WASHINGTON: Relatives of a New York fire chief killed in the 9/11 terror attacks have finally held his funeral nearly 15 years later by burying recently-found vials of his blood, his only known remains.
His family had previously been unable to give Lawrence Stack a service according to his Roman Catholic faith as no trace of his body was located in the rubble. Only his jacket was retrieved.
But they recently found blood that Mr Stack, 58, had donated just before the September 2001 attacks in a bone marrow drive for a child with cancer.
"Now we can lay him to rest," said his son Michael, who also works in the New York fire department. Thousands of firemen saluted as a flag-draped casket took two tiny vials into church on Long Island, on what would have been Mr Stack's 49th wedding anniversary.
The battalion leader was doing paperwork in an office when he learned of the World Trade Center disaster and raced to help people flee the burning skyscrapers. He was last seen kneeling down to help a man with an injured leg, just before the South Tower collapsed.