Leonard Lopate at Large: Jay D. Aronson and Sally Regenhard

On today’s edition of Leonard Lopate at Large, Leonard’s guests include author Jay D. Aronson, author of “Who Owns The Dead,” and Sally Regenhard, an American activist who has become one of the leading voices for the families of the victims of the September 11.

After September 11, with New Yorkers reeling from the World Trade Center attack, Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch proclaimed that his staff would do more than confirm the identity of the individuals who were killed. They would attempt to identify and return to families every human body part recovered from the site that was larger than a thumbnail. As Jay D. Aronson shows, delivering on that promise proved to be a monumentally difficult task. Only 293 bodies were found intact. The rest would be painstakingly collected in 21,900 bits and pieces scattered throughout the skyscrapers’ debris.

Sally Regenhard is an American activist who has become one of the leading voices for the families of the victims of the September 11 attacks. A former long-time resident of Co-op City in The Bronx in New York City who has degrees in behavioral sciences and gerontology and has worked in the nursing home industry for over 20 years, Regenhard became an advocate for skyscraper safety after the death of her 28-year-old son, Christian, a probationary firefighter with the New York City Fire Department, who perished in the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001