• Rep. Shaw Announces Lung Screening Program for South Florida 911 Rescuers - Boca Raton (FL) News, September 24, 2006
  
  
• Devastating Health Fallout: World Trade Center Cleanup Leaves Woman Suffering - Wichita Falls (Texas) Times Record News, September 22, 2006
  
  
• Florida's 9-11 Firefighters To Receive Lung Screenings - WFOR-TV, September 18, 2006
  
  
• Living with the Toll of 9/11 Service - The (Portland) Oregonian, September 16, 2006
  
  
• Valley Marks Attacks Sept. 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks - The (California) Desert Sun, September 12, 2006
  
  
• Ordeal Won't End: Inland Rescuers at Ground Zero Still Suffer Mental, Physical Scars - The (Riverside, CA) Press-Enterprise, September 11, 2006
  
  
• Remember the Walking Wounded - St. Paul, MN Pioneer Press, September 11, 2006
  
  
• Ground Zero Report - San Mateo CA Daily Journal, September 11, 2006
  
  
• Woman's Ailments Back Findings That Most Suffered Respiratory Damage - Salt Lake Tribune, September 11, 2006
  
  
• Local Ironworker Aided Country in Time of Need - Portsmouth NH Herald, September 10, 2006
  
  
• Ground Zero Haunts Would-Be Rescuers - Carlisle, Pa. Sentinal, September 10, 2006
  
  
• For Squad 41, Time Does Not Heal All Wounds: Only Four Sept. 11 Firefighters Remain at New York Station That Lost Six in Attack - The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, September 10, 2006
  
  
• Rescuers Still Feel 9/11 Ills: Breathing Troubles Plague Firefighters - The (Cincinnati) Enquirer, September 9, 2006
  
  
• She's Still Sick, but Volunteer near Ground Zero Is Glad She Helped - La Crosse (WI) Tribune, September 9, 2006
  
  
• Firefighters Went From 'Heroes to Zeroes': Five Years After 9/11, Former Triathlete Has Trouble Climbing Stairs - ABC News, September 8, 2006
  
  
• 9/11 Rescuers Suffering Cancer, Ailments from Toxic-Air Exposure - The (East Brunswick, NJ) Home News Tribune, September 8, 2006
  
  
• 9/11 Health Woes Reach Far Beyond New York - Associated Press, August 25, 2006
  

Rep. Shaw Announces Lung Screening Program for South Florida 911 Rescuers

By John Johnston
Boca Raton News
September 24, 2006

http://www.bocaratonnews.com/index.php?src=news&prid=17361&category=Local%20News

"Their acts were distinctly American," Congressman E. Clay Shaw. Jr. said Monday.

But the acts he referred to put those Americans at risk for long-term lung damage, said Shaw, a two-time lung cancer survivor.

The District 22 congressman was in Palm Beach County Monday to announce a new program for Florida hospitals to provide lung screenings to the hundreds of firefighters and paramedics from Florida who went to New York in the aftermath of 9-11 to assist in the recovery efforts at Ground Zero.

"These men and women selflessly sacrificed their own health and safety as they worked tirelessly through each day and each night, among the dust and debris, to find the missing, help the injured, and recover bodies of the innocent victims who were lost that day," Shaw said.

Hundreds of Florida firefighters and first responders were exposed to toxic particles, and even asbestos, at the Work Trade Center site in the days and weeks following 9-11. Nearly 200 Florida responders were deployed to New York City, but there were scores more who volunteered to go to Ground Zero on their own time, with their own resources, Shaw said during a visit here Monday with some of the first responders on the fifth anniversary of 9-11.

Shaw has asked both public and private hospitals throughout the state to provide these first responders with lung screenings free of charge, so that any lung diseases they have acquired, or may acquire, can be caught early.

The National Institute of Heath confirms that during their recovery efforts, the first responders not only inhaled toxic particles, including asbestos, they ingested it. Many firefighters acquired gastrointestinal disorders along with lung disease, a condition so pervasive and persistent that doctors dubbed it the "World Trade Center cough."

"Shortly after 9-11, I went to New York and surveyed the damage. I saw first hand our responders inhaling the thick, heavy toxins and pollutants - and most rescuers had very flimsy protection over their noses and mouths," he continued. "Because of their extraordinary acts of patriotism, these first responders now need an ordinary act of compassion from the Florida's hospitals."

Several South Florida hospitals agreed to help implement the lung screenings, and will work with their local firehouses and the Florida Fire Chiefs Association on administering the program. Details, including how to receive the lung screenings, and participating hospitals, will be established and available in the weeks ahead, Shaw said.

Rescuers who sucked in toxic air while working at Ground Zero lost the equivalent of 12 years of lung function after the World Trade Center attacks, a health care study released earlier this year indicated.

"World Trade Center exposure produced a substantial reduction in pulmonary function in New York City Fire Department rescue workers during the first year following 9/11/01," according to the analysis of 12,079 fire and EMT workers conducted by Montefiore Medical Center-Einstein College and the New York City Fire Department.

The respiratory loss "equaled 12 years of aging-related decline," the report said.

Typically, an adult loses 31 milliliters in FEV per year. But Ground Zero workers lost 372 milliliters - a rate of decline 12 times the normal annual rate, the report said.

John Johnston can be reached at 561-549-0833, or at jjohnston@bocanews.com

Devastating Health Fallout: World Trade Center Cleanup Leaves Woman Suffering

By Michael Hines
Wichita Falls (Texas) Times Record News
September 22, 2006

http://www.timesrecordnews.com/trn/local_news/article/0,1891,TRN_5784_5012520,00.html

Connie Joyce was still nearly killed by the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil - even though she didn't go to ground-zero until a month after the 9/11 attack.

Joyce, 55, worries that rising medical expenses and severely reduced income will combine to toss her out of her house. More than anything, the Iowa Park woman wants others to know that the disaster that struck five years ago remains a source of pain for many who were not at ground zero.

"There are so many people like me, and they're not all in New York," she said. "Now we're sick, but we don't have any help."

The customer care representative at Cingular has been in touch with Rep. David Farabee as well as Congressmen John Cornyn and Mac Thornberry. Thure Cannon, legislative director for Farabee, said efforts are being made to find her help.

"We are still waiting to hear from Health and Human Resources to see if there's a program she qualifies for," he said.

Plenty of irritants could have been inhaled, according to The World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program. Concrete dust, residue of burning plastics and fiberglass were just a few of the things in the air after the World trade Center towers collapsed.

Asbestos was also in the dust and debris. According to the screening program, workers might have been exposed to hazards stirred up during site cleanup efforts, and the exposure could have lasted for months.

Her problems started not long after arriving at the devastation, Joyce said.

She had been working for BelforUSA, a disaster restoration company. A project manager with 10 years experience, Joyce was helping with the cleanup of buildings. She arrived at the scene Oct. 1, 2001.

By early January, problems were obvious.

"On Jan. 5, I got really sick. I couldn't breath," she said. "Both lungs went down at once."

Joyce recovered, but became ill again three days later, she said.

"I couldn't breathe at all," she said.

Eventually, doctors at a downtown New York center had to perform an open lung biopsy, which showed some material had clumped inside of the organs.

"They couldn't identify what it was because there was so much of it," she said. "They simply told me I wouldn't live to get down here."

At the end of January, Joyce was able to leave the New York hospital. She returned to Iowa Park in February of that year.

"It's just been a fight ever since," she said.

She's required to have breathing treatments and to use the steroid Prednisone. She said her stay at the New York hospital led to contracting a staph infection. It ultimately meant losing the use of the left side of her face. It took two-and-a-half years before she could return to work. She eventually lost her job and after weeks of searching, was able to get work at Cingular.

"Now I'm at the point that I'm losing my home," she said, explaining that her income is about a third of her project manager earnings.

She's applied for help with the Sept. 11 Victims Compensation Fund, but that support is restricted to those hurt within 48 hours of the towers falling, Joyce said. She has lifetime medical insurance on her lungs. The lungs have lost some of their capacity, but Joyce didn't know exactly how much. For all the things she has to worry about, though, she worries a lot about those not speaking up at all.

"I want for people to understand how devastating this was to people other than in New York," she said.

Medical/military reporter Michael Hines can be reached at 940-720-3456 or by email at HinesM(at)TimesRecordNews.com

FL's 9-11 Firefighters to Receive Lung Screenings: Congressman Clay Shaw Will Announce Program Tuesday, Broward County Hospitals to Offer Screenings Free of Charge

WFOR-TV
September 18, 2006

http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_261110915.html

FT. LAUDERDALE Congressman Clay Shaw (R-South Florida) will hold a press conference with North Broward Hospital District President and CEO, Alan Levine, Fort Lauderdale Professional Firefighters President, Mike Salzano and Miami Fire Chief William Bryson, to announce a new program to allow the firefighters who helped in the 9-11 World Trade Center rescue and recovery efforts to receive free lung screenings from Florida's hospitals.

