FDNY Lieutenant Brian Sullivan spent nearly three decades answering the call helping others. He died of a heart attack last week after completing a 24-hour shift.

(Brian Sullivan, a 27-year veteran of the FDNY. Photo courtesy of the FDNY.)

His firefighting colleagues and friends joined his family to mourn him Friday.

"We lost another one of our brothers, another great one," said Jake Lemonda, the president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association union. "It's actually a calling."

"I met Brian and his wife a few years ago," family friend Tebbie Behringer said. "I've been seeing him at, like, the school plays and all the things that he goes to for his daughter, and he really paid the ultimate sacrifice.”

The funeral service was held at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Sullivan's home town of Monroe Township, Orange County, 50 miles north of New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio and fire department brass also attended.

The sound of trumpets and bagpipes filled the air for a firefighter who worked hard, right up until the end. On his last tour of duty, Sullivan responded to multiple emergency calls, including a kitchen fire in the Bronx. He went to his home in Monroe and died the next morning.

"Even though he was in pain on that last tour, he continued to respond to those calls selflessly," de Blasio said during the funeral services. "This is the man we have come to know — brave, dedicated, putting others always above himself."

"Fires, collapses, confined space rescues and intricate operations — these dangerous and hazardous incidents were Brian's specialties," Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said. "As a fire officer, he was as good as they come."

Lt. Sullivan was 54 years old. He was part of the fire department's elite Special Operations Command and a member of Squad Company 41 in the Bronx.

The 27-year FDNY veteran was described as a family man who worked hard but always rushed home to his wife and two daughters.

"Everyone knows firemen know how to cook. And he cooked all the food," Behringer said. "One of her good friends has Celiac [disease] and he made sure that he made all kinds of gluten-free food for her because that's just the kind of guy that he is."