Victims of Cancers Linked to Work At WTCFDNY Pays Tribute to ‘Fluffy’ And 20 Other Belated Casualties of 9/11
LARGER THAN LIFE, EVEN IN DEATH: Cosmo Diorio, left, a Firefighter assigned to Rescue Co. 1 standing alongside Lieut. George Quevedo, was one of about two dozen colleagues from the Fire Riders motorcycle club who gathered to pay tribute to Capt. John R. Graziano, affectionately known as ‘Big Dog’ because ‘he was larger than life,’ at the ceremony honoring those who died of 9/11-related illnesses during the last year.
Posted: Monday, September 14, 2015 5:00 pm | Updated: 5:10 pm, Mon Sep 14, 2015.
Emergency Medical Service stations can be intense places, but Luis de Peña had a knack for brightening up the mood at Station 13 in Washington Heights.
“Wherever he went, the light came on,” EMS Capt. Steven Cuevas said last week, describing a man with a “giant smile” who always invited the neighborhood kids to the station for his off-duty barbecues.
Not Fat, ‘Fluffy’
After a colleague kidded him about his weight, he quipped that he wasn’t fat—he was fluffy. To Mr. Cuevas, “Fluffy,” as he was known thereafter, held a special place at the station—he dubbed him the “chief morale officer.”
“He was just one of those guys that made us feel good,” Captain Cuevas said. “You know we deal with a lot of pain and suffering on a daily basis, so—when Louie came on the scene, everything was okay.”
Mr. de Peña was one of 21 FDNY members who died in the last year of illnesses linked to the toxic dust they breathed while doing recovery work on Sept. 11, 2001. He was 39 years old, a rare male victim of breast cancer.
On Sept. 8, his name was added to a wall at FDNY headquarters in downtown Brooklyn, across from the memorial honoring the 343 members who died the day of the attacks.
Nearly a third as many have now succumbed to illness, with the number climbing each year. After the initial 55 names were added in 2011 reflecting deaths over the previous decade, the tally grew by nine, then 12, then 13 names.
For the first time this year, so many family members gathered for the ceremony—at least 250—that all but immediate relatives were required to wait outside.
Michael Barasch, an attorney whose firm represents thousands of World Trade Center claimants, said the trend reflects his own experience. Each year, he is contacted by more members, and more of his existing clients get sick. That’s to be expected in an aging population, though the long incubation period of some cancers may be playing a role.
‘Not a Week Goes By’
“Not a week goes by without one of our WTC personal-injury claimants passing away due to their 9/11 illness,” Mr. Barasch said. “We currently represent 358 deceased claimants.”
The dust released on Sept. 11 was teeming with toxins. Pulverized glass, steel and concrete, along with burning jet fuel, electrical cables, plastics and computer equipment released everything from asbestos and dioxins to lead, PCBs and various volatile organic compounds into the air.
Mr. de Peña, like many EMS colleagues, rode one of the motorized vehicles—called Gators—that roamed The Pile after the attacks. He retrieved human remains and brought them to a temporary morgue.
Awilda Gomez, a fellow EMT and close friend, said that she and her colleagues laughed when their friend first announced that he had breast cancer. Men don’t get that, they protested.
The condition is rare in men; they represent just 1 percent of victims. Mr. de Peña’s mother and four sisters were tested for the known gene mutations linked to the disease, but all came up negative, Ms. Gomez said. His doctors told him it was related to his Trade Center work.
The EMT recalled “Fluffy” as the type who’d often entice his colleagues to the Bronx lounge where he bartended part-time, cheering them with a drink when they worked double shifts on Christmas or celebrating when they delivered a baby on the job.
At the ceremony honoring Mr. de Peña and his colleagues, family members lay white carnations on a table in front of their loved ones’ names. A bell was rung for each deceased member, and some cried as Firefighter Regina Wilson sang “Amazing Grace.”
