Colleagues and family bid an emotional farewell to a firefighter who died saving lives in a hotel fire in Istanbul last week. 42-year-old Taner Çebi was injured while battling a fire that broke out in a hotel on April 27 and succumbed to his wounds on April 29.
Çebi is credited with saving the lives of the staff and guests of the hotel in Sultanahmet, a district popular among tourists. He managed to pull three hotel guests to safety and went back in to save another one. However, he lost his balance and fell, suffocated by fumes. He spent next two days in intensive care.
An Algerian woman was the only other casualty of the fire that erupted in the hotel's sauna.
Following a ceremony in front of the Fire Department of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB), a funeral prayer was held at the Fatih Mosque for the deceased firefighter.
Çebi's coffin was brought atop a red fire truck, while his young son sat on the front seat. He was buried in Edirnekapı Cemetery dedicated to firefighters who died on the job in a funeral attended by thousands of people.
In addition to Çebi's family and colleagues, the ceremony was also attended Istanbul Mayor Mevlüt Uysal, French Deputy Consul General Daniel Droz-Vincent, Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Provincial Chairman Bayram Şenocak. Two French nationals were among the people saved by Çebi during the fire. In a statement, Droz-Vincent offered his condolences to deceased firefighter's wife Ayla Çebi and all firefighter personnel.
A condolence message issued by the IBB said that Çebi, who had been serving in the fire department since 2005, was a successful firefighter with various awards in international competitions. The message stated that Çebi was an expert personnel at the underwater search and rescue team of the fire department. Çebi is also remembered for his search and rescue work in a 2011 earthquake in eastern Turkey's Van province, a mining disaster in 2014 in western district of Soma, his voluntary work at a 2015 earthquake in Nepal and floods in Bosnia in 2014, it added.
Before his death, Taner Çebi spoke to Anadolu Agency (AA) for a series of interviews about people in challenging jobs.
Taner Çebi (L)
The firefighter of 15 years explained how watching firefighters put out fires in his childhood endeared him to the profession. "It is a sacred line of work. You have to help people in their most difficult time, you have to help them, while everyone else has run away," he said in the interview.