Hundreds of Florida firefighters and first responders were exposed to toxic particles, and even asbestos, at the Work Trade Center site.

Nearly two hundred Florida responders were deployed to New York City, but there were many more who volunteered to go to Ground Zero on their own time and with their own resources.

Shaw has already reached out to many of the state's public and private hospitals who have agreed to provide the lung screenings free of charge.

The North Broward Hospital District will begin the screenings at their flagship facility, Broward General Medical Center. One Broward Firefighter who served at Ground Zero will receive the first lung screening of the program.

Shaw, a two-time lung cancer, survivor knows the importance of early detection of lung disease. On September 11, 2006, Shaw visited with South Florida firefighters who volunteered at Ground Zero.

© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc.

Living with the Toll of 9/11 Service

Nancy Haught
The (Portland) Oregonian
September 16, 2006

http://www.oregonlive.com/living/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/living/1158360944136300.xml&coll=7

Five years after she served twice at ground zero, Maj. Barbara Blix can't quite clear her throat. The Salvation Army officer coughs so often she can't teach a class or make a speech without throat lozenges and a glass of water at hand.

Blix, 59, is an ordained minister. She is one of an estimated 70 percent of rescue and clean-up workers who are struggling with long-term breathing problems as a result of the dust that swirled over the World Trade Center site long after Sept. 11, 2001.

"But I would do it again," she says.

Knowing what she knows now about the physical toll the work would take? That she breathed in pulverized asbestos, concrete, mercury and other toxins? That she has trouble breathing when she lies down? That she coughs dozens of times a day and has to listen politely to countless home remedies from people who don't know the cause of the catch in her throat?

"Absolutely," she says instantly.

Why? She gets up from her desk, walks across her small office and returns with a hard hat that bears the names of 67 men and women she counseled at ground zero.

"For every one of those names," she says. "To this day, when I read a name on that hat, a face comes to mind."

The Oregonian profiled Blix in 2002, between her two trips to ground zero. She spoke then of meeting people like John Wiley, the 6-foot-9 New York City firefighter who had promised to stay at the site of the disaster until each of his colleagues was accounted for -- and then he stayed on a while longer.

Today, Wiley and Blix are friends, keeping up a regular e-mail correspondence that almost always refers to the terrorist attacks that changed both their lives.

"John always signs his e-mails, 'Never forget, Big John,' " Blix says. Another friend, a New York Port Authority canine officer, writes often, she adds. He signs his e-mails, "Dennis and Clancy," the name of his dog, who died when the first tower collapsed.

The friendships Blix formed as she counseled rescue workers at the Salvation Army hydration tent mean a great deal to her. She speaks of John and Dennis almost reverently. She smiles as she remembers their joking encounters. Her eyes fill as she remembers the somber times when all she could do was walk with them, or hold a hand. The work she did, she says, made it hard to wear a breathing mask.

She says she is growing used to her breathing difficulties and that they haven't slowed her down much. She still teaches leadership classes, keeps track of statistics for the Salvation Army's Cascade Division and gives, whenever she is invited, an oral presentation with slides about her work at ground zero. It has become, she says, her last disaster.

A year ago, she helped prepare space in Portland for survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The night before she left to accompany a group back to Oregon, she had what she calls "a meltdown."

She came home from work, glanced at the day's newspaper, at a photograph of a corpse lying outside the New Orleans Convention Center.

"I slid down the wall," she remembers. "I was weeping. My hands were shaking. My husband didn't know what to do.

"I saw all these flashes from every disaster that I'd ever been to," she says. Images of the half-dozen tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, all acts of God, she says, and the man-made ones: the Oklahoma City bombing and the World Trade Center site.

"It wasn't so much the physical danger," she says now. "It was the faces of the people I had met." She backed out of her Katrina trip and saw a counselor. Together they concluded that because she'd skipped her usual debriefing sessions in order to spend her last minutes at ground zero, she'd never been able to put her memories to rest.

"A debriefing helps," she says. "You realize that you are not the only one affected by the disaster, that you don't have to have the answers to everyone's questions.

"You realize that you can divorce yourself from the effort, that someone else will take over. In the Salvation Army, I often know who is taking over for me. But this time -- these times -- I felt like I was abandoning these kinds of people," she says, gesturing toward the hard hat.

But still, knowing what she knows now, would she volunteer at ground zero again? This time she pauses for a few minutes to consider, maybe not so much about the physical toll this time as the emotional one she has endured.

"If there was a need," she begins, haltingly.

"If someone asked me to go, I would try."

Again, why?

"Because there is a need," she says emphatically. "Even when you don't have an answer. Even when all you can do is hold hands and walk with someone. That's what I did with John," she says. It's what she did with Dennis, too, who sent her a quotation that sits on her desk:

"At times of crisis people often find their own faith is shaken," it reads. "They will turn to you, not because they are sure of their own faith, but because they are certain of yours."

Nancy Haught: 503-294-7625; nancyhaught@news.oregonian.com

©2006 The Oregonian

Valley Marks Attacks Sept. 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks

By Keith Matheny
The (California) Desert Sun
September 12, 2006

http://www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060912/NEWS01/609120323

They honored the victims and heroes with prayers, with a standing ovation, with raising the largest flag the Coachella Valley has ever seen.

With patriotism and solemnity, valley residents marked the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks at events on Monday.

In Indian Wells, a firefighter gave a moving recount of what it was like working with rescue and recovery efforts after the attacks. In Rancho Mirage, the Stars and Stripes were raised high, and in Cathedral City a park was dedicated to patriots.

Some were too young to remember, but they said now they'll never forget. For others, the images of that day will never be erased, spurring them to continue paying tribute.

Young students reflect
The day most Americans can never forget is one Kinsley Bonfilio of La Quinta doesn't remember. She was 4 years old.

Now a fourth-grader at Sacred Heart School in Palm Desert, Bonfilio said, the fifth anniversary of 9/11 means a lot to her.

"I feel bad for the people who lost family members and (their) lives," she said.

Bonfilio was one of about 400 Sacred Heart students who attended a special prayer service Monday afternoon at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. The service was organized by the school's student council.

Student council President Marco Fenton, 13, remembered being in the school's library when the attack was announced. Five years has brought him more perspective and understanding of the attacks and their toll.

"No one could really grasp it then," he said.

"Directly or indirectly, they're all affected," said school Principal Jim Brennan. "What we try to do with (the students) is try to understand why God would let this happen and how God would want us to react."

Dotsy Marquez of Palm Desert attended the service to be with her daughter, Alexis Sheue, a fifth-grader.

"It's important for us to send our children a message," Marquez said. "We need to let them know we're blessed to be here today."

Park dedicated to patriots
A sunrise ceremony began the final day of Cathedral City's Healing Field, at the corner of Date Palm and Dinah Shore drives. Over the weekend, nearly 3,000 American flags were placed there to commemorate each American military casualty in Iraq, Afghanistan and in other parts of the world since 9/11.

The area was dedicated as Patriot Park in ceremonies Monday evening, a name it will now continue to hold.

Firefighter shares story

Capt. Steven Beach of the Riverside County Fire Department gave a slide presentation to about 50 Indian Wells Rotary Club members Monday, detailing 11 grueling days of rescue and recovery operations at the World Trade Center site.

Beach serves on one of 28 Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces across the country. Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, he was deployed with about 200 other crew members on three of California's task forces sent to New York. The state has eight total task forces.

Beach, a 20-year California firefighter, recounted his unit's tireless efforts under demanding and dangerous conditions, sleeping on a gymnasium floor five miles uptown when not sifting through the attack's aftermath.

Beach's team took 12-hour rotating shifts to search for survivors. But the last survivors were found 12 to 14 hours after the attack, the evening of Sept. 11, 2001. Beach's unit did not arrive until the following day.

"We were still in a rescue mode, even when we realized there wasn't going to be anybody found," he said.

Beach, who also helped to rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina, said that he now suffers from a "mild" case of asthma resulting from the wreckage site, and others in his unit also have faced respiratory health problems following recovery efforts in the dust and debris of the World Trade Center towers.

"We're all being monitored (for treatment)," he said.

Beach fought back tears recounting attempts to separate his job from his emotions, knowing that so many of his fellow firefighters had perished when the towers collapsed.

The Indian Wells Rotarians gave Beach a standing ovation.

Flag raised in honor

The Coachella Valley's tallest flagpole and its largest American flag were unveiled at Eisenhower Medical Center on Monday, in memory of 9/11 victims.

A 40-by-50-foot flag was raised to the top of a 101-foot pole, then lowered to half staff.

