By Demi Guo
The Vigilant Fire Company gathered on Sunday to dedicate a memorial plaque to its former president, Doris Groene, who died last year from what the company believes is 9/11-related cancer.
Groene worked with the Vigilant Fire Company for more than 30 years, including for five years as president from 2005 to 2010. She responded to thousands of calls in that time – including the Sept. 11 terror attacks, where she worked as an emergency medical technician.
“The disease she suffered directly related to her service of other people,” Rep. Thomas Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) said. “We’re all here together to recognize her.”
Suozzi presented her family with a U.S. flag that had been flown over the Capitol. Groene’s name was also added to the Firefighters Memorial Park in Great Neck Plaza.
She spent her last years in Nevada, with one reason for having moved there being her health, according to Tom McDonough, Groene’s son.
“My mother loved the fire service,” McDonough, also a former chief of the Port Washington Fire Department, said.
His brother Raymond Plakstis, former chief of the Alert Fire Company of Great Neck, also succumbed to 9/11-related cancer last month, his family said. Plakstis was also a responder to the Sept. 11 attacks, returning to Ground Zero for months to aid in the recovery efforts.
“They asked me if I wanted to cancel this for today and do them altogether,” McDonough said, “and I said no. Because my mother deserved her day, and my brother will deserve his day.”
Members of the Alert Fire Company and Port Washington Fire Department also attended.
“They’re a good family,” David Hertz, a Great Neck firefighter who worked with Plakstis in the Alert Fire Company, said. He has known them for about 45 years.
“My brother died of the 9/11 cancer that my mother did,” McDonough said at the end. “The government, thank God, is still supporting, but they need to support it for years to come.”
