Fire trucks filled a funeral procession Wednesday in Riverside to send a 14-year veteran firefighter to his final resting place.
Jacksonville firefighter Christopher C. Swary, 43, was laid to rest a week after he died in a rear-end collision with a JEA truck that was collecting traffic cones on the Arlington Expressway, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Uniformed firefighters crowded into St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Riverside for the Engine 11 member’s funeral as two ladder trucks suspended an American flag in front of the Gothic church’s huge stained-glass window.
Swary — his coffin carried from the church on the back of a fire truck — was to be promoted in July to engineer. Fire Chief Kurtis Wilson raised his rank posthumously during the funeral Mass, while the Sheriff’s Office Honor Guard fired 21 shots in a rifle salute after the service ended.
“When people hear his name they immediately start smiling,” Engine 11 firefighter Ryan Haynes told First Coast News after the funeral.
Swary, a Sandalwood High School graduate, first worked at Baptist Medical Center as a security guard and flight communications specialist before moving to Wolfson Children’s Hospital as an emergency room tech. He graduated from the firefighter training in 2002 and joined the department while still working the emergency room. He last worked out of Engine 11 on Talleyrand Avenue.