Joining audience members, hospital officials and staff for the ceremony were Rep. Mary Bono, R-Palm Springs, state Assemblyman John Benoit, R-Palm Desert, and Rancho Mirage Mayor Richard Kite.

Bono's Washington, D.C., residence was close enough to the Pentagon for her to feel the impact when it was struck by a hijacked airliner, she said.

The attacks, she said, "defined the America of our generation in much the same way that Pearl Harbor defined the America of 'The Greatest Generation.'"

"It is fitting that we pause today to remember that fateful moment," she said.

"It is fitting that we unite in our common belief that the principles that define our great nation are too important to abandon to an enemy that finds honor in the killing of innocent victims."

Helping raise Eisenhower's new flag was Army Capt. Monica Whalen, a 1999 graduate of Cathedral City High School and a West Point graduate, on leave from a tour of duty in Iraq.

"I love my country and everything it stands for, and I'm so proud whenever I see our flag raised," she said.

Bringing the valley's tallest flagpole to Eisenhower was an idea about a year in the making, hospital president and CEO G. Aubrey Serfling said. Positioned near the hospital's entrance, Serfling said he hopes the flag will be a source of pride for hospital visitors, staff and community members.

Hospital officials saw the timing of the pole's arrival as an opportunity to pay tribute to 9/11 victims on the fifth anniversary of the attacks, Serfling said.

"It's just a symbol of what a great country this is, and how proud we all are of it," he said.

A bronze plaque at the base of the flagpole notes the three locations where hijacked commercial airplanes crashed that day five years ago - in New York, Washington and Somerset County, Pa. The plaque reads, "Through blurred eyes we find the strength and courage to soar beyond the moment. We look to the future knowing we can never forget the past. God Bless America."

Copyright © 2006 The Desert Sun

Ordeal Won't End: Inland Rescuers at Ground Zero Still Suffer Mental, Physical Scars

By Michael Fisher and Lisa O'Neill Hill
The (Riverside, CA) Press-Enterprise
September 11, 2006

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_H_911rescue10.art.388c902.html

Amid tons of twisted steel, choking concrete dust and swirling scraps of paper, Darryl Cleveland's search team found the battered helmet of Joseph Spor, all that remained of the square-jawed New York firefighter killed when the World Trade Center fell.

As a tribute to the 34-year-old Spor's sacrifice, the Corona fire captain wears a simple metal band around his right wrist etched with the fallen fireman's name and the fire station where he had worked for a week before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"I'll take it off when I retire," said Cleveland, a member of the 62-person Riverside rban Search & Rescue California Task Force 6 that arrived at the ruined twin towers on Sept. 12, 2001. The team, composed of firefighters from several Inland departments along with medics, doctors and others, spent 10 days in a frustrating, fruitless struggle to find survivors before returning home.

Five years later, current and past members of Task Force 6 say they continue to grapple with lingering mental and physical scars of the assignment. Some worry that their country is slowly forgetting the devastating strikes that claimed almost 3,000 lives, and remain anxious about future large-scale terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

"I know it's a matter of when, not if," said Cleveland, who described battling ightmares in the weeks after he returned from New York.

"When I first came back, it was really tough. I didn't want to go on calls," he said. "Firefighters have a saying, 'See you at the big one.' I had been to the big one and I didn't want to go back."

Health Woes

Thousands of firefighters, rescue workers and civilians have reported suffering respiratory and other health problems after being exposed to asbestos, silica, pulverized bodies and other hazardous materials borne by the thick, sticky dust clouds that engulfed ground zero after the collapse of the twin 110-story towers.

A study released this year of more than 11,700 firefighters and rescue workers from New York found that 62 percent suffered from respiratory symptoms after responding to the World Trade Center, including coughs, wheezing, chest pain and shortness of breath. The study conducted by several New York universities and medical centers also found those who arrived at the scene soon after the towers collapsed suffered more frequent symptoms than those who arrived later.

Cleveland, a former marathon runner, said he contracted pneumonia three times after returning and now suffers asthma, problems he attributes to his time at ground zero.

About half of the 28 Riverside city firefighters who went to New York filed workers' compensation claims for health problems related to their service at the World Trade Center.

Riverside Fire Department Division Chief Dave Lesh, who supervises Task Force 6, said he came back from New York with only 65 percent of his lung capacity. Lesh said he had a bad cough, got short of breath quickly and had to use a dry inhaler every day for 18 months.

"As time progressed, I slowly got better," Lesh said. "Then there's this span of about six months if I really exerted myself, I'd feel it in my chest."

Lesh said a majority of the team members he has spoken to have had similar experiences, but he knows only a few who are still on medication or receiving treatment.

"My biggest concern is the long-term effect. Is it going to cause me to develop respiratory ailments when I'm older or maybe some kind of cancer? It's something that's in the back of your mind," Lesh said.

Lesh said he also suffered from troubling dreams for the first few months after returning home. The dreams have slowly faded but the impression of Sept. 11 remains strong, causing tears to sometimes well in Lesh's eyes when he sees pictures of the demolished towers.

Former team member Roland Cook, who spent 10 days crawling through the World Trade Center debris with his search dog, Bautz, in the hunt for victims, said he also wrestled with unsettling, recurring dreams. They included a nightmare where he and his dog looked for survivors after Palm Springs was leveled by an unknown disaster.

"I would send the dog out to search and he would be 100 yards away, digging and barking like he found somebody, and I would start walking toward the dog but I would never get any closer to the dog," said Cook, who spent 21 years as a Palm Springs firefighter.

Cook, 44, decided to medically retire last year, partly because of ongoing respiratory problems he attributes to having worked in New York. Cook said he suffered four bouts with pneumonia and multiple cases of bronchitis since his return.

"I still have a constant little cough," said Cook, who hadn't planned to retire until after 2010.

Ground Zero

The Riverside team's safety officer, Hemet firefighter Scott Hudson, said the unit arrived in New York without enough of the proper respirator masks to protect them from the swirling dust and particles. The masks offer much more protection than the paper masks that are commonly sold at home-improvement stores.

Hudson said that after the first day the team was able to commandeer the right masks to wear during the daily 12 hours or more they spent struggling through the debris in a desperate search for life.

Hudson, a 32-year department veteran, said that since experiencing the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, he struggles with organization, a problem he never had before. As a terrorism officer, he thinks about the attacks each day.

"I haven't got over it. I might not be able to let go of it until I retire," said Hudson, who has written poems and stories about the attacks.

He recalled how during a break between searches, he plucked a business card from the debris that belonged to a World Trade Center worker. He carried the card in his pocket during the trip, and he now keeps it in his office.

"I'd wonder if that person lived or died. The address was from one of the floors that took a direct hit," said Hudson, adding that he has never looked for the woman's name on the casualty list.

"Maybe I didn't want to know."

Hemet Fire Capt. Jim Snodgrass declined to describe his health problems since returning, making only a passing reference to the cough he brought back from New York.

As a search-team manager, Snodgrass said he was the first person on the debris pile each shift, and typically the last to leave. He often pulled down his protective mask so he could communicate with team members who were supervising rescue dogs or those manipulating search cameras and other monitoring equipment.

The towers were filled with computers, desks and other common office equipment. But searchers found virtually none of it -- the impact had reduced such items to dust, he said. Only reams of papers lightweight enough to survive the collapse survived, floating for days around ground zero as crews swarmed the mass of jagged steel, metal pipes and crushed concrete.

"You felt like a gnat trying to eat a whale carcass," Snodgrass said as he described how his crew sifted through the rubble, climbed down holes and, at one point, punched into the subway tunnels six stories below the towers in the search for survivors.

Ultimately, the crew recovered 13 sets of remains.

"Most were just stains on the concrete," Snodgrass said.

Death and decay were everywhere, so much so that now, when Snodgrass drives past a dead animal on the highway, "I get one whiff and I'm back in New York again," he said, adding that he has no desire to ever return to New York.

Reach Michael Fisher at 951-368-9470 or mfisher@PE.com

Remember the Walking Wounded

Rubén Rosario
St. Paul, MN Pioneer Press
September 11, 2006

http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/15489345.htm

2,749.

This is the official death toll of those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks five years ago at the World Trade Center.

But the tally might rise by hundreds, if not thousands, by the time the last word is written on the worst terrorist attack on American soil.

I'll pause to pray and pay tribute to those who died in the attacks. But today, I'm writing about the residual victims of the attacks and building collapses in lower Manhattan.

They are the walking wounded of Sept. 11. Their plight is not well known outside New York City. Their names probably will never be etched on a plaque. Perhaps they should be someday.

I'm talking here about many of the 40,000 cops, firefighters, construction workers and others who braved toxic fumes and dust to sift through the 2 million tons of rubble at Ground Zero in search of survivors and, later, remains.

