Remains of 9/11 World Trade Center firefighter Lt. Jeffrey Walz identified

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/06/newser-911-sept-11-firefighter/2494477/
July 6, 2013

The "gentle giant" is going back to his family. Improved DNA testing has identified the remains of another of the firefighters killed in the 9/11 attacks, reports the Staten Island Advance.

Lt. Jeffrey Walz died in the north tower nearly a dozen years ago.

 

Walz was 37 when he died, leaving behind Rani and their 3-year-old son, Bradley. He managed to call his wife and parents from the tower before it collapsed, says his sister.

As for that "gentle giant" nickname: "It was obviously because of his height and because he was such a good person," explains his wife. "He was a saint with me."

A city official says the remains of 1,637 World Trade Center victims have now been identified, leaving 1,116 unidentified.

"At least we can say he's not missing anymore," mom Jennie Walz tells the Journal News.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/06/newser-911-sept-11-firefighter/2494477/

(Photo: NYFD via AP)

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/06/jeffrey-walz-fdny-wtc_n_3554288.html?utm_hp_ref=new-york
Jeffrey Walz, 9/11 FDNY Lieutenant, Identified In WTC Remains (VIDEO)
July 6, 2013

NEW YORK -- Firefighter Jeffrey Walz phoned his wife and his parents on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, telling them he was being called into action, his brother recalls. His relatives would never see him again or even have any of his remains to bury, until now.

The city medical examiner's office said Friday that it had identified some of Walz' remains, making him the 1,637th person identified among the thousands of remains found in and near the rubble of the World Trade Center after the terror attacks. Authorities have painstakingly tested and retested the material as technology became more refined.
 
After growing up on Staten Island, Jeffrey Walz got an electrical engineering degree and worked at the Navy's air engineering station at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.

But he'd been enthralled as a child by his father's stories about working as a firefighter, his brother said, and he decided to follow his father's example.

Walz joined the Fire Department of New York in 1992, though the naval station persuaded him to keep working there on some of his days off, former deputy public works officer Charlie Mink told the Asbury Park Press in 2006, when a road at the base was named in Walz's honor.

Walz was assigned to Ladder Co. 9 in downtown Manhattan, where he was dispatched one day when someone called the fire department about a crowded Halloween party. One of the guests got in touch with him afterward and ultimately became his wife, Rani. They settled in suburban Tuckahoe and had a son, Bradley, now 15.

"There was nothing ostentatious about him. He just was a good, clean-living person," a quiet guy who let his smile speak for him, his mother, Jennie Walz, said by phone.

Jeffrey Walz, who was promoted to lieutenant after his death at age 37, died in the trade center's north tower. His remains were collected during the initial recovery effort in 2001 and 2002, but they were retested and identified just recently, medical examiner's office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.

Altogether, 2,753 people perished in the attacks at the trade center, and 343 firefighters were among the victims.

New identifications are made periodically. Most recently, the medical examiner's office said two weeks ago it had identified a 43-year-old woman, whose family didn't want her name released.

Walz's family decided to let his identification be made public.

"Maybe it'll give other families hope," his mother said.