In Ray Pfeifer’s name
When a New York City firefighter dies in the line of duty, the fire bells ring 20 times: five rings, followed by a pause, and again, and again, and again. The 5-5-5-5 code rang for Bronx fireman Ray Pfeifer, who died Sunday at the age of 59 from cancer, years after he spent eight months following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in rescue and recovery work at the World Trade Center atop the smoldering, toxic wreckage.
Having undergone rounds of chemotherapy and radiation and surgery, even having part of a leg amputated, the cancer still advanced: into his lungs, his adrenal glands and his brain.
Even as Pfeifer fought the disease, he battled forces of callous partisanship and political inertia to win health care and financial compensation for thousands of fellow firefighters and cops and construction workers who descended on The Pile as humble helpers, and emerged heroes.
They breathed in air thick with pulverized concrete, air that was literally murder on the lungs. It did not take medical science long to state that plainly. But it took years for our government, which in the days following the attacks said the air was safe to breathe, to admit that we, the people, owed those who rushed to our aid the decency of care and compensation.
The bells rang 6,860 times for 343 firefighters killed on 9/11, and another 2,800 times for 140 firefighters dead of 9/11-related illnesses since. More than a hundred police officers and other recovery workers also lost their lives.
It wasn’t until 2011 that the Zadroga Act, named after another hero of The Pile, became law, and not until December 2015 that the sunsetting bill was permanently reauthorized.
Shame on us for forcing Pfeifer and others to expend precious energy in waning years fighting for what they had earned through sweat and pain. And shame on us, too, for waiting so long to erect a formal place of honor on the site to the men and women who labored on The Pile.
On Tuesday, National September 11 Memorial & Museum chairman Mike Bloomberg stood with Gov. Cuomo to announce plans in the works near the giant waterfalls where the day’s dead are memorialized.
Future generations will now learn what Ray Pfeifer and his comrades did to honor the dead and help the living rebuild. And how long and hard their countrymen then made them struggle, repeating paeans to their heroism all along the way.