Update 8:36 a.m.:
A video that Darien Firefighter Will Cornacchia uploaded to YouTube shows him asking Brittany Tiano to the prom:
"Is it yes?" he shouts from the bucket of the Engine 3 ladder truck.
"Yes!" she shouts back.
"Nice," someone says. "Did you think she was gonna say no?"
Cornacchia is asked if the adventure was "as good as you imagined it?"
"Better," he says.
After the bucket descended to the ground, Cornacchia asked Tiano, "You didn't expect that, right?"
"No, not at all."
"It's going on YouTube," he told her.
Later, another Darien High School student tells Cornacchia, "You just set the bar, like, above everyone else's head."
Original article 7:51 a.m.:
The prom likely will be memorable to Brittany Tiano and Will Cornacchia, but not as much as the way he asked her to to it—with a banner hung from a ladder truck.
"Brittany T. PROM?" read the 3-by-8-foot banner, hung from the arm of a ladder truck on at noon on Friday, just outside the window of a second-floor classroom.
She said yes.
Tiano was in history class in the A wing of the building, close to the library, when other students suddenly began calling her to go to the window and look out.
"I went over and saw Will in full uniform with a sign at his feet," she said. He was in the bucket of the ladder truck's extended arm.
"I just stood there thinking, 'Oh my goodness, no way!' then I got all giddy and gave him the thumbs up for yes and went downstairs to give him a hug!"
To stage the stunt, Cornacchia had the help of past Chief Dennis Smith, past President Dan Anderson, and the department.
"It was the highlight of the year!" Tiano said.
