There’ll never be another Eddie Cotter

The harsh buzz of the doorbell to my third-floor apartment was so obnoxious, it cannot be accurately described in words. Suffice to say if it went off at 3 a.m., it would shock you out of your socks. Particularly if you were sound asleep.

I’m talking heart-attack causing, sit-you-straight-up-in-bed obnoxious.

I had that kind of wake-up call one early morning in the early 1990s. I was bureau chief of the New Haven Register’s Naugatuck Valley office, so I was responsible for coordinating coverage in that region’s six cities and towns. I was the only full-time staff member living in the Valley at the time, so if there was breaking news, I was usually the one to jump on it -- at least until someone else could get there to join me.

So it was in the wee hours of a looming work day that Eddie Cotter buzzed me. There was a fire somewhere in the area, and of course, Eddie was one of those who responded to the scene, thanks to his constant monitoring of a police and fire scanner -- not to mention the incredible range of sources he had to keep him in the know. If there was news happening, Eddie heard about it immediately. If he heard about it, Eddie was on it.

I dragged-butt downstairs to the entryway of my apartment building and found Eddie standing patiently at the door, ready to buzz me again if I didn’t respond.

“There’s a fire,... I got the pictures and I’ll drop ‘em off to New Haven,” he said, not sticking around long enough for me to mumble more than “OK, thanks Ed...”

There was no time for small talk when news was happening. Besides, I knew Eddie would be around later. He always was. If you needed him, Eddie was right there.

Eddie Cotter, the legendary news man and Derby firefighter, founder of the Storm Ambulance Corps in Derby, Conn., died yesterday. He was 91.

To say that I am sad about this is an understatement. Eddie was rare. He was a no-nonsense, speak-his-mind, hardcore newspaper man with a heart as big as Texas and a work ethic that would shame any one of us today. Most people around these parts knew Eddie as the rough-around-the-edges photographer for the defunct Evening Sentinel, the daily afternoon newspaper in the lower Naugatuck Valley until the 1980s when it was bought up and closed.

Eddie’s career and humanitarian activities are a litany of accomplishments that span the journalism and emergency services realms in Connecticut. As much as he established a legacy as an icon in the annals of fire department history in “the Valley,” Eddie made an indelible mark on the state’s journalism industry, too. From his work for the Sentinel to freelance work later for the Register and the Connecticut Post, Eddie showed every journalist in the state -- past, present and future -- how the job was done.

It’s simple: Eddie went when the job called. To be more exact, he went before the job called. To be honest, I’m not sure he was ever not working.


Fires, dead bodies, missing boaters, high school football games,... whatever the news, Eddie showed up to snap away with his camera and jot down the details before dashing off to meet a deadline.

For years after I left the Register, I would send Eddie a birthday card to his Hawthorne Avenue home, a gesture that Eddie never ceased to acknowledge any time he would bump in to my mother around the Valley. “How’s your daughter? You know, she never forgets my birthday...”

That’s because Eddie and I have November birthdays that are just a day apart. Each year, in our little bureau, we’d get a birthday cake for Eddie and me, and celebrate together. Among our young staff of reporters and stringers, each of us had our kinship with Eddie. It was rooted in the great respect we had for him.

When he would leave the bureau to head to New Haven to drop off his film, he’d leave with a “I’ll be around if you need me.” That was Eddie. You knew he’d be around if you needed him. He always was.

He once told me that he had gotten into the habit of sleeping with his boots next to his bed, still dressed in his street clothes so he could rush out the door when the scanner squawked the latest emergency.

Now, the Valley and beyond is mourning the loss of Eddie Cotter, a wonderful man who loved his family, gave his life to his community and left a career legacy that is unparalleled in these parts. He won’t be around if we need him, except in spirit.

So when you see the Storm’s Ambulance or Derby Fire Department or any other emergency services personnel responding to an emergency around the Valley, just know that Eddie is somehow still there when we need him. He always will be.

Rest in peace, Eddie.

Copyright 2012 By Marianne V. Heffernan