NEW YORK (AP)  -- After a five year battle, the U.S. government has dropped its effort to prevent a volunteer firefighter killed at the World Trade Center from receiving a federal death benefit for public safety officers who die on the job.

1010 WINS AUDIO: Mona Rivera Reports

The decision is a belated victory for the family of Glenn Winuk, a longtime member of the Jericho Volunteer Fire Department who rushed to the burning towers on Sept. 11, 2001, to tend to victims of the terrorist attack.

Winuk, 40, died when the skyscrapers collapsed, but for years, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance declined to award his family a $250,000 payment due to police officers, firefighters and other government emergency workers killed in the line of duty.

The agency took the position that the benefit was intended for active-duty public safety officers, and Winuk didn't qualify because he hadn't been on regular duty with his volunteer department on Long Island since 1998.

The court battle finally ended on Jan. 10, after the Office of the Solicitor General decided to drop its last appeal in the case.

"It's really terrific. This fight has gone on too long,'' said Glenn's brother, Jay Winuk.

Winuk's case highlights the difficulties that the Sept. 11 attacks posed for the administrators of the Public Safety Officers Benefits Program, which makes one-time payments to the families of killed or severely disabled emergency workers.

The program was designed with traditional line-of-duty deaths in mind, and it has strict eligibility requirements. Federal law generally limits it to paid professionals, not civilians who pitch in during an emergency.

But after the Sept. 11 attacks, the program received bunches of applications regarding civilian rescuers, like privately employed fire safety officers and ambulance drivers. Many of those claims were paid promptly. A few were denied.

Five members of New York's congressional delegation wrote a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Jan. 4 asking that he approve payments for several hospital paramedics who believe they developed health problems from inhaling toxic World Trade Center dust.

It is still unclear how the program will deal with emergency workers who develop long-term health problems because of their work on the World Trade Center ruins.

"Clearly, people who worked on the pile for months would qualify,'' said Winuk's attorney, Andrew J. Maloney III.

The Solicitor General's decision to end the appeal in Winuk's case clears the way for his family to receive a $250,000 payment, but the family maintains that their primary interest was achieving proper government recognition for Glenn's public service.

"It's very meaningful to my parents,'' Jay Winuk said.

He added that he hoped President Bush would now see fit to award his late brother the 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor, which was given to the relatives of 442 other public safety officers killed in the terror attacks.

Glenn Winuk was working at his Manhattan law office the morning of the attacks, but he grabbed a medical bag and raced to pitch in with the rescue effort. He was killed in the collapse. When his body was found in the rubble, months later, he was wearing surgical gloves and a stethoscope.

The turning point in the case came when a judge on the Federal Court of Claims sided with the family last June, ruling that the government's denial of the benefit had been arbitrary.

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