Last week, a major medical study confirmed what many people long suspected and a few politicians mightily deny or ignore: Thousands of Ground Zero workers are suffering respiratory and other health problems that could last a lifetime or, in some cases, eventually kill them.

If you missed it, the sobering study released by Mount Sinai Medical Center found:

• Almost 70 percent of 9,500 Ground Zero workers examined had new or worsened respiratory symptoms.

• Among workers with no such symptoms before the terrorist attacks, 61 percent developed respiratory symptoms while working at the site.

• The rundown of ailments detected includes laryngitis, vocal cord dysfunction, asthma and musculoskeletal problems, often from injuries that occurred while working at Ground Zero.

The findings were hardly a surprise to workers, their families, doctors and union representatives. Environmental studies had detected months earlier that workers were exposed to a highly noxious cocktail of airborne poisons that included cancer-causing asbestos, lead, aluminum and carcinogens released by burning plastic and other materials.

A weeklong series this summer by the New York Daily News provided strong argument that as many as 23 Ground Zero workers — cops, firefighters and others — have died in the past five years as a result of the deadly toxins.

They include James Zadroga, 34, a city cop who spent almost 500 hours at Ground Zero. Zadroga developed black lung disease and mercury on the brain from working at the site, also known to workers as The Pit or The Pile, according to a police union official.

Another casualty is Debbie Reeve, 41, a retired paramedic who contracted mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer, after working at the contaminated site, according to her physician and relatives.

The newspaper series blames a host of city, state, health and federal officials for not doing enough and for misleading workers and the public into thinking it was safe to work at the site.

They include former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman, who put out a news release three days after the attacks saying "monitoring and sampling conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday have been very reassuring about potential exposure of rescue workers and the public to environmental contamination."

Even then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, credited for providing leadership and comfort to a wounded nation, took a rap for publicly stating two weeks after the attacks that rescue workers faced low risk because the air quality was deemed safe.

Two Ground Zero workers with Minnesota ties are Dan Conry and Terry Hildebrandt. Conry is a former New York City cop who has a popular local morning talk show on KTLK-FM 100.3. Hildebrandt is director of social services for the Twin Cities chapter of the Salvation Army.

Neither man cited any lingering problems from their work. But both were aware of the potential dangers of inhaling the toxic cloud that emanated from the massive rubble and hung over lower Manhattan like a mourning banner for weeks.

"It was like a running joke. We were saying to ourselves, 'Oh, we are so dead,' " recalled Conry, who spent the first two weeks after the attacks as a member of the "bucket brigade.''

"It was typical New York attitude, a way of saying that this is some bad air here,'' Conry added.

Conry said paper masks and, later, respiratory masks were handed out to many of the workers, but their use was spotty at times.

Still, "regardless of what the health professionals were saying, I don't think it would have mattered,'' Conry said. "The cops, the rescue workers, the ironworkers, everybody. We weren't going anywhere. That's where we wanted and needed to be.''

Conry, though, says he's not giving anyone a pass if workers and the public were deliberately misled because of politics or other reasons.

"It's like Agent Orange — if you deny it long enough, it just ain't there,'' he said. "People are dying. To ignore this would be criminal."

Hildebrandt worked a 7 p.m.-to-7 a.m. shift at the site a few weeks after the attacks. He and others provided food, relief and, on occasion, words of comfort to workers.

"Frankly, I didn't worry about it," Hildebrandt said of the toxic environment. "You threw that aside. Just working at The Pile, watching police and firefighters and others so focused that you would walk in front of them and they would not see you."

Find blame where there is blame. But let's do right. Let's take care of these workers at whatever cost. Let's learn from it and find out where mistakes were made, regardless of where it leads.

But make no mistake. The finger squarely points first at al-Qaida and the terrorists who slaughtered thousands of innocents regardless of origin or nationality or political ideology. On that day, we were targets because we are Americans.

Protest, serve, follow or question. That's the American way, and that way of life must be protected and preserved. But don't forget where the blame truly lies. And please, say a prayer for the Zadrogas and the Reeves, the walking wounded in body, mind and spirit, and the known and unknown victims of Sept. 11.

Rubén Rosario can be reached at rrosario@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5454.

© 2006 St. Paul Pioneer Press

Ground Zero Report

By Michelle Durand
San Mateo CA Daily Journal
September 11, 2006

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=64026

The initial arrival of several Bay Area Urban Search and Rescue workers at ground zero five years ago might have appeared less than solemn.

After arriving in New York without a way to haul the Task Force 3 primary crew of 62 and 60,000 pounds of equipment to the site, Menlo Park Fire Deputy Chief Harold Schapelhouman said the squad scrambled for any available means.

The result was a prison bus complete with barred windows and an empty Heineken beer truck. A driver for a FDNY battalion chief asked Schapelhouman how he thought it looked.

"I said I hadn’t thought about it. We just needed to make it happen," he remembers.

Making it happen — responding to a scene he describes as "the Super Bowl of disasters" — was the mission of numerous divisions of the rescue team run by the Federal Emergency Management Association.

For 20 days, the team worked in the rubble, driving each day by grief-struck masses holding up photos of loved ones who workers like Schapelhouman knew they would not find intact.

The first 12 hours on a bombing are different than an earthquake because there are rarely pockets of rubble in which people are found alive. Instead, there is the unforgettable smell of burning flesh impossible to convey through news articles and photographs and the sense of belonging to a rescue team without anybody to rescue, he said.

"You take some solace in providing people back members of their families and giving them closure. If you ever want to find America, come to one of these events. You meet the best of the best people in the world," Schapelhouman said.

One night, Schapelhouman walked down the debris hill known as "the pile" in the middle of what looks like the end of the world. A huge valley dropped below, filled with burnt out buildings and smoking rubble.

"It’s a very eerie moment. You are proud to be there but you still realize what you are seeing and smelling. All I could think was that if ever there was hell, this was it," he said.

The jolt of ground zero by many of the local workers wasn’t because they were inexperienced with catastrophe. Schapelhouman himself had responded to the Oklahoma City bombing, another scene of bodies and destruction that took him five years to "put the devil back in the box mentally."

Since the trek back to New York, the team has helped with Hurricane Katrina, the space shuttle Columbia explosion and Hurricane Ernesto, using skills honed at ground zero. Each return home includes appreciative crowds and words of gratitude, but Schapelhouman said the experience can be difficult to accept.

"It’s hard because you want to be respectful and you know they’re just showing thanks to the closest thing they have to New York. People called us heroes but all the heroes died that day," he said.

Indelible memories aren’t the only lingering souvenirs the rescue workers brought back from ground zero.

Although the exact details are still emerging five years later, medical problems are no stranger to anyone who was in the shadow of the World Trade Center or spent weeks in the aftermath. Multiple surveys and reports from agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and FEMA agree symptoms range from persistent coughs — known as the World Trade Center cough — to severely decreased pulmonary function. Without a baseline physical to compare, many Menlo Park workers are hard-pressed to prove their symptoms are legitimately linked to the rescue work.

"The guys aren’t a lot of big complainers. They are in a business where they go out the door and take risks willingly so when they don’t feel good they aren’t usually going to say so," Schapelhouman said.

A new study by Mount Sinai Medical Center of 9,500 recovery and clean up workers show that nearly 70 percent have lung problems and abnormalities due to the toxic gray dust at ground zero.

Upon returning, though, the local workers didn’t know how bad it might be, they just knew a number were missing from a reunion picnic because of pneumonia, upper respiratory infections and nosebleeds. Some had rashes, others just felt off. One 40-something worker died of cancer although it was never diagnosed as a result of his time in New York. Soon, they realized the scope of the problem. Some, like Schapelhouman, will receive free medical screening every year for the rest of his life.

In hindsight, with the medical and psychological issues now apparent, Schapelhouman said he has no regrets about heading to New York.

"Everyone would do it again tomorrow because they love their country and felt honored to be there. It’s something bigger than you," Schapelhouman said.

Michelle Durand can be reached by e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 102. What do you think of this story? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.

Woman's Ailments Back Findings That Most Suffered Respiratory Damage

By Judy Fahys
Salt Lake Tribune
September 11, 2006

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_4317797

Researchers announced last week that, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, thousands of World Trade Center workers and volunteers suffered lingering health damage.

Bountiful's Nancy Hachmeister could have told them as much. A search and rescue dog handler, she spent more than a week at the scene, where thick smoke and dust filled every breath taken by the 40,000 who came to help.

Hachmeister had a deep, nagging hack by the second day she and her German shepherd, Ivey, scoured the rubble for human remains. It got so bad that, by her fifth and last night on the scene, the dust-thick air made her vomit and cough continuously.

Five years, a surgery and countless ineffective drugs later, she still has fits of deep coughing and many infections.

