9/11-linked TWU deaths
Ten city transit workers were honored last summer for their contributions to the 9/11 rescue and recovery operation at Ground Zero.
A year later, three of them are dead of illnesses linked to the gases swirling around the Pit, their union said.
James Delman, Louis Barberi and Peter Gibbons were among the 3,000 transit workers who toiled at Ground Zero following the terror strikes.
“They are truly American heroes,” said Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Tony Utano.
The three were honored by the union in September 2017 with medals depicting their unheralded work in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack.
Delman was featured in a Daily News story on the event.
At the time Delman, who was on the “bucket brigade” hauling concrete and metal from the Pit, was in need of a lung transplant and suffering from pulmonary fibrosis.
“I still get nightmares,” Delman, of Berkelery Township, N.J., said last year.
The 28-year transit vet died May 6 at the age of 64.
Gibbons, an Army vet who fought in Vietnam, died March 7 at the age of 71, according to an online obituary.
Barberi died Feb. 16 at 66, according to an obituary.
“They put their health and safety on the line for others,” Utano said. “TWU Local 100 will never forget them.”