A retired New York Fire Department deputy chief, who lost his firefighter son in the September 11 US attacks and spent decades fighting for sick first responders, has died from a 9/11-related illness.
James “Jim” Riches died on Thanksgiving Day at the age of 74, nearly 24 years after he worked tirelessly at Ground Zero searching for his eldest son, Firefighter James Riches Jr. His death makes him one of more than 400 FDNY members who have died from illnesses linked to toxic exposure following the collapse of the World Trade Center, CNN reported.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Riches rushed to lower Manhattan as the second tower fell. His son, known as Jimmy Jr, was assigned to Ladder 114 in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighbourhood and had responded with Engine Company 4. He was last seen carrying an injured woman from the lobby of the North Tower. Jimmy Jr was among the 343 firefighters killed in the attacks.
In the months that followed, Riches returned daily to the ruins of the World Trade Center, sifting through debris filled with toxic dust, smoke and gases that blanketed lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn after the collapses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“He was there every day to find his son,” said Richard Brower, a retired FDNY lieutenant and former president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.
The search ended in March 2002, when Jimmy Jr's crushed helmet, bearing the Ladder 114 number, was recovered from the site of the North Tower. His body was found nearby. When Jimmy Jr was recovered, Riches called his other sons to Ground Zero. Together, they carried Jimmy Jr from the pit where the North Tower once stood.
More than 2,900 people were killed on September 11.
Even after finding his son, Riches continued to work at the site until recovery operations ended in May 2002. His health collapsed in 2005, when he was hospitalised with acute respiratory distress syndrome and placed in a coma for 16 days.
“They told my family I'd be dead in five hours, get everybody together. And I pulled out of it, then I had, like, stroke-like symptoms. I had to learn how to walk and talk and do everything all over again. I'm alive, thank God,” Riches told CNN in 2014.
His lung capacity never fully recovered.
Riches joined the FDNY in 1977 and retired in 2007 with the rank of deputy chief, the highest position attainable without a city appointment.
He was laid to rest on December 1 following a funeral at St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, attended by crowds that lined the streets as bagpipes marked a full FDNY farewell.
