by TONY SCLAFANI, JOSE MARTINEZ and ROBERT F. MOORE
The young firefighter critically injured when he fell off a fire truck racing to an upper East Side blaze was conscious and talking in his hospital room yesterday as questions swirled about the 17-year-old replacement rig he was riding.
"He's going to pull through," James Cassino, 50, of Belle Harbor, Queens, said of his neighbor, Joseph Moore. "He's a fighter."
Investigators still are probing how Moore, 25, fell off the 1988 tower truck Friday night as it made a left turn from E. 85th St. onto Lexington Ave.
Authorities said it is possible Moore simply lost his balance while putting on his coat and fell over the waist-high door of the truck's open rear cab. Fire officials also refuted early reports that a faulty latch caused the door to fly open.
A source added that the Fire Department's safety unit examined the latches after the accident and found them in working order. But the door where Moore fell had one fewer latch than the door on the other side, he said.
Incensed over the near-fatal fall, United Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy said the union will conduct its own investigation into whether there was a malfunction on the fire truck.
"How can it be that, in a city with an annual budget of over $55 billion, that the lives of firefighters and the citizens we protect depends on apparatus built in the 1980s when Ed Koch was mayor?" Cassidy asked.
The FDNY responded with a statement: "The Fire Department has been proactive in addressing the issue of procuring and repairing fire trucks. In fact, the FDNY has brought in both fire unions in an attempt to work together on this important task. Steve Cassidy is disingenuous in his comments regarding this."
But several FDNY officials, who asked not to be named, told the Daily News that the 17-year-old truck never should have been in service. They cited a longstanding rift between the Fire Department and a truck manufacturer that has delayed getting new equipment on the streets.
Moore fractured his skull and suffered serious head injuries when he plunged to the pavement at 8:45 p.m. Friday. He was taken to Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he was in critical condition late yesterday.
"He's improving," a source said.
Moore, a bagpiper, is a former volunteer firefighter in Breezy Point, Queens, and was one of the emergency responders to the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in 2001. Neighbors said he's the son of retired NYPD cops. He has been with the FDNY three years.
Moore, of Ladder 13, was riding on a tower truck that is part of a supplemental fleet put into service when firefighters' regular rigs are undergoing maintenance or repairs.
The FDNY and Seagrave, a Wisconsin-based manufacturer of fire trucks, have long been locked in a disagreement over the terms of the truck warranties, a source said.
Within the past year, the .FDNY canceled an order for between 10 and 20 ladder trucks. That, in addition to frequent maintenance delays, sometimes means replacement rigs are on the streets for months.
"We've warned Seagrave that if they didn't improve, we'd go with another vendor," FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon said.
With Lisa Muñoz
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