by Bill Hutchinson
A fatal twist of fate put firefighter Joe Graffagnino in harm's way yesterday.
Usually assigned to Ladder 5, Graffagnino was switched to Engine 24 at the last minute because it was a man short.
The sudden change doomed him.
Graffagnino, 34, and comrade Robert Beddia, 53, were killed in the fire at the former Deutsche Bank tower in lower Manhattan while bringing up water hoses from the street, officials said.
"We had to lift lines with ropes in order to get it up to the 17th floor because of that building being under demolition," said Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta.
Colleagues said Graffagnino, 34, an eight-year veteran of the FDNY, went about his job yesterday with his usual gusto, but had he been left on his ladder truck, he likely would have stayed out of danger.
Graffagnino and Beddia knew the perils of their job well, both having served at the World Trade Center on 9/11, officials said.
"He was a pretty easygoing, fun-loving guy," said Beddia's friend Lisa Giunta, the owner of Arturo's Pizza in the West Village. "He loved teaching the new guys the ropes."
Beddia, of Staten Island, a 23-year FDNY veteran, was also racked with guilt having lost 11 firefighters on 9/11.
"It was hard for him to work with those plaques inside looking at him," Giunta said of a memorial in the firehouse with the names and photos of those who died at the World Trade Center.
In his Staten Island neighborhood, Beddia was remembered as a generous man who took pains in tending his garden and pride in his vintage MG.
"He worked on that little car of his. In the nice weather you'd see him out there puttering around with the car," said Noreen Foley, 63.
Graffagnino, of Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, leaves behind a wife, Linda, a nurse he married in November 2002 in a ceremony at St. Finbar's Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn.
More than 300 guests helped the couple celebrate their union at a reception at Russo's on the Bay in Howard Beach, Queens.
The couple had their first dance to Frank Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight" and cut into a three-tiered chocolate mousse cake decorated with real flowers.
"He's a fireman and she's a nurse so she will kiss all his boo-boos away," Graffagnino's aunt, Fran, said at the time of the wedding.
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