‘These Gentlemen Saved My Life’: Eight New Canaan Firefighters Honored for Oct. 30 Heroics

Michael Bivona, Jr. had been on his way to visit an uncle in Wilton on Oct. 30, when at about 5:35 p.m. he was struck head-on on Silvermine Road. The 18-year-old remembers nothing of the horrific four-car crash, knowing only that he would have died had it not been for a difficult, careful extrication led by eight New Canaan firefighters. Until Tuesday night, he’d never met them. “It’s a miracle that I am here and I can’t thank them enough,” Bivona, Jr. said during a moving ceremony at Lapham Community Center attended by about 100 people, where the firefighters received a unit citation for their life-saving actions.