A humble Lengthy Island hero who’s active-duty navy and an FDNY Bravest lately obtained the shock of a lifetime from the New York Islanders: a brand new pickup truck he desperately wanted.
“I’m on prime of the world proper now,” fortunate Isles diehard and married dad of 4 Joseph O’Brien, 36, advised The Put up after workforce hockey legend Butch Goring escorted him Wednesday to the blue Ford F150 STX with customized seats upholstered that includes the membership’s emblem.
“When Butch handed me these keys, I used to be like, ‘No approach.’”
The hockey workforce couldn’t have picked a extra deserving individual.
O’Brien, who has 4 younger daughters, runs the Vice Doughnuts & Espresso store on Farmingdale’s Fundamental Road when he’s not with the Military Reserve or working for the South Bronx’s Ladder 31, the place he has hung out patching up his 2007 Toyota Corolla.
“It was beginning to go,” O’Brien stated of his wheels. “I exploit that as my primary commuter to get to The Bronx on daily basis.
“Having a brand new truck is ideal timing. It’s loopy,” stated the dad, who’s goalie for his firehouse hockey workforce.
O’Brien joined the FDNY in 2022, one yr after beginning Vice as a meals truck, which later grew into a primary real-estate brick-and-mortar within the coronary heart of city in 2023.
As a member of the Military Reserve, O’Brien was beforehand assigned to guarding “excessive worth targets” at Guantanamo Bay over a decade in the past.
“We noticed a variety of different detainees that had been accountable for 9/11, which was most likely one of many craziest issues I’ve seen,” stated O”Brien, who can be from Farmingdale.
“As a New Yorker, it form of hit house seeing that.”
Pulling the goalie’s leg
All through his service to the nation and New Yorkers, O”Brien all the time quietly carried his function.
“I actually don’t like carrying the uniform out in public simply since you get all the eye,” he stated.
O’Brien’s spouse, Gina, who does the baking at Vice, lastly wished her valiant husband to have a second of his personal. So she wrote to the Islanders and defined why he was worthy of recognition.
The workforce responded.
It first created the guise that Goring was doing a small-business highlight on the store and wished a tour.
“I used to be simply grateful that they had been coming right here to do the enterprise highlight,” stated O’Brien, who raised cash for the household of slain NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller of neighboring Massapequa Park.
O’Brien obtained to inform the Stanley Cup winner all about his personal ardour for hockey and the way he had been assigned to Ladder 31 — the identical quantity his favourite goalie, Billy Smith, wore for the Islanders.
The firefighter even tried recruiting Goring, who touts a championship ring, for some upcoming video games that Ladder 31 has.
Whereas they had been yucking it up behind the shop, Islanders employees drove up within the large four-wheeler donated by Hempstead Ford, with mascot Sparky the Dragon driving on the again.
“He didn’t know what was happening. He had no concept,” Goring stated.
“I’m kidding him about negotiating for some donuts, and swiftly I’m going, ‘How about this [truck]?’ … There’s no yet another deserving than individuals like him.”
The shock and pleasure on O’Brien’s face stated all of it, as family members and shut associates from the firehouse all got here out for the big day.
It particularly hit house with all the uncertainty within the Center East.
“If issues escalate in Iran, they might name me up tomorrow and say, ‘Hey, we’re sending you.’ That may be devastating,” O’Brien stated.
“It’s simply so nice to have everybody in the identical room, all my brothers from the firehouse, my household, my ladies. It’s simply wonderful.”
