Ill children take trip to 'North Pole'
From left, Lucas Abramson, Billy Fischer and Community Service Coordinator for JKF and La Guardia airports, Jeanne Kemperle, exit a Delta aircraft at JFK airport during the Holiday Flight to the North Pole. (Dec. 1, 2010) Credit: Sally Morrow
His head hairless from two weeks of radiation treatment, 10-year-old Billy Fischer bounded down the steps of a Delta jet parked Wednesday in the hangar at Kennedy Airport and made a beeline to the bounce house.
The Brookville boy and his family were inside an otherwise drab-looking airport hangar decked out in its Christmas best on a dark dreary day. For Billy, who has endured months of treatment for brain tumors, the lights and sights of the holiday season were another sign of good things to come - he's now cancer free.
"He's always been a big Christmas kid," said Billy's father, Morgan Fischer of Brookville. "It has been a long year."
The Fischers were among a half-dozen families from Long Island with children battling health problems who took a 30-minute taxi ride on a Delta Air Lines plane Wednesday from Terminal 2 at the airport to the hangar, transformed into Santa's workshop.
