FIREFIGHTER'S DEATH, DRUGS SHOCK FRIENDS

Woburn Inquiry Centers On Potent Powdered Heroin

WOBURN - From emergency medical workers with whom he helped save lives, to
local Vietnam veterans who stood with him in war, those who knew Woburn
firefighter Patrick V. Pappas found it painful to speak his name and
''heroin'' in the same sentence yesterday.

Yet even as family and friends reeled from Pappas's death Friday, a potent,
white-powder form of the drug became the focus of an investigation into the
death of the 47-year- old husband and father of three.

''It doesn't make sense that Pat would have had a heroin problem,'' said
Joseph Simas, 49, one of many longtime Woburn residents who knew Pappas
over the years. ''This doesn't sound like the Pat that I knew.''

However, Winchester police said Saturday that on Friday they had discovered
small, clear packets containing a powder form of heroin, stamped with the
word ''Knock- Out,'' in Pappas's pockets.

Pappas, a Woburn native and firefighter for more than 20 years, had gone to
the Parkview Apartments in Winchester to visit a friend, who called 911
after he noticed Pappas having problems breathing. He was rushed to
Winchester Hospital, where he died at 1:20 p.m. Friday.

The medical examiner's office in Boston yesterday said an autopsy had been
performed. But officials could not confirm what caused his death without
pending toxicology reports, which would reveal the presence of any drugs or
other chemicals.

Police are warning that the ''Knock-Out'' brand of heroin found on Pappas
is a potentially lethal form of the drug hitting the streets. Officials
believe it is behind a rash of overdoses on the afternoon of Pappas's death.

Paul Lucero, a Woburn Police Department spokesman, said similar packets
with traces of the drug were found on Fulton Street on Friday, where a
woman apparently overdosed on heroin at a friend's house.

Police discovered the same packets five hours later at a boardinghouse on
Main Street, where a man and a woman were found after apparent overdoses.
All three remain hospitalized in critical condition, according to Lucero,
who would not give their identities.

Lucero said investigators are analyzing the ''bad batch'' of heroin, which
either could be contaminated by chemicals or simply an unusually pure form
of the drug.

Last month, a lethal batch of heroin caused a two-week surge of overdoses
in Boston, killing one and sending dozens to the hospital over 18 hours.

Those who knew Pappas, who as an emergency medical trainer intimately
understood the body's response to drugs, could not understand how he could
be linked to the high-purity heroin officials are now warning against.

The Woburn fire chief, Paul Tortolano, 50, grew up with Pappas in Woburn's
South End neighborhood. The pair did a tour of duty in Vietnam together
during the late 1960s, when Pappas served as an Army medic.

In 1976, Tortolano and Pappas were appointed to the Woburn Fire Department
on the same November day.

Tortolano said he never saw any evidence of drug abuse by Pappas. ''To my
knowledge, he didn't have a drug problem,'' he said.

During Pappas's more than 21 years on the job, he performed his duties with
excellence, Tortolano said. The firefighter handled the department's EMS
and defibrillator training - an electronic device that applies an electric
shock to restore a heart's rhythum.

''He will be tremendously missed by the 70-member force and me in
particular,'' Tortolano said. ''It will be very difficult to find someone
who will do a better job than Pat.''

State Representative Carol Donovan, a Woburn Democrat, who has known Pappas
since the late 1980s, said she was shocked by the news.

''I knew Patrick very well,'' she said. ''Aside from his work in the Fire
Department, he was very active in the community.''

Most recently, Donovan said, Pappas helped build the new Clapp School
playground. ''He was filled with energy and was always looking for ways to
help people.''

She said that Pappas asked her to introduce legislation to require children
to be trained in CPR before high school graduation. The bill is pending,
she said.

''Patrick may have been small in stature, standing only 5 feet, 6 inches
tall,'' she said. ''But he stood above the crowd.''

The possibility of his death by an overdose left fellow veterans unwilling
or unable to speak about Pappas. At the VFW Post in Winchester, a close
friend who grew up with Pappas shrugged off a reporter, saying ''I can't
talk about this right now.''

A funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. today at the McLaughlin Funeral
Home in Woburn. Burial will follow at Woodbrook Cemetery.

Pappas leaves his wife, Jill, and three children, Raychel, Kerry, and
Jesse. The family is asking that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to
the Pappas Children College Fund, c/o Woburn National Bank, 355 Main St.,
Woburn, Mass. 01801.