Along with Dorie Pearlman’s photo albums of her son working as an emergency medical technician, she has stacks of rejection letters from the Department of Justice. Forum Newsgroup Photo by Jeremiah Dobruck.
He would be 28 years old.
More than a decade after his death, a mother in Howard Beach is still fighting for final recognition that her son was serving the public as a first-responder on 9/11.
In January 2012, Dorie Pearlman received a final ruling from the United States Department of Justice that her son—a volunteer emergency medical technician—would not be included in the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits fund despite giving his life on 9/11.
On the morning of the attacks, Pearlman’s 18-year-old son, Richard, was delivering papers to 1 Police Plaza when a plane hit the World Trade Center.
Richard was a volunteer emergency medical technician and member of the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps since he was 13 years old, and when his mother heard the news, she knew he would go to the towers.
He had. When the call went out for anyone with medical training to report, Richard rode in a police cruiser to the site.
Pearlman flips through an album of pictures she’s collected to piece together Richard’s footsteps that day.
Dozens of photos clipped out of magazines show Richard attending to victims and
Dorie Pearlman first learned without a doubt that her son Richard was at the site of the tragedy on Sept. 11 when she saw a photo in Newsweek of him working to rescue victims. Forum Newsgroup photo by Jeremiah Dobruck.
standing in the background below the buildings before they collapsed.
Moments before the first tower went down, Richard followed a police officer into the lobby to answer a radio call asking for someone to perform CPR.
It wasn’t until March that rescue teams found Richard’s body next to the officer he followed into the tower.
Months later, Pearlman retrieved her son’s jacket and attaché case from the NYPD. Workers found the items in the back seat of a police cruiser that was crushed.
For Pearlman, there’s no doubt her son is a hero.
“He died the way he lived. His life was the ambulance corps and the Boy Scouts,” she said. “He gave his life so others could live.”
The Department of Justice has overwhelmingly agreed with her about that fact, but it has held back one piece of recognition.
The Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Act paid out $250,000 to the family of each public safety officer who died in the line of service on 9/11.
But even though the deadline to apply for the fund was extended for Pearlman, the Department of Justice has repeatedly ruled her son’s death does not qualify.
Pearlman’s co-op in Lindenwood is bursting with plaques, commendations, and pictures of her son.
Among them is the 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor, which Pearlman was called to the White House to receive for her son in 2005.
“If he was good enough to get the award, why isn’t he good enough to get the benefits?” Pearlman said. It’s a question she’s asked countless times since she applied to the program.
She was unaware of the benefits that often went hand-in-hand with the Medal of Valor until a friend urged her to apply in 2008.
Since her original application, she was denied three times: in July 2009, March 2011 and January 2012.
The final denial came from the director of the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Office.
The rejections all hinge on the same objection. In rulings and letters sent to Pearlman, the Department of Justice insists Richard was not serving in an official capacity. They say he was working only on behalf of the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps—a private organization—despite the city’s call for medical personnel.
Ten years after Richard’s death and following more than four years of fighting, Pearlman is at a loss.
Former Congressman Anthony Weiner had been battling on Pearlman’s behalf in 2010 and 2011. But when he resigned in the midst of a sexting scandal in June 2011, Pearlman lost her loudest advocate.
In desperation, she’s sent letters to every elected official she can find, reaching all the way to President Barack Obama.
“I can’t afford a high-priced lawyer, but I shouldn’t have to,” Pearlman said. “I just don’t know what to do anymore.”
After a decade, she said she has come to terms with her son’s death, but this is a nagging reminder of a missing accolaid for Richard.
Despite that reminding thorn, Pearlman said she still expects the young man to arrive home some afternoons.
It was the most vivid in the first few months, she said—as she sat by the window waiting for him to step off the Q41 bus.
“My daughter would say to me, ‘Mom, he’s not coming home no more.’” Pearlman said. “Ten years went so fast.”
By Jeremiah Dobruck
j.dobruck@theforumnewsgroup.com
