The wrong Sept. 11 victim is buried

Associated Press

NEW YORK — A firefighter killed at the World Trade Center was buried in the wrong grave after the medical examiner’s office mistakenly identified him as one of his fallen colleagues.

"It’s an incredible sequence of events," Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the medical examiner, said Wednesday.

Christopher Santora, 23, was mistakenly identified as co-worker Jose Guadalupe because both men had the same congenital anomaly in two vertebrae. Additional DNA testing turned up the mistake on Tuesday, Borakove said.

Santora’s body was buried by Guadalupe’s family on Oct. 1, with Santora’s family attending the funeral.

Santora’s body was to be disinterred Wednesday. A memorial service for him that his parents had scheduled for Saturday will become a funeral instead.

Both men worked at Engine Co. 54, a firehouse that lost 15 firefighters when the twin towers collapsed Sept. 11.

The medical examiner’s office has identified 453 people who died in the terror attacks. It said this was its first mistake.

"My first reaction is, how terrible it is for the Guadalupe family," said Santora’s mother, Maureen. "I feel awful this is on the back of someone who had closure. I’m nearly speechless. … I can’t be angry."

The body was originally thought to be 37-year-old Guadalupe’s because it was found near the truck he drove. His dental records were not obtainable, and the body’s fingerprints were obliterated, so the doctors compared X-rays taken of the body with X-rays of Guadalupe supplied by the fire department.

Both sets had an anomaly in two vertebrae. Three doctors and a radiologist agreed the X-rays were the same person, and the medical examiner’s office declared the body to be Guadalupe’s.

Guadalupe’s mother, Rowena, said at first she was angry, but she had made peace with the error.

"I can bring flowers to the apartment," she said. "I don’t have to go to a grave to be with him."

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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