Plumber gets oxygen flowing

Installs air tanks in hosps

William Butterfield’s motto is “Plumbers protect the health of the nation” — and amid the coronavirus crisis, that statement has never been more true.

Butterfield, 55, is a fourth-generation plumber who has worked installing oxygen tanks and plumbing for Big Apple hospitals during the pandemic — putting his own life on the line because “they needed us.”

“The hospitals needed oxygen right away,” Butterfield (pictured), a married Long Island dad of two, told The Post.

“Hospital floors are so overwhelmed with COVID patients. They had to change certain wings in the hospitals to temporary beds. They needed oxygen at each bed, had to put medical gas in and install it at each bed.”

Butterfield recounted working on a coronavirus floor at Mount Sinai Brooklyn right next to the patients’ rooms.

“That is nerve-racking. Working there and you hear ‘code red’ or ‘code blue,’ means [a] patient is passing away. That’s depressing to hear,” Butterfield recalled of the tense moments.

“It’s like holy hell, somebody else now.”

Then, “You see the trailer outside, it’s not a good sight. All those people,” he said, referring to refrigerated trailers brought in to store dead bodies during the outbreak.

Butterfield and his crew were also called in to install oxygen tanks for 68 beds at the Central Park field hospital, working for “two days” under “rainy” “horrible” conditions “in the dark.”

He also put in the lifesaving oxygen tanks for 300 beds at Columbia University’s Baker Field makeshift hospital in upper Manhattan — and was called to Mount Sinai Morningside when it ran out of oxygen on the ninth floor.

Butterfield worked 14 to 15 hours a day until the job was done.

“Most of the patients [hospitals] have there now for COVID-19 need oxygen to help them recover, and it’s very important it’s installed correctly,” the plumber said.

“We use special pipes designed for oxygen and the insulation. Everything has to be clean and sterile so it doesn’t compromise the oxygen gas. They can’t have any contaminants in the piping system.”

Butterfield, who is in business with his father at plumbing company Fred J. Riehm, said that when he was first asked to do work for the city hospitals, he thought “holy s--t!”

“Not all my guys wanted to work because they were afraid. I had a handful of guys that stuck with me, though,” Butterfield said.

“I am a hands-on guy — you gotta be a leader and be out there with them. You can’t expect them to do it when they’re not going to do it.”

Do you have a nominee for The Post’s Hero of the Day? E-mail heroes@nypost.com.