First responders carry burden

Associated Press

NEWTOWN, Conn.

While the people of Newtown do their best to cope with loss and preserve the memories of their loved ones, another class of residents also is finding it difficult to move on: the emergency responders who saw firsthand the terrible aftermath of last week’s school shooting.

Firefighter Peter Barresi was driving through Newtown last Friday when police cars with lights flashing and sirens blaring raced toward his oldest son’s elementary school. After he was sent to Sandy Hook school himself, he saw things that will stay with him forever.

With anguished parents searching for their children, he prepared to receive the wounded, but a paramedic came back empty-handed, underscoring the totality of the massacre. Barresi, whose own son escaped unharmed, later discovered that among the 26 dead were children who played baseball with his son and had come to his house for birthday parties.

“For some of us, it’s fairly difficult,” said Barresi, of the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire and Rescue Co. “Fortunately, most of us did not go in.”

Newtown and environs weathered a fourth day of funerals Thursday, six days after a 20-year-old gunman killed his mother at home, 20 children and six adults at the school and himself for reasons still unknown. Mourners laid to rest Catherine Hubbard, Benjamin Wheeler, Jesse Lewis and Allison Wyatt, all 6 years old; and Grace McDonnell, 7.

A service took place in Katonah, N.Y., for teacher Anne Marie Murphy, 52, who authorities believe helped shield some of her students from the rain of bullets.

In downtown Danbury, mourners filed into the ornate white-pillared First Congregational Church for a memorial service for 30-year-old teacher Lauren Rousseau. Friends wept at the altar as they remembered the spirited, hardworking, sunny-natured woman who brightened their lives with silliness and gave them all nicknames.

The gunman’s mother, Nancy Lanza, also was laid to rest Thursday, in a private ceremony at an undisclosed location in tiny Kingston, N.H., where she used to live.

Gov. Dannel Malloy has asked people across Connecticut to observe a moment of silence at 9:30 a.m. today, which will mark a week since the shootings.

Places of worship and buildings with bells have been asked to ring them 26 times, for the victims at the school.

Officials and clergy in many other states have said they also will participate.