Three triplet brothers from Brooklyn are stepping into the same firehouse doors their father once walked through, determined to carry his legacy forward even after 9/11-related cancer took his life. Raymond Gormley now works at FDNY Ladder 174 — the same firehouse where his father, William Gormley, once served — while his brother Billy is an EMT with the department and may join the Fire Academy as soon as this month, and their brother Kevin has applied to become a firefighter and could join the academy on the same timeline.
According to ABC7 New York, the brothers were just 3 years old when their father responded to the September 11 terrorist attacks, rushing to the Twin Towers after they were struck and working at Ground Zero for months afterward, searching for survivors and the remains of victims. The brothers do not remember what happened that day because they were so young, and they did not lose their father on September 11, 2001 itself — he died in 2017 after bladder and lung cancer tied to his toxic dust exposure at Ground Zero.
William Gormley had served in the U.S. Marine Corps before joining the FDNY in 1988, spending 18 years of his career at Ladder Company 174 in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, until his retirement in 2006, according to the Voices Center for Resilience. He was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2016, according to the ABC7 report, and died of bladder and lung cancer the following year. He was among more than 400 fire and EMS workers who have died from 9/11-related illnesses, the outlet’s report notes.
A Father’s Advice, and a Street That Bears His Name
The brothers accompanied their father to numerous doctors’ appointments as his health declined, and along the way he tried to steer them away from following him into the firehouse. Per the same ABC7 account, William Gormley advised his sons to work with their brains rather than their hands, and pushed them instead toward desk jobs rather than the fire service…