VIDEO/PHOTOS: The benefits and shortcomings of social media are often debated, but two local families are crediting Facebook with solving a mystery that was decades in the making. The story began to unfold when a couple began cleaning out a storage area in the basement of their new home in Lorain, and discovered an old firefighter’s helmet.
Alicia Zadorozny told FOX 8, “it was like ‘whoa, what is this, where did it come from, how long has it been here?’” The helmet had the name “Wilker” on it, and Alicia and Andrew Zadorozny decided to see if the firefighter was still alive or if they could find his family and return the helmet.
“I have a lot of stuff that was passed on to me, so I know how valuable some of the memories are, so you know some of those things I hold on to very dearly,” said Andrew. They posted a story about the helmet on a Lorain Facebook page. “And I said ‘this might be a long shot but maybe somebody knows somebody who may know somebody,” said Alicia.