9/11 Just Claimed Another Life -- The Firefighter Who Made Congress Care

WASHINGTON — While New York City firefighter Ray Pfeifer was slowly dying of Sept. 11-related cancer, he always called himself the luckiest man alive. Pfeifer, who died Sunday from that illness at the age of 59, would probably say his luck held. If not for chance, Pfeifer would have died on Sept. 11, 2001, when 343 other city firefighters perished in the collapsing World Trade Center complex, including all the men on duty at Pfeifer’s Engine 40. “9/11 happened, I’m supposed to work. I lived. Why? Because I switched my tour,” Pfeifer told HuffPost in March before laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in honor of those who have fought and died for America, before and after terrorists struck the twin towers. His eyes glistened at the memory. One of those who did not survive was the friend who took Ray’s tour, Steve Mercado. “He lost everybody in his fire house,” his wife Caryn said. “He was supposed to be working that day. So he does have that guilt.” While Pfeifer didn’t know it in the wrenching months and years that followed, the Sept. 11 attack that killed the friends he tried to pull from the smoking rubble would ultimately claim Pfeifer’s life, too. Doctors believe the toxic clouds that boiled from the devastation are to blame for his cancer, and for the illnesses afflicting 40,000 other people who suffered exposure. “So, then a couple of years later I get cancer. So what?” said...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news