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They didn't find that out until early
Christmas morning 2009, eight
years later, when the firefighter's
lungs finally overfilled with fluids,
the side-effects of pancreatic
cancer inflicted on him by the
toxic dust he swallowed in
hundreds of hours at Ground
Zero.
Ryan answered the call of duty on
9/11, then went beyond, returning
to the blasted ground for months.
First, he hunted survivors, then
victims, then just fragments of
people - his FDNY brothers
among them - whose lives and
bodies were shattered that day.
He didn't realize how his own life
was being shattered. Officials said
the air was safe. He got cancer in
2006 that the Fire Department
said came from the poison
rubble. He beat it once. He
couldn't beat it a second time, as
a 48-year-old father of three.
On Christmas Eve, he tried to be
himself, optimistic, helping with the
morning dishes in his Kings Park,
L.I., home as if he were not dying.
By then, though, he had been off
his cancer treatments since
November because they no
longer worked.
"That's just the way he is," his wife,
Magda, said Christmas night,
hours after her husband lost his
final struggle.
That's the way most real heroes
are, but there were no national
headlines the next day mourning
a hero firefighter's death, the way
there were on Sept. 12, 2001,
when 343 of Ryan's brethren met
their ends.
The news yesterday was instead
full of a botched airline terror
attempt.
According to the reports, a young
Nigerian man on a plane landing
in Detroit had attempted to set
ablaze chemicals taped to his leg.
He burned himself, and achieved
an effect like popping firecrackers
before a passenger tackled him.
A flash and some smoke and
some fear, and the whole world
cared.
The suspected terrorist failed. He
killed no one, unlike the monsters
of 9/11, whose grim tally keeps
climbing. Now including James
Ryan.
He is a victim of the same killers
who slammed the planes into the
twin towers, the same killers who
may be behind the Detroit
flameout.
Yet for him, and for other recent
9/11 casualties like the NYPD's
James Zadroga and the FDNY's
John McNamara, our attention
and care is selective. They didn't
die amid the first flash and fire
and fear, and are not being
treated the same. Their families
are not getting the help their
predecessors in death got.
There is an answer. There is an
attempt to make our nation care -
a bill in Congress named after
Zadroga that would spend $11
billion over 30 years to help
Magda Ryan support her children
as a single mother, and help
thousands of other first
responders, construction workers,
clergy and volunteers who are ill
and suffering the mounting
effects of the worst terror attack in
U.S. history.
But like the rest of America,
Congress is distracted by flashier
things. Those who responded on
9/11 - there are some 60,000
whose health is being monitored
across most of the nation - are
not a top priority.
The latest politician to put them on
the back burner is New Jersey
Rep. Frank Pallone, who promised
in September to bring up the bill
in his subcommittee in October.
He never did. The Daily News
asked three times what happened.
Pallone's office answered twice
that they'd look into it.
We're still waiting, and so are the
ailing heroes of Sept.11, and the
spouses and children of the dead
and dying, because Jim Ryan will
not be the last victim of Sept. 11.
mmcauliff at nydailynews dot com