JOB WELL DONE
I’m still standing
The Sept. 12, 2007 crash during Daughton’s field
training.
Fire, car crashes and cycling have made
Local 23 Officer Ryan Daughton
one tough cop
n BY JOSHUA SIGMUND
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Maybe that’s
why, after a fatal call as a Franklin Township volunteer firefighter, a
vehicle crash during his police field training, and a recent
encounter with a fleeing suspect’s vehicle ramming his patrol car,
New Brunswick Officer Ryan Daughton is as tough as they come.
Since he was seven years old, Daughton wanted to be a police
officer. To tide him over in his teenage years, Daughton volunteered
as a firefighter in Franklin Township beginning at 16. And on April
11, 2006, when his fellow 21-year-old peers were facing the harsh
reality of matriculation, the Rutgers student faced that of being a
first responder.
Around 6:10 p.m., East Franklin Township volunteer firefighters
were dispatched for a reported structure fire with a person trapped.
52
NEW JERSEY COPS
n
APRIL 2015
Daughton was first through the door as
nozzle man, and through barely visible conditions, he led firefighters to locate an elderly
lady in her bedroom. As they were carrying
the victim to safety, Daughton could see the
light from outside in front of him when things
took a turn for the worse:
“From the front door to where I was
located was not even five feet. I could see the
door and we were about to get out,” he
recalled. “Next thing I knew we fell through
the floor into a ball of fire in the basement.”
Trapped in a flashover condition,
Daughton called a mayday. Dazed and confused when he was pulled out after 10 minutes, Daughton was rushed to the hospital
Above: After another
and eventually the burn center for burns to
successful Unity Tour
his arms and legs and smoke inhalation.
ride.
There, he learned that his friend and fellow
Climbing 26 flights in
firefighter Kevin Apuzzio had not survived
firefighter PPE at the
the fall.
2015 American Lung
“For the first year or two I was a wreck,”
Association Stair Climb
Daughton admitted, suffering depression
in Newark.
spells and survivor’s guilt. “But the biggest
thing that helped me get through was to stay
together with the other guys who were there.”
Nine years later, the survivors teach a firefighter training class in
Kevin’s honor about firefighter safety and survival should they ever
get in a situation like that.
“I try to impart that you’re not invincible just because you put on
a bunch of gear,” said Daughton, now a fire lieutenant and
president of the fire company. “Real things happen, especially in a
situation where you’re going in to save someone’s life and now
someone is trying to save yours.”
Nearly a year after his tragedy, on April 1, 2007, Daughton
realized his childhood dream and became a police officer in New
Brunswick. Within five months, while still in field training, he cheated death once again. During a Sept. 12 prisoner transport,
Daughton was driving his marked Dodge Durango through South
Brunswick at the intersection of Routes 130 and 522 when a driver
disregarding a red light turned left, causing the officer to swerve.
The 1993 Honda Civic struck the police vehicle’s driver’s side causing it to go off the road, hit a light pole and then flip over and smash
into a utility pole.
“The car started smoking and I thought it was going to catch
fire,” said Daughton. He pulled himself forward, his partner fol-