Suicide doc was 9/11 hero
Tragic hubby’s aid amid 9/11
The broke Manhattan chiropractor who jumped with his wife to their deaths was “a saint” who helped relieve joint pain for hundreds of 9/11 rescuers, close friends told The Post.
Glenn Scarpelli, 53, who committed suicide Friday with his wife, Patricia Colant, 50, because of financial woes, spent days and nights volunteering his time at the World Trade Center after the 2001 terror attacks.
“We helped adjust for stressed and freaked out firefighters, policemen anyone who needed help,” said Adam Lamb, a fellow chiropractor who volunteered alongside Scarpelli. “He was just an amazing, amazing, generous person.”
Scarpelli and Colant left a detailed suicide note be- fore their fatal leap onto East 33rd Street in Murray Hill, detailing how they “cannot live with” their “financial reality.”
The chiropractor spoke about his 9/11 volunteering to blog writer Dr. Thomas Lamar. “You could feel the energy. You could feel the death in the air,” he said. “We’re using just our hands and adjusting people from our hearts.”
“He just wanted to help people,” said Amy Lambert, who rented a room in Scarpelli’s Madison Wellness Center.
Lambert, who is also a chiropractor, would sometimes volunteer with Scarpelli at soup kitchens throughout New York City, where he would adjust the backs of needy people.
At his own Murray Hill practice, he “never turned anyone away if they couldn’t afford his services,” Lambert recounted.
Scarpelli and Colant leapt to their deaths around 5:45 a.m. from the ninth floor of the Madison Avenue building where his practice was located.
Inside each of their pockets was a suicide note in a plastic baggie — apparently to keep blood off the letters.
Scarpelli titled his typed suicide note, “WE HAD A WONDERFUL LIFE.’’
“Patricia and I had everything in life,” the dad of two wrote.
But the note also described the pair’s “financial spiral,’’ sources said.
Records showed the couple owed $23,304 in federal taxes. An April 2015 lien indicated a $232,295 debt.
The couple left behind two kids — Joseph, 19, and Isabella, 20 — who just graduated from the Upper East Side’s Loyola HS.
Lamb and Lambert were shocked by the suicides.
“It’s so completely out of character for them,” said Lambert. “They were nothing but gentle, kind and grounded.”
Scarpelli did have one blemish on his seemingly noble family unit.
His father, Joseph Scarpelli, served 18 months in federal prison for taking bribes from a developer to gain approval for construction projects while serving as the Brick Township Mayor in New Jersey, reports say.