Riverhead Polish Hall was packed Thursday night with firemen, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), police officers and community members who came out to support the eighth annual Heidi’s Helping Angels fundraiser dinner.
Tag: Heidi’s Helping Angels
Last April, heading back to a campsite he’d rented with family and friends at Indian Island County Park following a Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps installation dinner, Joseph Oliver noticed a bumper lying in the road. READ
Riverhead Polish Independent Club was bursting at the seams Thursday evening as more than 100 people packed in for the sixth annual “Steak Night” to benefit “The Heidi Behr Memorial Scholarship Heidi’s Helping Angels.”
From left: Friends Christopher Lull, Isabella “Izzy” DiPierro and Tyrek Highsmith were honored by Heidi’s Helping Angels Saturday for their part in rescuing a man Dec. 29. (Credit: Rachel Young)
On Saturday morning, three local teenagers were honored by Heidi’s Helping Angels for their part in rescuing an unidentified Medford man who Riverhead police said fell into the Peconic River near McDermott Avenue Dec. 27. (more…)
Betty Harris, Howard Waldman, Hattie Turner, and Ron Schmitt at Thursday’s annual Heidi’s Helping Angels fundraiser. (Credit: Joseph Pinciaro)
The story of Heidi Behr is well-known in the Riverhead community at this point.
And though the ending was a tragic one — the 23-year-old Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps volunteer was killed in a crash with one of her fellow volunteers, leaving behind her young son — the positive values she embodied were celebrated Thursday night, as three other members of the community were recognized for doing the same thing Ms. Behr did: put their own time, safety and even sometimes their lives on the line in the name of helping others. (more…)
Heidi’s Helping Angels is hosting its annual steak dinner tonight to raise money for the scholarship named in the memory of Heidi Behr, a Riverhead ambulance volunteer who died at the age of 23 in a tragic ambulance crash in May 2005.
The dinner to benefit the Heidi Behr Memorial Scholarship will be served at Polish Hall at 7 p.m., with doors opening at 5:30 p.m.
Riverhead police officers Eric Cohen, Kerri Davis and 911 dispatcher Melissa Elco will be honored at the dinner for their heroic actions this past February, when they saved an unconscious 15-month-old boy in Riverhead.
The cost of the event is $35 per person, which includes a cash bar.
If you’d like more information or are unable to attend but would like to make a donation, contact Jim Stark at 631-727-6060 or Ron Schmitt at 631-722-4944.
MICHAEL WHITE PHOTO | Rich Podlas (left) and Chuck Thomas (middle) were honored for their service to the Behr family at the first dinner in 2011.
BARBARAELLEN KOCH PHOTO | HIghway department workers Ed Reeve (center) and Chris Bugee install a street sign Tuesday morning along the Peconic River in memory of fallen ambulance volunteer Heidi Behr, as the Behr family — Heidi’s grandmother Dorothy, mother June, father John and sister Dana look on. Jim Stark of the ‘Heidi’s Helping Angels’ group and Highway Superintendent George ‘Gio’ Woodson were also on hand.
The road running along the Peconic River in downtown Riverhead is now officially known as Heidi Behr Way, honoring a Riverhead ambulance volunteer who died at the age of 23 in a tragic ambulance crash in May of 2005.
Town highway department workers installed the sign Tuesday morning as Heidi’s parents, June and John, her sister Dana, and her grandmother Dorothy, looked on.
The non-profit group Heidi’s Helping Angels had urged the Town Board to name the road after Heidi in April, and the board approved the measure in May.
“It’s nice to have her remembered,” John Behr told The News-Review at the time. “We grew up on the river over on Riverside Drive, so she used to walk there a lot. It’s a tribute to her.”
Heidi’s Helping Angels paid for the two signs, one at Peconic Avenue and one at McDermott Avenue, and donated them to the town highway department, according to Jim Stark of Heidi’s Helping Angels.
“Part of our mission statement is to memorialize Heidi’s memory for the sacrifice she made to the community,” Mr. Stark said. “One of the things that the Behr family has always wanted was something named after Heidi, to show the community that our first responders are very important.”
