\n Instead of celebrating Jimmy Jr.\u2019s 30th birthday the next day, Riches spent the following six months tirelessly sifting through twisted steel and ash, risking his own safety, searching for the son who followed in his footsteps. Jimmy Jr. was one of 343 firefighters killed responding to the attacks.\n <\/p>\n
\n When the towers and several surrounding buildings collapsed, a dense cloud of toxic dust, gases and smoke engulfed lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cHe was there every day to find his son,\u201d said Richard Browers, retired FDNY lieutenant and former president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.\n <\/p>\n \n Riches\u2019 search for his son ended in March 2002, when Jimmy Jr.\u2019s crushed helmet, bearing the Ladder 114 number, was found in the rubble of where the North Tower once stood. His body was uncovered nearby.\n <\/p>\n \n Twenty-four years later, the toxic exposure from those months of searching would claim Riches\u2019 life too. Riches died Thanksgiving Day, becoming one of more than 400 FDNY members who have died from 9\/11-related illnesses. He was 74.\n <\/p>\n \n Thousands more firefighters, fire officers, EMTs and recovery workers are battling cancers, lung disease, heart conditions, digestive disorders and other chronic illnesses caused by inhaling Ground Zero toxins.\n <\/p>\n \n Riches spent two decades fighting to get justice for 9\/11 survivors, victims and their families.\n <\/p>\n \n Riches joined the fire department in 1977 and, over the years, earned the nickname \u201cBig Daddy\u201d for always having one of his sons by his side.\n <\/p>\n \n Jimmy Jr., a former NYPD officer, joined the FDNY in 1999. His three younger brothers \u2014 Timothy, Danny and Thomas \u2014 would go on to become firefighters themselves.\n <\/p>\n \n When Jimmy Jr.\u2019s body was found in March 2002, Riches called on his sons, including FDNY Capt. Thomas Riches, who was 17 at the time, and together they carried Jimmy Jr. out of the pit at Ground Zero, where the North Tower once stood. They placed him on a stretcher wrapped in an American flag as workers nearby lined up for a procession.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cA whole crew of us got down there on our hands and knees and we dug, you know, with our hands,\u201d Riches previously said<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Even after finding his son, Riches returned to Ground Zero every day until recovery efforts ended in May 2002, hoping to bring peace to other families. More than 2,900 people died on 9\/11, and Riches was determined to help recover them all.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI stayed to the very end, and it was a gruesome task,\u201d Riches previously said, \u201cand it\u2019s just nice that America never forgets, and they keep this going on, because these people were heroes who were attacked on this land, and they don\u2019t deserve to be forgotten.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMy son\u2019s not going to come back. It doesn\u2019t give you any closure,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you know, I have a cemetery to go to. There\u2019s a thousand families who have nothing to go to, and it breaks my heart knowing this is their cemetery.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Years later, Riches said whenever he was in the area, he\u2019d stop by, bless himself, and say a little prayer.\n <\/p>\n \n In the years that followed, Riches watched as fellow firefighters began to fall ill \u2014 coughing up blood, battling mysterious cancers and lung diseases. He was already sounding the alarm, writing letters, speaking at union meetings and testifying before lawmakers about the growing health crisis among 9\/11 first responders.\n <\/p>\n \n Riches faced his own medical emergency in 2005. After months of struggling to breathe, he was hospitalized with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a life-threatening condition that left him in a coma for 16 days.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThey told my family I\u2019d be dead in five hours, get everybody together. And I pulled out of it, then I had, like, stroke-like symptoms. I had to learn how to walk and talk and do everything all over again. I\u2019m alive, thank God,\u201d he told CNN in 2014.\n <\/p>\n \n But his lung capacity was never the same.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cHe could never catch his breath, you know. And he battled all those small battles with the lungs and everything for years,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cA lot of people might not have known it, but we knew it at home.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Riches retired from the fire department in 2007 as deputy chief \u2014 the highest rank a firefighter can achieve without a city appointment, Thomas said.\n <\/p>\n \n For most of his life, Riches was a powerhouse \u2014 on the basketball court at Iowa State University, in FDNY leagues where he dominated, and on the shore where he ran daily. When Riches and his older sons played basketball together, Thomas said, they were \u201ca force to be reckoned with.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n He became a fierce champion for first responders, 9\/11 victims and their families, eventually chairing the organization 9\/11 Families and Parents of Firefighters and WTC Victims<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n His efforts, along with those of other survivors and families, helped lead to the creation of the World Trade Center Health Program<\/a> and the 9\/11 Victim Compensation Fund<\/a>. He testified before Congress, met with the Obama administration, and traveled to Guantanamo Bay<\/a> to represent families during hearings for the men charged with conspiring in the attacks.\n <\/p>\n \n Locally, he was unafraid to speak out, publicly criticizing then\u2013New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for politicizing the tragedy and for the city\u2019s lack of preparation and outdated equipment \u2014 especially the nearly decade-old radios that prevented many firefighters from hearing mayday calls.\n <\/p>\n![\"FDNY](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/gettyimages-99622884.jpg\")
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