James Loftus, 84; Boston firefighter saved several lives in daring rescues

When Ladder 10 of the Boston Fire Department responded to a report of a mentally ill patient at Jamaica Plain Veterans' Hospital climbing the rungs of the building's 225-foot smokestack in 1961, Firefighter James J. Loftus volunteered to climb after the man.

Mr. Loftus, who received the department's John E. Fitzgerald Medal for risking his life to save the man, died of complications of a heart attack Wednesday at Memorial Hospital in Hollywood, Fla. A firefighter for 31 years, he was 84.

It was a rainy and blustery day in September 1961, but Mr. Loftus had faced life-threatening situations before. As a child, he would dive from cliffs as high as 118 feet. As a hardhat diver for the US Navy, he risked electrocution to weld patches onto ships hit by torpedoes in the Pacific Ocean.

"It was astounding to me," said Leo Stapleton, a retired Boston fire commissioner who had watched as Mr. Loftus made several trips up the ladder to coax the patient down. "Just the physical difficulty of going up the ladder twice. . . . and then he goes up a third time and says to the guy, 'The chief down there won't let me go home until I put this rope around you.' "

His plea worked. After two hours of negotiating, Mr. Loftus affixed the rope and guided the man down the smokestack in front of national television cameras and a crowd that had expanded to more than 1,000 people, according to a Globe article.

"I kept saying to him I know a guy who had a breakdown," Mr. Loftus told the Globe. "He's OK now. He's making 150 bucks a week."

Born in Boston, Mr. Loftus graduated from Boston English High School and enlisted in the Navy at the outset of World War II. He was stationed in the Pacific Theater and was trained in the difficult skill of underwater welding, said his son, John of St. Petersburg, Fla.

He returned to Boston after the war and joined the Boston Fire Department in 1949.

A year into his career, however, he was asked to return to the Navy and serve during the Korean War, because his specialty was in such demand, his son said. Already a husband and the father of three young boys, Mr. Loftus served only briefly on this second tour.

Mr. Loftus applied his diving training to his work on the Fire Department, serving as one of the founding members of the department's scuba diving team and the New England Search and Rescue Team, his son said.

Mr. Loftus made dives on the Charles River and in Boston Harbor, his son recalled. He was part of the recovery team after an Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-188 Electra crashed into the harbor Oct. 4, 1960, killing 62 passengers.

"My brothers and I would go out and help the firefighters suit up," his son said. "In those days, you couldn't buy wet suits, so my dad would lie down on hospital neoprene. We would trace his outline, cut it out, and then glue the suit together."

After the 1961 suicide rescue, Mr. Loftus became a go-to guy for similar incidents, Stapleton said. In 1963, he rescued a man in an almost identical incident at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain.

To support his family, Mr. Loftus also founded a business, Boston Blacksmith Welding Co.

He retired from both jobs in 1980; he was succeeded in his welding business by his son Richard of Foxborough. Another son, James F. of Norwood, is a district chief with the Boston Fire Department.

Mr. Loftus moved to Dania, Fla. in 1981, where he remained an active swimmer and practical joker; a lone Red Sox fan, he was known for teasing the New York Yankee fans who lived in his development.

In addition to his three sons, Mr. Loftus leaves his wife of 59 years, Mary; another son, William of Clearwater, Fla.; and 10 grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. today in Resurrection Church in Dania. Burial will be in Bay Pines National Cemetery in Bay Pines, Fla.