Heidi was one of two emergency medical technicians that died in the 2005 ambulance crash, which happened as they were transporting an elderly patient to the hospital on Main Road in Aquebogue.
Bill Stone, who was a paid EMT and lived in Ridge, also died in the crash.
Heidi Behr left behind her son, Jared, who was just 13 months old at the time and has severe disabilities. He has been raised by the Behr family since then.
NEWS-REVIEW FILE PHOTO | The future Heidi Behr Memorial Park & Boardwalk?
It’s heroes week in the United States, as it is every year around the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
TV, newspapers and Facebook abound with images and remembrances of those lost on Sept. 11, 2001, with a spotlight on the men and women who ran to their deaths to save others.
Sept. 11 has become a sort of de facto memorial day for the country’s much-deserving emergency responders.
So there may be no better time than now to remark on one of Riverhead’s greatest fallen heroes — volunteer EMT Heidi Behr — and how we could best honor her memory.
Heidi was killed in an ambulance crash while responding to a call in May 2005. William Stone, a paramedic from Rocky Point, was also killed in the crash.
They were part of a crew rushing a heart attack victim to the hospital when their ambulance struck a tree on Main Road in Aquebogue.
Heidi, only 23 at the time, left behind a 13-month-old son, Jared, who is blind and suffers from epilepsy, cerebral palsy and brain damage. Ever since the crash, he’s been raised by Heidi’s parents, John and June, with the help of their other daughter, Dana.
The outpouring of support this family has received from fellow ambulance and fire volunteers and others since Heidi’s death has been awe-inspiring.
When it was becoming nearly impossible for the Behrs to continue raising Jared, who cannot walk, in their modest 800-square-foot house on Riverside Drive, a group of local people and businesses donated time and money to rebuild the Cutchogue home of June Behr’s late parents and make it fully handicapped accessible.
It’s now a place where Jared can grow — with plenty of room for his necessary support equipment — as his grandparents age.
And through the effort to rebuild that house, the Heidi’s Helping Angels community support group was born.
Volunteers with Heidi’s Helping Angels are at work every year now, mostly raising money for scholarships for Riverhead and Mercy high school students in Heidi’s name. In fact, next Thursday night is the group’s annual steak dinner fundraiser at Polish Hall. At last year’s event, Peconic Bay Medical Center pledged an annual $5,000 donation to the Heidi Behr Memorial Scholarship Fund.
These examples of one community’s outpouring of support are why I always tell people that if they ever, God forbid, found themselves facing some life-threatening injury or otherwise in need of help after a tragedy, they would be so lucky to live in Riverhead.
This is a community that rallies like no other I’ve witnessed on Long Island.
Which is why it’s beyond my understanding that more than seven years after her death, no government property has been named in Heidi Behr’s honor. I can’t think of a more deserving person to have a highway or bridge named after her.
In town and in the schools we have dozens of places and structures, big and small, named for people. Think of all the parks named after politicians, including Stotzky Memorial Park, Milton L. Burns Park and Lombardi Park.
Yet nothing for Heidi Behr.
Here was a volunteer, a 23-year-old single mother, who died in the line of duty trying to save another person’s life. And she wasn’t just an ambulance member; she was one of the best. Heidi had received “Top Responder” and “Corpsman of the Year” awards with the ambulance corps.
She may be the town’s greatest fallen hero outside of Medal of Honor recipient Garfield Langhorn.
While we live in a world full of complainers, young and old alike, dwelling on what they haven’t got, this young women gave herself — not only to her son and her family, but to her community.
Imagine just a playground named for Heidi. Children across Riverhead might then be asking who she was.
She was one of the best our community has ever produced, parents would answer. She was a true role model.
I’ll float one bold idea right here. The riverfront boardwalk park downtown is in need of a namesake. It should be named the Heidi Behr Memorial Park & Boardwalk. Throughout most of the year, the park is a quiet, tranquil place, with the placid Peconic River as its centerpiece. It’s a place many of us stop to sit and reflect. It would be fitting.
Heidi Behr grew up just a short walk from the Peconic River as a kid. A young hero in the making.
Michael White is the editor of the News-Review. He can be reached at [email protected] or 631-298-3200, ext. 152.
