Firefighter Touched Many Lives Before, After 9/11
BY LIZ GOFF I
In the dark days that followed September 11, 2001, Maureen Santora mourned the death of her son, New York City Firefighter

On opposite page: "A basketball guy in a Barbie house", Santora is surrounded by his sisters, Jennifer, Megan and Kathleen.

Christopher Santora.

"I believed nothing would ever be all right again," Santora said. "Until one day when I looked around me, and realized how Chris had touched the lives of his friends and family.

"I realized how his passion for life-and his loss-encouraged others to follow their dream," Santora said. "I realized, then, that Chris would never really be gone."

Firefighter Christopher Santora and his comrades from Engine 54 were about to begin the long climb toward the fires that ravaged the World Trade Center when the first tower fell.

Christopher and his fellow firefighters were trapped, buried beneath tons of debris as they stood outside the Marriott Hotel, their truck reduced to a mass of twisted steel.

According to the City Medical Examiner, Christopher died from a massive blow to the head. "It was instant," Maureen Santora said. "They told us he never knew what happened."

Christopher Santora joined Cub Scouts at about age seven and remained in the organization through junior high school.

"Chris loved sports," Santora said. "Football, tennis, softball-you name it, he loved it. He hated the Mets and the Yankees, but he was crazy about the Blue Jays. He rattled off stats and other team information at the drop of a hat. He had a phenomenal memory. No one could beat him. Chris was a true athlete. He took tennis lessons at Flushing Meadows [-Corona] Park. He played stickball, softball and baseball from the time he was a little boy."

Santora said she and her husband, Al, met on the ski slopes in Montreal, Canada. They shared their passion for the slopes with their children. Christopher "aced the sport with a fearless attitude that made him a terrific skier," she said. "But his true passion was basketball, even though he wasn't built for the game. Chris was about 5 feet, 8 inches tall. He wasn't heavy, but he was powerful, with very strong arms and legs-not that it helped his game."

Santora said Christopher would stop by the family's Long Island City house after school, then head straight for the basketball courts on 21st Street and 34th Avenue or in "112 Park," on 28th Street in Dutch Kills.

The Queensview Nursery School provided Santora (c.) with lifelong friends, among them Isam Rum (l.) and Ryan Lee.

"He would be there for hours shooting hoops," she said. "It didn't matter if the windows were open or closed-you were always able to hear Chris above the other kids."

Santora said Christopher loved being involved with other kids in sports competitions, and played on one of six or seven teams in an annual basketball tournament on Vernon Boulevard. "He was instrumental in establishing the tournament," she said. "He always had to be right in the middle of everything."

In the months following Chris' death, the city named an intersection at 21st Street and 33rd Road, "Firefighter Christopher Santora Place" in his honor. The intersection sits just across the street from the basketball courts where Santora spent so much of his time as a youth.

Christopher Santora might have loved sports, but he was surrounded by sisters who had other ideas for the channel selector. "Poor Chris-he was a basketball guy in a Barbie house, " Maureen Santora said.

When Christopher was ready to accept defeat, he would head with his dad to the home of his godfather, whose three sons were always glued to a game on the tube, Santora said. "Even then, he enjoyed being contrary," she said. "He was surrounded by Yankee and Mets fans, but he had to be different, by rooting for the Blue Jays. He loved wrestling, and would tell me to leave the room whenever he watched it on TV. That was because I would keep interrupting to complain about the terrible things the wrestlers do to each other. I still can't understand why anyone would let a 500-pound man jump on him for sport."

"Chris was probably the most verbal, most vocal of all our children -because he had to be, so he wouldn't get bullied by the girls," Santora went on. With time, Christopher realized the value of some advice he was given by his grandmother. "She told him charm would get him very far.

When he got older, he found out she was right-and he developed a way of charming his sisters into doing anything for him. But he found out it didn't always work on me. He used to mix up his clean and dirty clothes, then give everything to me to rewash. So one day, I sent him to the laundry room with detergent, bleach and instructions. I'll never forget the look on his face when he came back upstairs. He used a whole bottle of bleach, instead of just one cup, and his underwear fell apart. He never made that mistake again. He applied a lot more caution to his charm."

Christopher joined the Boy Scouts when he was about seven years old, and continued until he entered junior high school, Santora said. He was a member of the ICYP Baseball Team from T-Ball through high school, had obtained a bachelor's degree and was planning to go for his master's.

Christopher worked as a substitute teacher in Astoria and Jackson Heights before he entered the Fire Academy. "He would have been a fabulous teacher," Maureen Santora said. "But that was not his dream. His dream was to follow in his father's footsteps, to become a firefighter. His dream was fulfilled."

"Kids need to know, even though their parents want them to be one thing, it's okay to follow your dream to become something else. When Christopher died, so many of his friends changed their direction. These young adults left the corporate world and followed their dreams- and they tell us now that they are passionate about their new jobs," Santora said.

"That was the inspiration for the name of the Christopher Santora Follow Your Dream Memorial Scholarship," she said. "I had to make a decision, out of this horrible

experience, to do something that would produce something good, so Al and I decided to take the money we received after Christopher's death and use it to establish the scholarship.

"Many people comment about the money the families received as compensation for their loss on September 11," Santora said. "I was always a very happy person, and I want to be happy again. I would gladly give back every cent, if that would bring back our son. We needed to find some positive way to create a legacy for our son-a bright, happy, decent person who died too soon, too young. Hopefully, Christopher will still be able, through the scholarship, to impact the futures of other young people in a very positive way.

"We will never be the same," Santora said. "We will continue to mourn Christopher's loss. We will remember our child-his laughter, his mischief and the good, decent man he grew to become. Christopher wasn't perfect. No one is perfect, He was our little boy, our son, and it is very difficult each day, when we realize he is gone."

For information or to contribute to the Christopher Santora Follow Your Dream Memorial Scholarship, call 718-626-4215.