"At every briefing they said the air quality was fine," she said, shaking her head. "Hey, it wasn't fine."

Hachmeister can be counted among the living victims of 9/11.

Responders like her complain that the government has been slow to recognize their plight and that its assistance has been feeble. Even five years after responders recovered the dead and sorted through the debris for clues, their 9/11-related illnesses are often denied and treatment remains a puzzle.

The journal Environmental Health Perspectives last week published the findings of researchers at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine who found that nearly seven of every 10 volunteers reported respiratory symptoms, including the persistent and bronchitis-style cough now dubbed the "Trade Center cough."

The researchers also report in their study of 9,442 that symptoms persisted for more than two years for nearly six of every 10 Ground Zero volunteers.

"The workers and volunteers who served New York City and the nation through their heroic service in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 need continuing medical surveillance and follow-up, especially since some diseases like cancer are of long latency," the study concludes.

Ken Olson, president and chief executive officer of DataChem Laboratories in Salt Lake City, had teams collecting air samples at the World Trade Center site within days after 9/11, and he confirms the government's assertions that the concentrations of hazardous substances - including asbestos, organic chemicals, heavy metals and silica - were not dangerously high.

DataChem used high-tech tools to analyze about 1,000 samples at the World Trade Center for the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health over six weeks.

And what did impress the Utah-based scientists was the tiny size of all the dust particles, not just the hazardous substances. Glass, concrete, asbestos - it was all pulverized and more likely to get deeply embedded in the throat and lungs.

"We were more concerned about the volume of particulate matter," he said. "Our bodies aren't really good at dealing with that."

Ivey, a participant in a 9/11 dog-health study, lost a leg to bone cancer in 2004 and succumbed last year at age 9. Hachmeister is convinced that exposure to 9/11 pollution is behind Ivey's untimely demise.

"How can you definitively say it wasn't because of all that" pollution? she asked.

Hachmeister still trains dogs for search and rescue while working a state technology services job. She's putting together the "Ivey Fund" to cover veterinary expenses for service dogs.

Hachmeister is contemplating a workers' compensation claim, even though it threatens her continued work with the Utah's Urban Search and Rescue. She doesn't like to cry, but the tears come as she talks about what 9/11 has cost her already. For responders like Hachmeister, the costs continue to add.

"They just need to admit it."

fahys@sltrib.com

Local Ironworker Aided Country in Time of Need

By Adam Leech aleech@seacoastonline.com
Portsmouth NH Herald
September 10, 2006

http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/09102006/nhnews-10sun-sept11-ironworker.html

When Bob Clancy of Kittery, Maine, heard airplanes had struck the World Trade Center, he knew he had to do something. Five years later, his decision to help has cost him his job and his livelihood, and he waits for his country to help him.

As a 46-year-old ironworker with more than two decades of experience, Clancy was in the prime of his career on Sept. 11, 2001. He was welding steel 90 feet in the air while working at the Con Edison power plant in Newington in 2001, when the crane operator told him what happened.

By Sept. 17, he was standing in the middle of the smoldering ruins of the twin towers, as New York City firefighters and police officers pointed to piles of rubble their colleagues might be under. Armed with a blow torch, Clancy was happy to help.

"I was already a disabled veteran and I wanted to do something," said Clancy, who

served in the Coast Guard in the 1970s. "We got attacked. It was wrong, and I had a skill they needed."

For two months, Clancy was among the paid construction workers removing debris from ground zero. At the beginning, he said, it was a rescue mission -- everyone wanted to find a survivor. Eventually, finding a body was the goal so the family could have something to bury, but that was rare. Often, the only evidence of a body was a pile of black soot.

"Every day we went down there, the smell got worse. It wasn't a bad smell, but when you know what it is, it's tough. You don't forget it. I had to ignore the fact that it smelled like a burning body and then just cut the beam," he said.

"You could see the hope going out of people. There wasn't a lot of extra chitchat. People were starting to come to the reality we weren't going to find anyone. ... It's hard when you see hope disappear."

The smoke that arose from the rubble never ceased while Clancy was there. Breathing was often difficult, but there were a limited number of respirators for the workers and most went without.

Clancy said the Environmental Protection Agency issued a report on the first day, saying the air was as clean as any construction site. Most were skeptical, he said, but continued working.

Five years later, at the age of 51, Clancy can't walk up three flights of stairs without getting winded and without his heart rate rising to dangerous levels.

"I've been unemployed for four of the past five years," he said. "I can't do any of the work. I've done a few other things and even worked (as a welder) when I probably shouldn't have. I had no choice."

Along with post-traumatic stress disorder, doctors have diagnosed Clancy with asthma, reactive airway dysfunction system, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and sinusitis, none of which he had before working at ground zero.

"I probably have $10,000 worth of inhalers and medicines," he said.

Nearly 70 percent of recovery workers who responded to the World Trade Center attacks suffered lung problems during or after their work at ground zero, according to a health study released recently by Mount Sinai Medical Center.

It focused mostly on what has been dubbed "World Trade Center cough," which was little understood immediately after the attacks but became a chief concern.

The findings are based on medical exams conducted between July 2002 and April 2004 on 9,500 ground zero workers.

They include the following:

Nearly 70 percent of World Trade Center responders had new or worsened lung symptoms after the attacks.

Among responders who had no health symptoms before the attacks, 61 percent developed lung symptoms while working on the toxic pile.

Clancy said he had to travel to New York to find a doctor who could treat him. All the doctors in Maine said his lung problems were caused by smoking.

"I admit smoking doesn't help it," he said. "But I was fine before I went down there."

Clancy just began to receive weekly $300 of workers' compensation this month -- the first steady check he's had in years.

The good will of others, primarily family, friends and former employers who knew what he went through, kept him alive.

"I can live on $300 a week now because I'm so used to living on nothing," he said. "I was at the top of my game when I worked down there. ... Now, I get winded helping somebody move a couch on my truck."

Copyright 1999 - 2004 Seacoast Newspapers

Ground Zero Haunts Would-Be Rescuers

By John Hilton
Carlisle, Pa. Sentinal
September 10, 2006

http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2006/09/10/news/news16a.txt

When Andy Henry got back from his rescue and recovery deployment at the World Trade Center, he shut down.

The hundreds of photos he took at ground zero went in the drawer. The DVD he prepared for his mates was locked away. The small canisters of dust he collected at the site were taped shut and all but forgotten.

A burly man with 30 years’ experience as a firefighter — the last 16 with the Harrisburg Bureau of Fire — Henry, 43, wanted to wipe away what he saw in the days after terrorists attacked New York City.

"When I left there, I vowed never to return," he says.

But time, as the saying goes, heals all wounds. With the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks tomorrow, Henry says it is time to revisit the good things that came from that awful day.

The patriotism. The unity.

"If remembering is going to bring people together again, then that’s pretty important," he says from the kitchen table in his Carlisle home. "It seems like patriotism has gone by the wayside. It’s just something people should do. You should have a flag in your yard all the time."

Of course, those memories of 9/11 are not all good.

Health problems, traumatic memories and future preparedness are all issues of interest to the members of Pennsylvania’s Urban Search and Rescue Task Force One (PA-TF1),

The task force was one of the first called to the scene of the World Trade Center bombing and spent eight days there assisting the New York City Fire Department. Task force members looked for clues, recorded history and pulled bodies from the rubble in 12-hour shifts.

Henry served as a technical information specialist while Randy Padfield of Upper Allen Township worked as a rescue specialist. They agreed to share their experiences with The Sentinel.

Not long after the second plane flew into the World Trade Center, task force Chief Dan Hartman received a call from the Federal Emergency Management Agency representative and began putting his task force together for the trip to ground zero.

As the convoy made its way to the site, Henry remembers getting briefed on what to expect. It was a futile exercise.

"They were mentally trying to prepare us," he recalls. "They were telling us, ‘It’s not like anything you’ve ever seen before’... The emotions were something that were never experienced by the team before. These are macho, tough guys. You get there and these guys are just dropping to their knees crying."

The scene was what you would expect when two 110-story buildings and several smaller structures are largely reduced to sand and dust. At one point, Henry scraped a thick layer of the dust off his arm and deposited it into a small film canister.

Buildings blocks away were covered in the dust so thick that mourners scrawled messages to missing loved ones. The cleanup would have been a far less sinister assignment without the knowledge that there were hundreds of bodies buried in the wreckage.

"We’ve seen a lot of things," says Padfield, 39, a senior education specialist for the fire training unit at Harrisburg Area Community College. "But I don’t think anything could have prepared us for that."

Hartman and the task force staged at two sites: the Merrill Lynch building that abutted the WTC towers for work and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center several blocks away for sleeping.

Hope was quickly lost. The team found nobody alive in its assigned section.

