The story of my grandfather, a New York fireman.

The story of my grandfather, a New York fireman.

BY BRENDAN MINITER
Friday, September 21, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT

The profession of fighting fires never seemed so heroic as it has this past week. As New York City mourns the more than 300 firemen who died at the Wold Trade Center, I can't help but think of all the others who've dedicated and sometimes lost their lives dousing fires in New York City. One of them was my grandfather, Harry Miniter.

Although he died before I was born, he's long been a family hero.

The Fire Department was understandably unable to help me research his service this week. So for now I have the memory of older generations, a medal awarded to him for his service and a helmet he wore, which is dented from falling debris.

A hair shy of the minimum height required of aspiring firefighters, Harry had a plan. Knowing the average man is slightly taller in the morning because his back naturally compresses under the weight of gravity, he stayed in bed the day of his physical. He had his sisters dress him and then carry him to the car--all the while remaining horizontal. A friend stood in line for him, and he dashed into the building only when his proxy was next to be measured. Harry stood rigidly and made height.





It wasn't the last time he overcame seemingly impossible odds for the noble privilege of fighting fires. In the 1940s, he was sent to a fire on the Hoboken pier. It was an especially dangerous blaze because many of the burning ships--headed for Europe--were loaded with ammunition and explosives. Harry was ordered onto one of these ships, but the blaze soon spread to the ammo. One by one the cargo holds began to explode. No one's sure if Harry dived into the water or was thrown out to sea by one of the blasts, but he was listed as missing and presumed dead.
He awoke in a New Jersey hospital. An older nurse came to his side and, not able to identify him from his tattered, singed uniform, asked his name. "Harry Miniter," he said. According to family legend, the nurse turned white and nearly fainted. She had been on duty when the Hoboken pier had caught fire during World War I. That fire also comprised of vessels containing war supplies. During that fire she had nursed my great-grandfather--Henry Miniter--back to health.

My grandfather must've felt lucky, because he continued fighting fires. He once badly hurt his back in a fire and didn't know it until the next day. He was fighting a blaze in a building when one of his legs fell through the burning floor. After the fire was extinguished he took the subway home. But as he walked to the subway the next day, a neighbor remarked that Harry was walking "awfully funny." Moments later he collapsed, paralyzed. He spent several weeks in the hospital, refusing to let the doctors operate--my elderly aunts tells me that Harry "was afraid that if they operated he would never be allowed to fight fires again."

Harry kept fighting fires, but his back was never quite as strong.





His luck was beginning to run out. In 1956 he was sent underground to investigate a possible gas leak, he soon realized the danger and ordered an evacuation. He was the last to climb out. As he started to emerge from the manhole, the gas ignited. The explosion shot him like a bullet out of the pipe and he landed almost a block away.
My father was pulled from school and raced to the hospital. Everyone suspected this was the accident that would be the death of Lt. Harry Miniter--and they were eventually proved right. The force of the blast had pulled apart most of the muscles in his chest. He slowly rebuilt those muscles, but his heart was weaker. Shortly after getting out of the hospital, he had a heart attack while on the scene of another fire. The Fire Department found him a desk job, but within a year he retired. Eleven years later, shortly before he died of a heart attack, he remarked that the city made a mistake. "I could've fought fires for 11 more years."

Mr. Miniter is assistant e***or of OpinionJournal.com.

Thanks for being there for me.​