WE OFTEN HEAR RACE WINNERS REFERRED TO AS HEROES. MOST ARE NOT. THEY ARE GREAT ATHLETES. THE PEOPLE TO WHOM THE FOLLOWING STORY IS DEDICATED WERE REAL HEROES. THEIR COURAGE AND COMMITMENT IS THE STUFF OF LEGEND. kk
By Shannon D. Harrington
The Record
HACKENSACK, N.J. - Francis Riccardelli didn’t wear a uniform. He had no police badge, no fire helmet. But as the man in charge of the World Trade Center towers’ vast maze of elevators, his role in helping thousands of people escape the burning buildings on Sept. 11, 2001, was critical.
Friday, Riccardelli will be one of 13 civilian Port Authority workers posthumously awarded a national Public Safety Officer’s Medal of Valor.
His widow and five children, of Westwood, N.J., will accept the medal at the White House alongside the families of more than 400 police officers, firefighters and other uniformed rescue workers who lost their lives while doing their jobs.
He did the incredibly hard thing,'' said widow Theresa Riccardelli, who has fought to have the civilian trade center managers honored. He stayed in that building and ran the risk of leaving these five children.’’
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - which lost 84 workers, including 37 police officers in the terrorist attacks - also fought to have the trade center operations staff honored alongside their uniformed counterparts.
On the day of the attack, they understood the complex probably far better than anyone else did,'' Port Authority Chairman Anthony Coscia said. They participated in the response as civilians in order to lead firefighters and rescue workers to the right spots.
``Even though they didn’t wear a uniform, they stuck around and saved others and paid a very dear price for it.’’
The staff included Peter Negron, an environmental coordinator for the trade center from Bergenfield, N.J., whose job it was to identify for firefighters flammable materials stored in the trade center. Port Authority officials say he was seen helping to evacuate elevators on the 78th floor of One World Trade Center before the tower collapsed.
Riccardelli, too, was helping to evacuate elevators in the towers. He was last seen by a co-worker running into Two World Trade Center.
I think for my children, I wanted him recognized,'' Theresa Riccardelli said. They see that … he’s a hero and people know it.’’
Leila Negron also is encouraged that her children will watch at the White House Friday as their father is honored. Her younger son, Austin, was only 2 when his father died.
But Negron said she wishes all of those who died in the towers could be honored.
``I’m going to carry that in my heart and my soul for all of the victims,’’ she said.
Congress and President Bush last year created the Medal of Valor to honor the hundreds of rescue workers who died in the attacks. Among those being awarded the medals Friday are the 343 New York firefighters who died at the trade center and the 37 Port Authority and 23 New York police officers who died.
The medals have been a long time coming. Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-New York, began pushing for the medals to be approved by Congress a month after the attacks. Crowley’s cousin, Fire Battalion Chief John Moran, was killed at the trade center.