"It was your initial fireman’s instinctive gung-ho and let’s go in there and save the world attitude," Henry recalls. "And you get in there and realize it’s not what you thought it was going to be."

The team did find "small plane parts here and there," Padfield says, and followed strict protocol on preserving that evidence.

As the days and nights dragged on, the crews were buoyed by visits from celebrities such as actor Stephen Baldwin and President George W. Bush. Likewise, the cheering throngs of New Yorkers who lined the streets to and from the Javits Center every day left an indelible impression on the out-of-towners.

"They were just cheering and saying ‘You’re our heroes!’" Henry says. "For a city where you’re afraid to walk down the street at night, to have this happening was just amazing."

E-mail helped rescuers stay in touch with friends and family. Henry took his role as the team’s information guy seriously. He corresponded with a network of supporters from home and posted responses on a bulletin board daily.

"When they came off their shifts, the first thing they did was check the board," he says.

Henry will never forget how he ended up watching the funeral of FDNY Chaplain Mychal Judge with President Bill Clinton, Sen. Hillary Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea.

He was out with another task force member in search of a store when they ended up in front of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, where Judge’s funeral was about to begin.

Father Judge was killed by falling debris while administering last rites to a fallen firefighter inside one of the crumbling towers. He became the first officially recorded fatality of the attacks and his story has attained mythical status among Catholics.

A policeman directing traffic recognized the Pennsylvania firefighters.

"He said, ‘We really appreciate what you guys are doing,’" Henry says. "‘You can park right here and we’ll guard your car.’ So we parked right there on the sidewalk. We walked around the corner and ran into Bill Clinton and Hillary and Chelsea."

After being at ground zero Sept. 12-19, the task force was replaced by a group from Texas, says Hartman, a battalion chief for the Harrisburg Bureau of Fire. "Everybody was physically and mentally exhausted by the time we got back."

But the fallout from their 9/11 work continues to revisit task force members.

Last week they buried Joseph M. Santoro, 55, of Middletown, a retired team member who died of complications of leukemia. Santoro was an information specialist who worked with Henry at ground zero.

Doctors said he did not die from the leukemia itself but from pulmonary veno-occlusive disease, a rare lung condition.

Harrisburg Bureau of Fire officials will file a claim with the U.S. Department of Justice seeking to have Santoro’s death classified as a line-of-duty casualty caused by toxins he encountered during the recovery effort, Fire Chief Donald Konkle said Thursday.

Task force members are convinced they were contaminated during the cleanup effort. Some responders had only paper filter masks during the days after the attacks, says Henry, who has had respiratory problems since his work at ground zero.

A study released last week by the Mount Sinai Medical Center linked work at the World Trade Center ruins with long-term respiratory problems.

Nearly 70 percent of the rescue and cleanup workers who toiled in the dust and fumes at ground zero have had trouble breathing, and many will probably be sick for the rest of their lives, doctors say in the biggest Sept. 11 health study yet.

"There should no longer be any doubt about the health effects of the World Trade Center. Our patients are sick," says Dr. Robin Herbert, co-director of the group that has monitored the health of nearly 16,000 ground zero workers.

Herbert says that most of the patients in the study first came to ground zero between Sept. 11 and Sept. 13, 2001, which exposed them to asbestos, pulverized concrete, mercury and toxins that will leave them chronically sick.

Henry has not pursued any claims for his own respiratory problems but notes he did not suffer prior to his eight days at ground zero. He is saving his canisters of dust — just in case.

Otherwise, he is slowly opening up about his days spent at the World Trade Center. A DVD he put together is being shown this morning at his church — Tree of Life Church on K Street in Carlisle.

He even thinks he might visit New York City again.

"Five years later, I’m wondering. There’s a curiosity to go back," he says. "Someday I will I’m sure."

The Associated Press contributed to this report

For Squad 41, Time Does Not Heal All Wounds: Only Four Sept. 11 Firefighters Remain at New York Station That Lost Six in Attack

Joe Hallett
The Columbus Dispatch
September 10, 2006

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/national-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/09/10/20060910-A11-00.html

NEW YORK — With its threestory red brick facade and a massive bay door opening to a single fire engine, not much has changed about dingy Squad 41 in the 96 years it has been a guardian angel for a poor slice of the Bronx.

That is, not much has changed on the outside.

Inside, the Squad 41 family marks time since Sept. 11, 2001, each member in a different stage of recovery, soldiering on with lives that have done nothing but change since six of the squad’s firefighters died in the collapse of the World Trade Center.

The family — current and former Squad 41 firefighters, widows and their children, surviving parents and in-laws — came together yesterday, two days before the fifth anniversary, to honor Lt. Michael L. Healey and firefighters Robert W. Hamilton, Richard B. Van-Hine, Michael J. Lyons, Thomas P. Cullen III and Gregory A. Sikorsky.

Just inside the bay door, a shrine with portraits and plaques reminds Steve Gillespie of his lost friends every time he backs the big engine into the firehouse.

"I thank each of them for bringing us back safely, because they’re always with us."

After a memorial Mass at nearby Immaculate Conception Church, the family gathered for lunch at the station. Some have moved on with their lives, and some are stuck in that horrific day.

"Sept. 11 is going to be part of us forever," said Theresa Healey, 46, Michael’s widow. "It’s never going to go away. You have to learn to live through it."

Of Squad 41’s 24 members on Sept. 11, only Gillespie and three others remain in the unit. Five have retired, some forced by lingering physical and emotional problems common to first responders — acid reflux, asthma and mental stress.

A Fire Department of New York study released this year reported that firefighters who worked at the site lost lung capacity in the first year after the terrorist attack equal to what they might have lost in 12 years of normal duty.

"I feel I will die from it," said retired Squad 41 Capt. Russell Vomero, 54. "Whatever I breathed in down there, whatever it was that I took in, will eventually kill me."

For months after the attack, Vomero and other squad members spent countless off-duty hours digging through the World Trade Center rubble, searching for their six among the 343 firefighters who died.

Miraculously, after unearthing equipment and tools with Squad 41 markings from the south tower debris, surviving squad members carried what they believe to be the remains of the six out of the site in March 2002. Hamilton, Van-Hine and Sikorsky were positively identified, Gillespie said.

The ordeal sapped Vomero and other members of their good health and desire to remain firefighters.

"Since 9/11, I don’t watch or read any newspapers," Vomero said. "I came here today out of respect for the wives. Otherwise, 9/11 is a day I don’t want to be conscious of. I want to wipe it out. I don’t know if that’s good."

Gib Craig, 45, who retired from Squad 41 on April 25, 2005, after 18 years with the department, shares Vomero’s emotional place. Now living in Cape Cod, Craig did not attend yesterday’s memorial but said earlier by phone that he is having trouble overcoming the tragedy.

"It’s an everyday thing for me, an everyday thing, and I’m tired of it every day," Craig said. "So, when everybody else gets their interest piqued at this time of year, it’s almost offensive to me. It’s like: You should have been living in my mind for the last five years."

Craig, who has respiratory problems, said he is emotionally exhausted from Sept. 11 and rarely talks about it, but he consented to an interview because readers of The Dispatch, which has chronicled Squad 41 since the attack, have been so generous to the unit’s widows’ and children’s fund.

"Give me Sept. 10," Craig said. "The job ended for me on Sept. 11, not on April 25, 2005, when I retired. I was done after Sept. 11. Done. Just done."

Gillespie, 39, said he sees a therapist for his haunting memories and found after working two recent fatal fires that "I didn’t know if I wanted to do this any more."

"It’s different for everybody," Gillespie said. "You hear about guys who can’t sleep, but for me, whenever (the memories) come on, all I want to do is sleep."

Two widows, Healey and Sue Cullen, 36, said nurturing their children through the trauma has helped their own recoveries. Cullen, a therapist specializing in grief counseling, married a firefighter in March, and Healey said she is "pretty serious with a wonderful man."

Still, Healey and Cullen said that after being married 20 years and 5 1 /2 years, respectively, they dearly miss their deceased husbands.

"I talk to Mike all the time," Healey said. "He’s guiding us, kicking me once in a while and saying, ‘C’mon, get going.’ "

Her three children, a daughter, 20, and sons, 22 and 17, gradually have overcome the raw grief, "but it was very difficult for them in the beginning. ... We talk about Mike a lot. We laugh and I’ll say, ‘Oh my God, you sound just like your father.’ "

Cullen said her son, Thomas, was 2 when his father died and has no memories of him.

"It’s been difficult at times, exceedingly sad, especially when I talk to my son about Tom, because I feel the void of my husband in his life," Cullen said.