‘The Grieving Wasn’t Over’
Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro, speaking of the Sept. 11 attacks in which he himself lost dozens of friends and colleagues, recalled the anguish of the initial losses.
“As unimaginable as that pain was to bear, the one bit of solace we believed we had was that the loss of life was over,” he said. “We could rebuild our department and honor our fallen members together. And then we soon learned it wasn’t over.”
More than 10,000 FDNY members are now battling disease related to their 9/11 service.
Like Mr. de Peña, Fire Captain John R. Graziano was beloved as a joker around his firehouse—most recently, at Ladder Co. 78 in Staten Island.
At 6’1”, he weighed more than 300 pounds before his illness, and was known as “Big Dog.” The name stuck not just at the firehouse, but in the Fire Riders motorcycle club, where he was an enthusiastic member.
“We used to call him the Big Dog because he was larger than life,” said Cosmo Diorio, a Fire Rider who showed up in motorcycle gear with about two dozen comrades.
Insisted ‘I’ll Beat It’
Mr. Diorio, a Firefighter in Rescue Co. 1, was with Mr. Graziano on a ride as he nervously awaited the doctor’s call that would confirm his pancreatic cancer.
“And then when he heard, he was like, ‘I’ll beat it, I’ll be one of those guys that can beat it,’” despite the grim prognosis of being diagnosed with Stage IV advanced disease, Mr. Diorio recalled. He continued to ride even after he became so weak that he had trouble holding the bike up.
The “big teddy bear” eventually shrunk to about half his former size before he died at age 62, said Lieut. George Quevedo, who worked with Mr. Graziano for about 30 years. He recalled his friend as the type who “never lost his way,” even after being promoted.
“Even though he was a Captain, he was still a fireman. At heart,” Mr. Diorio said, jumping in. Mr. Quevedo added, “And that’s why a lot of the guys liked him. A lot of the guys when they do get promoted, they tend to forget where they came from. So they’re a little hard on the members. Johnny never forgot. Johnny was always a part of the group; he was always there for them.”
‘Remember Me’
Despite the solemnity of the occasion, there were occasional laughs as friends recalled their comrades’ best qualities. Captain Cuevas managed a smile as he recalled a gift that Mr. de Peña left him on a block of wood he’d been using to practice engraving.
It read “Fluffy was here in 2016,” a date he knew he’d never see.
“He said, ‘Cuevas, you hold onto this. And you remember me,’” the Captain said. “And so I have it in my office and it’ll always be a part of the station.”
Then he chuckled. In one final attempt to lighten the mood, Mr. de Peña had left a barb for another colleague, a Dallas Cowboys fan.
“Dallas Sucks,” he’d carefully carved on the reverse side of the wood.
Others Honored
The other members honored for their service last week were Firefighter Joseph T. Callahan, Engine Co. 245; Lieut. Howard Bischoff, Ladder Co. 149; Battalion Chief Richard E. McGuire, Battalion 51; Firefighter Daniel E. Heglund, Rescue Co. 4; EMS Lieut. Douglas Mulholland, EMS Station 35; Firefighter Robert E. Leaver, Division 3; Firefighter Cornell L. Horne, Ladder Co. 176; EMS Lieut. Michael F. Cavanagh, EMS Station 16; EMS Lieut. Thomas Giammarino, EMS Station 31; Deputy Chief Inspector James W. Mandelkow, Bureau of Fire Prevention; Firefighter Eugene J. McCarey, Ladder Co. 36; Lieut. John J. Halpin, Ladder Co. 33; Firefighter James J. Marshall, Ladder Co. 78; EMS Capt. William C. Olsen, EMS Station 23; Firefighter Charles S. Szoke, Ladder Co. 21; Lieut. Keith M. Loughlin, Ladder Co. 109; Battalion Chief John J. Cassidy, Battalion 40; Lieut. John J. Gremse, Engine Co. 302; and Firefighter Gregory A. Chevalley, Ladder Co. 176.
