Retired NYC Firefighter Remembers Son Lost on 9/11/2001

This year is the 17th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Two planes struck the twin towers killing nearly 3,000 people.

 

Jim Riches' son was one of those people. 

 

Riches led the search and rescue operations that recovered his oldest son’s body.  His son’s name was also Jim and he, like his father, was a firefighter. Riches said his son “was a hero before 9/11 and he is a hero after 9/11.”

 

Every year on September 11th, Riches and his family go to Lower Manhattan and visit the site where they found his son’s body. While they are there, they remember him by telling stories.

 

"Every day we miss him, every single day. 9/11 is just an anniversary. People can say closure, but there's no closure, he's not going to walk through that door and pick something up or throw his brothers around. He doesn't come home," Riches said.

 

"We honor his memory every day by talking about him and telling stories about him." 

 

Riches described his son as friendly.  He even called him a 'kook' when sharing an anecdote that the younger Riches once spontaneously got on a plane to Florida in the middle of the night.

 

Riches, retired a deputy fire chief, spent the nine months after the attack at Ground Zero leading search and rescue efforts. He likened that scene to Dante’s Inferno with smoke and crushed building everywhere. 

 

The rescue work made Riches sick in 2006, just a year after he retired. He suffered acute respiratory distress that put him in a coma for 16 days. 

 

Riches said he’ll never forget his son. It's what he wants Americans to do, never forget, but move on.