"It’s still hard. I hate this time of year, because it opens everything up all over again."

jhallett@dispatch.com

Rescuers Still Feel 9/11 Ills: Breathing Troubles Plague Firefighters

By Peggy O'Farrell
The (Cincinnati) Enquirer
September 9, 2006

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060909/NEWS01/609090345/-1/CINCI

David Pickering spent a week in the hospital with pneumonia after returning from the ruins of the World Trade Center, and the asthma he thought he'd gotten under control came back.

Kevin McMullen, a Cincinnati firefighter, also developed pneumonia after inhaling dust and debris at ground zero, and he suffered some asthma-like symptoms.

After the Twin Towers collapsed, a cloud of dust and debris hung above the site for days. On the ground, rescue workers had respirators, but it was almost impossible to wear them for long while working.

"There was the concrete dust, a lot of smoke from the fires," Pickering said. "You name it and it was there. Asbestos, mercury, chemicals. It just ran the whole gamut."

His doctors told him he might have developed the pneumonia from inhaling pulverized human remains, he said.

The two men are among the thousands of firefighters, police, construction workers and others who have suffered lung problems as a result of their exposure to fumes, dust and toxins released at the site after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

They are members of Hamilton County's Urban Search and Rescue Team and a Federal Emergency Management Agency team dispatched to the World Trade Center. They arrived at the scene about 6 a.m. Sept. 12 and spent 10 days there.

A study released this week from Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York found that nearly 70 percent of the rescue and cleanup crews who worked at ground zero have had trouble breathing, and researchers say many of those workers will probably have health problems for the rest of their lives.

In New York, public pressure is growing for the government to help ground zero workers who have suffered health problems. A House subcommittee met last week near ground zero when the Mount Sinai report was released.

Pickering, 44, of Liberty Township, has had problems with asthma and a nagging cough, along with the pneumonia, since he returned from ground zero.

He'd been diagnosed years ago with adult-onset asthma, but it was under control.

"Since 9/11, it's gotten worse," he said. "But I'm starting to get it under control again, and it seems a lot better."

He uses an inhaler and takes a steroid every day to keep his symptoms under control. Pickering is a captain and a paramedic with the Colerain Township Fire Department.

McMullen, a lieutenant with the Cincinnati Fire Department, hasn't had any problems since early in 2002. The Colerain Township man is 43.

Dust was a constant at the scene, McMullen said. "But it was nothing you noticed. If it was a real visible cloud, everyone put on their respirators."

It was almost impossible to keep respirators on for any length of time, he said.

McMullen and others at the scene wore the kind of respirators that only covered the lower half of their faces. The masks were hot and made it hard to breathe and even more difficult to speak to colleagues.

"It became a standing joke that it was a neck protector," he said. "You just pulled it down."

McMullen and Pickering participated in an early study on health effects among rescue workers, done about a year after the attacks. They're also planning to participate in follow-up studies Mount Sinai researchers will be conducting.

The two men said they want to know if they can expect further lung problems.

"Who knows what else is hiding in there?" McMullen asked.

E-mail pofarrell@enquirer.com

Copyright 2006, Enquirer.com

She's Still Sick, but Volunteer near Ground Zero Is Glad She Helped

By Jenny Dolan
La Crosse (WI) Tribune
September 9, 2006

http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2006/09/09/news/2volunteer_0909.txt

HOLMEN, Wis. — Judy Wolff flew to New York City to help victims of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center shortly after they happened in 2001.

She never thought she’d become a victim as well.

Wolff, of Holmen, did three weeks of volunteer work with the American Red Cross. She handed out vouchers to help people pay for food, rent and other expenses.

Stationed on Canal Street, just blocks away from the "Ground Zero" site where the twin towers fell, Wolff remembers vividly the stench — death mixed with fuel and melted plastic.

She remembers Mayor Rudy Giuliani assuring everyone the air was safe to breathe.

Wolff remembers the coughing and her burning throat — the first signs of what would become a permanent illness.

Wolff, like other Ground Zero workers and volunteers, now knows she was swimming in a cauldron of chemicals.

Three days before Wolff left New York City, she noticed the symptoms: dry cough, burning sinuses, tightness in her chest.

In December, only two weeks after Wolff came home, her doctor declared her unfit to return to her job as a nurse’s aide at Holmen High School.

Today, more than 12,000 people who worked at or near Ground Zero are sick, according to the New York Daily News. That figure does not include unpaid workers such as Wolff, who has Reactive Airway Disease Syndrome, or RADS, commonly referred to as "Trade Center cough."

Some have called Wolff and other workers now ill the "forgotten victims."

"People need to understand that there’s going to be a lot more victims of 9/11 than (those who died) that day," Wolff said. "It’s not a done deal. Just because 9/11 is all cleaned up doesn’t mean it’s going to go away."

Wolff receives disability pay through Social Security and in 2004 won workers compensation from the state of New York, she said.

Wolff doesn’t go outside when it’s wet anymore. She doesn’t tinker in her garden or clean her own house. She can’t work.

She has spent more than $30,000 in medical bills and is close to losing her home, she said. She might have to run a fundraiser in November to help her family.

But Wolff said she doesn’t regret going to New York City, even when family and friends urged her to stay home.

"As soon as I saw the first tower go down on TV, I knew I was going to go," Wolff said.

Wolff estimated she personally helped 200 people while volunteering.

She remembers a man who recently opened a business near the Twin Towers. He survived the attack but his business did not.

She remembers a married couple who walked into their apartment after the towers collapsed. They found two bodies, still in their airplane seats.

She remembers a little girl with black hair, clutching a teddy bear, saying she was going to remember her daddy who died in the tower.

"The only thing I regret was believing that there would be no health issues," Wolff said. "(People) should’ve requested masks."

Jenny Dolan can be reached at (608) 791-8220 or jdolan@lacrossetribune.com.

Firefighters Went From 'Heroes to Zeroes': Five Years After 9/11, Former Triathlete Has Trouble Climbing Stairs

By Chris Francescani
ABC News Law & Justice Unit
September 8, 2006

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2407850&page=1

New York City firefighter Robert Ryan, 48, was one of the most experienced triathletes the FDNY had ever seen when he joined the department in 1983.

By his own count, he has run 45 triathlons to 50 triathlons -- including the fabled "Iron Man" competition in Lake Placid, N.Y., in 2002.

"Prior to 9/11, my lung capacity was 130 percent, meaning I had 30 percent better lung capacity than the average citizen," he said to ABC News. "By January 2005, my capacity was down to 100 percent, and in April [2006], it was measured at 80 percent, and it's just getting worse."

Ryan now has trouble climbing a flight of stairs, but it really hurts when he tries to play with his 7-year-old son.

"I want to be active with him, but after 10 [minutes] or 15 minutes of biking or swimming, I'm shot," Ryan said. "And he knows that. He'll ask me, 'Are you OK? Are you OK?'"

In August, Ryan packed up and moved with his son and girlfriend Patricia to Glendale, Ariz., because the air quality made it easier for him to breathe.

He suffers from asthma, acid reflux, respiratory airway disease syndrome, and "every time I get a cold or something small, it blows up into something big. I've had an infection for three weeks now," he said.

Ryan worked at ground zero "on and off until February 2002."

Like many firefighters, he said that in all the time he was working there, he was never given a mask, but he also said he never asked for one.

"As far as our own safety and the thought that we had about going in there -- nobody gave it a thought. Every fireman, cop that went down there, nobody thought about [their] own safety," he said. "That's not what we do. We run into burning buildings. Cops chase criminals. That type of thing. It's what we do."

"We had no protection at all," he said. "We had no tools and so whatever you grabbed, you could bring -- guys were bringing shovels and things from home."

Ryan believes that the department and the city were caught off guard by how many firefighters were getting sick, and says it was last January that the department changed its procedures to restrict more firefighters from claiming 9/11 injuries and ailments.

In January 2005, the department stopped using the methocholine test, an asthma test, and changed to a pulmonary function test, "which is OK if you have a blockage in your lungs."

"But if your lungs aren't irritated at the time you take the [pulmonary function] test, it's not going to show up," he said.

"They knew what they were doing,'' he said, of the policy shift, which was confirmed to ABC News by United Firefighters Association president Steve Cassidy.

"There were guys coming in a year after 9/11 getting full benefits with lesser symptoms than some of us have now," Ryan said. "I think the department was just overwhelmed by the number of people getting sick four and five years out, and they're making it harder for us to prove because of economics."

He said his brother, another 9/11 firefighter who worked for weeks at ground zero, had an operation to remove a cancerous tumor in his pancreas.

"We have a saying at the firehouse. … 'We went from heroes to zeroes,'" Ryan said.

"Every guy that was down there gave 150 percent, and now they're getting slapped in the face," Ryan said, echoing a sentiment ABC News heard many times over several weeks of interviews with New York firefighters.

"I'm not talking about millions of dollars for each one," he said. "I'm talking about being able to take care of your family when you have to retire at 41 [years old] or 45 years old."

