In the years since Safety Battalion Chief Lawrence Stack died in the September 11 attacks, his family hoped and waited for his remains to be found so they could lay him to rest.
“Weeks turned into months,” his son, Lieutenant Michael Stack told the New York Times. “Months turned into years. Two years turned into five, turned into 10. Now it’s 15.”
The family eventually learned how Stack died, but only his jacket was ever recovered.
Stack’s family recently discovered that the chief had donated blood before he died. Using the blood as his remains, the family finally felt that they could lay him to rest in a funeral on Friday.
Several thousand people attended, including friends, neighbors and fellow firefighters, according to Jim Long, a spokesman for the FDNY.
The date, 17 June, was Stack and his wife’s wedding anniversary. It was also the anniversary of the Father’s Day Fire of 2001, in which three firefighters died.
New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, fire commissioner Daniel Nigro and Stack’s son Michael all gave speeches on Friday.
“They spoke of him as being a very good man who would do anything for anyone,” Long said.
Afterward, the casket bearing the blood vials was placed on top of a ceremonial firetruck. Bagpipes filled the air as the procession departed for Calverton National Cemetery.
Stack had donated blood before he died during a bone marrow drive for a local child with cancer. Years later, the family reached out to the New York Blood Center in hopes that his donation would still be saved in their bank, the FDNY wrote on their Facebook.
Stack served for 33 years on the FDNY. Members of the safety battalion, Long said, “were the eyes, the extra set of eyes on the fireman, safety officers, the people of New York”.
On 11 September 2001 Stack was working in his office at the Navy Yard where he had been finishing writing a report on the Father’s Day Fire that had occurred a few months previously.
When he heard the news that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, he headed to the roof for a better look. Then he and his team headed over to help.
Stack ensured that the firefighters around him made it out of the falling building, Long said, but he stopped to help a man with an injured leg. Those who left relayed Stack’s bravery to his son.
“The last thing they remember seeing is my dad on one knee with this man,” lieutenant Stack told the Times. “Staying with him.”
