapped on in a situation like this on a water tower or someplace inaccessible where fire department ladders could reach them? How would we handle this? And we had actually trained for that type of scenario. Training is one thing, but what were you thinking when you exited that helicopter and you were hanging by this cable being lowered down on top of this this situation? What was going through your mind? Well, to be honest, I was thinking that I was I was just hoping that nothing would go wrong. I mean, I have a lot of faith in the training that we had, a lot of faith in the equipment that was being used. You have to have that if you're going to hang from a helicopter. And if you don't trust the equipment that you're using, you're going to be in trouble. So it's not a matter of of of not trusting the equipment, but just something can always go wrong. And I just remember thinking, I hope nothing goes wrong on this. I hope it goes just like it has been in training.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874#t=444.69,536.43"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And we were real fortunate it did. But here you just became public information officer. You have all the TV cameras are down on the ground. You see them down there and you're get ready to exit this helicopter. What was going through your mind? Well, I'll tell you the truth, I didn't even think about the TV cameras. You put all that out of your mind. You know, you have a job to do. You're you're concentrating on on the helicopter, on the rescue. And yeah, I got attacked by the media afterwards. But you don't think about those things when you're hanging from a helicopter. That's that's the furthest thing from your mind. You say the guy who got an accommodation. Yes. Yes, I did. I got an exemplary performance for the for that rescue. What I loved to experience were that person. All right, so you got it? Yeah. You got an accommodation for that? Yes. I got an exemplary performance award for that rescue on that on the water tower. Sorry. No. And what he found was actually he's got a control over his radio. I don't think what wouldn't have achieved it that day. I wonder if I can get them to do that. Okay. And of course, they don't. Exactly. All right. Now, see, I asked you what you owe, and you got an accommodation and you got on TV, not only here in Baltimore locally, but you made national television. Yeah, I did. I was surprised. As a matter of fact, apparently CNN had picked this thing up at first and I received the phone call the next morning from somebody out of town who had said they had seen me on national TV. I didn't even realize that it was on there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874#t=537.12,653.78"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then on top of that, one of the the other networks decided to do an episode on the rescue. So I became one of the stars of code three. Really exciting stuff. Did you buy your own party? Did you have somebody plan your party? Well, I tried to convince them that Kevin Costner should do the part, but they wouldn't go for that. Better luck next year. Well, you're on this TV thing, I mean, and you're on. What's in the future? I mean, do we have maybe a fire chief down the road as far as, you know, in a movie or in a series? Well, what do you got in your mind here? Well, Pat Flynn was the chief of the fire department in Avalon. And I'm waiting for Barry Levinson to come back for the sequel. And I'll be happy to play that role. Chief of the fire. Chief of the fire department. Well, now you say you had you've been in the fire department 20 years. And if you decide to retire, what's next? That's that's kind of hard to say. I really don't have any any idea of of what my future plans may bring. Right now, I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I plan to stay with the department a lot more years, I hope. And as long as I'm enjoying what I'm doing, I think I'm going to stay right here. If you get another rescue call. Are you ready? I'm ready. Sure. All the time. Actually, it's a lot of fun. I enjoy it. I'm. I'm no longer part of the team. Unfortunately, because of the the job here, it's just too time consuming. I can't take part in the training and everything else. So I'm no longer part of the high rise emergency aerial team.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874#t=654.29,750.35"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But sure, if they need help, I'll be more than happy to help. So it like if they call came right now, chances are you would not know. Rappelling from a helicopter. No. Chances are I would probably be on the ground talking to the reporters about somebody else doing this rescue. I'm sure your wife would appreciate that. Yeah, I think a lot of people would. In fact, I got a phone call from my mom right after that rescue, and she wanted to know what I was doing up there. She wasn't real happy with that. You get me a copy of your signature? Actually, if you want me and my lawyer. Okay. Run by ourselves. I just want to have her by herself as a teenager. When I first told the communion in New York. What church? St Thomas Aquinas. St Thomas Aquinas Church in New York. Right. And 25. My brother. Your brother? Yeah. What part of the world? Yeah, I can relate to that. Do you feel like you should get your hair or something like that? I think so. His parents would send him away and say to the Puerto Rico to develop is the only one summarized by the Puerto Rican. He's ready to go. Right. Isn't worried. Whitewater rafting with my brother. You have seen it back on TV. I was going to say that. Well. Rico. Who is? That's a cousin, I think. I'm not even sure. You. That's Justin. Justin. And of course, with this family, you don't know if you stand there waiting for a bus, a taxi cab or a helicopter for the rest of the night. You know, one of those trips to Baltimore, he met Bonnie. You know your profession. I'm. So two years ago you were married, right? Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874#t=750.95,959.84"},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Your son's name's Justin. Your daughter's name is Heather. Heather. Now, this was the first. This was the first get together of the Who. No, no, no. This was the instructors at the academy at the time that I started in trouble. You were going to give more phone calls? Terrible show. The rescue was May 12th, 1992. Great Irish memory. And anyway, that's who we were talking about. Four children die in shooting fire. And that was. And that happened to you? July 7th, 1992.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874#t=960.17,1011.11"}]},{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["English [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://marmia.aviaryplatform.com/collections/948/collection_resources/136862/file/253874/transcript/71640/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"subtitling","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/file_transcripts/associated_files/000/071/640/original/trint_WJZ-FLDTP-006-034_transcript.vtt?1728352984","format":"text/vtt","language":"en"},"target":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/file_transcripts/associated_files/000/071/640/original/trint_WJZ-FLDTP-006-034_transcript.vtt?1728352984"}]}]}]}