This is the second part of the story of Bellwood funeral director Jon Russin\u2019s talk with Tyrone Civics teacher Bill Abbott\u2019s tenth grade students about his experience in the recovery effort of Flight 93 in Shanksville.
\nRussin pointed out that the crash was one of the first incidents where every effort was made to return the remains of the victims to the family. A forensic anthropologist was on the scene to assist Russin and the team in identifying remains and with the help of modern science, they could be identified.
\n\u201cEvery bit of it was DNA tested and returned or kept for memorialization at the national memorial,\u201d Russin noted. \u201cSome people requested that their family members, once they were recovered and identified, they wanted cremated and kept at the national memorial site \u2014 which they will be.\u201d Russin said that the site crash will be \u201challowed ground\u201d and compared it a battlefield. \u201cThat\u2019s where the first battle of the war on terrorism was fought \u2014 at Shanksville, Pennsylvania.\u201d
\nRussin said that toothbrushes were used to extract DNA for the identification process. \u201cMost people when traveling take a different toothbrush,\u201d he pointed out. \u201cMost had their toothbrushes at home and they could be used.\u201d He also said that once the flight manifests were examined and the victims were determined, medical records were flown in to assist in the identification process.\u201d
\n\u201cFor me personally, the most meaningful period of the memorial service was during Gov. Ridge\u2019s speech when he mentioned how the families and the people at Shanksville in Somerset County have embraced the 40 families that lost their loved ones and who were victims of that crash,\u201d Russin said. \u201cThey went out and embraced those people.\u201d
\nRussin told the students that he wanted the students to understand the incredible dedication and hard work of the hundreds of people who worked the recovery effort. He said that most of the workers on his team were young volunteer firefighters who rose to the occasion. \u201cYou have to remember that they were all volunteers and they have all the respect in the world from me.\u201d
\nLast Wednesday, Russin attended the memorial service at the crash site, one that left a great impression on him.
\n\u201cYesterday I was certainly impressed with the memorial services they had at Shanksville,\u201d he said. Russin said that the day helped him punctuate the recovery effort, though he noted that \u201cclosure\u201d for an event like the crash of Flight 93 would probably never occur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is the second part of the story of Bellwood funeral director Jon Russin\u2019s talk with Tyrone Civics teacher Bill Abbott\u2019s tenth grade students about his experience in the recovery effort of Flight 93 in Shanksville. Russin pointed out that the crash was one of the first incidents where every effort was made to return […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}