Ryan went to a triathlon training session in 2004, but after watching him struggle through a few laps in the pool, the track coach told him to forget it.

"My triathlon days are over, so I'm going to focus on maybe becoming a coach myself," he said.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

9/11 Rescuers Suffering Cancer, Ailments from Toxic-Air Exposure

By Todd B. Bates
The (East Brunswick, NJ) Home News Tribune
September 8, 2006

http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060908/NEWS/609080469/1001

The Rev. Denise P. Mantell spent hundreds of volunteer hours helping people at or near the World Trade Center site after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

This year, she was diagnosed with lung cancer.

She thinks "there's probably . . . a very good possibility" that the cancer is linked to her exposures, said Mantell, a Matawan resident and rector of Trinity Episcopal Church there.

Sarah R. Atlas, a volunteer dog handler with New Jersey Task Force One, an urban search-and-rescue team based at Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station, spent 10 days at or near ground zero immediately after the disaster.

Since then, Atlas, who lives in Camden County, has developed numerous health problems, including chronic nasal and sinus problems and a sleeping disorder.

"What's happened, happened," said Atlas, a 50-year-old emergency medical technician. "If, God forbid, I get something else down the road," medical personnel will identify it quickly.

When the World Trade Center towers collapsed, vast amounts of dust, smoke and gases were released into the air and fires at Ground Zero burned for more than three months, emitting even more contaminants, according to studies.

An estimated 40,000 rescue and recovery workers were exposed to caustic dust and toxic pollutants following the attacks, and thousands of workers and volunteers have had respiratory and other health problems, according to experts.

"The worrisome thing is . . . if all these people have respiratory issues after five years, what are they going to have after 20 years?" said Dr. Iris Udasin. She is an associate professor and director of employee health at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute and UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School's Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine in Piscataway.

Nearly 70 percent of 9,442 World Trade Center responders examined between July 2002 and April 2004 reported new or worsened respiratory symptoms, according to a study by researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, Udasin and others that was released this week.

The study details findings from the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program, coordinated by Mount Sinai. It is the largest multicenter program for examining people who worked and volunteered at Ground Zero and other sites, according to a statement posted on the Web.

"Here it is five years later and people are on nasal steroids" and inhaled steroids for asthma and "we can't get them off and these were people who . . . were healthy and these are people who can't go to work," said Udasin, an East Brunswick resident.

They include police officers, emergency responders, firefighters, union construction workers, electricians, pipe fitters and communication workers, she said.

"We have had some reported cancers," Udasin said. "We can't say that we've had all that much cancer yet, but we are worried about it."

More than 600 people have been screened at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute's Clinical Center as part of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program, according to Udasin.

Collapsed buildings

The collapse of the World Trade Center towers pulverized a large fraction of their millions of tons of materials into dust and smoke, according to a scientific report.

The debris spread throughout southern Manhattan, and an "intense plume" also headed over Brooklyn, according to the report by Paul J. Lioy, Panos G. Georgopoulos and Clifford P. Weisel of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute.

The large mass of particles and fibers consisted of construction debris, cement, chrysotile asbestos, cotton fibers, tarry products, charred wood, soot and glass fibers, the report said.

The particles were very alkaline and irritated the upper respiratory system, according to the report. It is clear that people who were in lower Manhattan during the attack were "exposed to at least lifetime doses" of particles, the report said.

Helping hand

Mantell, a New York City native, said she went to the World Trade Center area shortly after the terrorist attacks and soon was given full access to ground zero.

"At first, I just went in . . . to do whatever I could," said Mantell, an Episcopal priest for nearly 22 years and rector at Trinity Episcopal Church for more than eight years.

People often stopped her on the streets and asked her to say a prayer with them, Mantell said.

She spent time at St. Paul's Chapel, an Episcopal church across from World Trade Center site that became a haven for people, and with the mobile morgue, she said.

The air quality was "terrible, and we knew it was terrible," said Mantell, who has two grown children.

Mantell said she spent about 50 hours a week at the ground zero area for about 10 months, except for the week after Christmas and Holy and Easter weeks, in addition to her duties at Trinity Episcopal Church.

And she "got no sleep at all," she said.

At first, she was given paper masks and "we very quickly realized that that didn't work at all," Mantell said.

"Very few people wore masks because there wasn't anything available . . . that was all that decent," she said.

In January 2002, she got a much better mask, but by then "the damage had been done" for anyone, she said.

Three years ago, she went to a doctor because her lungs felt thick, said Mantell, who once worked out regularly by running, going to the gym and kickboxing.

Last March, after many visits to doctors and tests to try to find out what was wrong, she was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma in the right lung and had surgery to remove the malignant tumor.

"I wasn't really afraid . . . had a really good relationship with God . . . wasn't afraid of dying, was more afraid of the chemo than anything else," Mantell said.

She finished chemotherapy more than a month ago, she said.

"I've got a tremendous support system and the parish is wonderful," Mantell said.

Udasin, of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, has examined and talked with Mantell.

Speaking in general about the possibility of cancer among ground zero workers and volunteers, Udasin said, "We're concerned that . . . exposures at the World Trade Center could potentially cause cancer . . . but that it's too soon to know for sure."

Ten days at Ground Zero

Atlas said she and her German shepherd, Anna, and New Jersey Task Force One arrived in New York City at about noon or 12:30 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001.

And they spent 10 days there, said Atlas, who lives in Barrington, Camden County.

"When we got to the pile . . . everybody was running on adrenaline, hoping and praying that they could locate anybody alive," she said.

But while they were there, no one was found alive, Atlas said.

She was exposed to "the burning fire," she said. She wore a paper mask with a filter "every time I went out to do a search," but sometimes they needed to take off their masks to instruct their dogs, Atlas said.

Just days after her stint at Ground Zero ended, Atlas was rushed to an emergency room and diagnosed with pneumonia and post-traumatic stress disorder, she said.

She has also developed rhinitis, or inflammation of the nasal passages; sinusitis, chronic sinus problems; a severe case of sleep apnea, a sleeping disorder; some mental health issues; and allergic reactions, Atlas said.

"I would do it again if I had to," Atlas said.

9/11 Health Woes Reach Far Beyond New York

By Devlin Barrett
Associated Press
August 25, 2006

http://www.silive.com/newsflash/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-20/1156521541192250.xml&storylist=simetro

Ground zero worker Jimmy Willis' lung problems got so bad in the years after Sept. 11 that he finally left New York, hoping the dry air of Nevada would blow away the after-effects of toxic World Trade Center dust.

But when he moved two years ago, Willis also left behind New York-based medical expertise on the subject of 9/11 related illnesses, joining a diaspora of hundreds of ground zero rescue workers scattered across the United States.

It is a population many health experts, union leaders and politicians say is vulnerable to poor medical treatment because the government has delayed release of guidelines that would help doctors around the country diagnose and treat illnesses linked to the attacks. A standard medical protocol for health care workers is just one element of what a growing chorus of advocates says should be a long-term, national program to test and treat sick workers.

Five years after the attacks, Willis, 51, suffers from respiratory disease and gastro-intestinal bleeding.

"I've been in and out of the hospital since I've been here," said Willis, a former transit worker and ex-union official now living in Las Vegas. "But they weren't coming back with any answers, and I almost bled to death."

The creation of testing guidelines, called protocols, was shelved for years. Most recently, officials indicated a release by the end of this year. The lag has come under criticism from workers' advocates.

"It is outrageous that we don't have protocols five years out, and the consequences have been unfortunate for many workers, when their doctors across the country aren't trained to recognize specific symptoms," said Joel Shufro of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, a union group.

The New York City Department of Health is crafting the protocols, but there is no set deadline for their release. At the same time, the federal government is promising a Web site to serve as a clearinghouse for 9/11 health information for people around the country.

"We're working on it as quickly as we can. We want to make sure it's done right and in a way that will provide a service to the responders," said Fred Blosser, a spokesman for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Exactly how many rescue workers responded to the attacks is unknown, though estimates usually range above 40,000. In New York, the focal point of research on 9/11-related illnesses has been Mount Sinai Medical Center, and thousands have sought treatment there. Mount Sinai is expected to release its most significant findings on sick workers days before the fifth anniversary.

Beyond the city, there is a nationwide network of health clinics that offers medical screening to 9/11 workers.

The program, run by the Association of Environmental and Occupational Health Clinics, has seen 664 patients, including 121 in the last year. Its clinics in 33 states offer a battery of tests for those worried that ground zero made them sick.

Testing guidelines are crucial, however, to helping a doctor in any clinic or network recognize symptoms, said Kathy Kirkland, the association's executive director. She said standardized protocols can help alert health care workers to the less obvious ailments connected to ground zero work.

Take the gastro-intestinal problems afflicting Willis.

"That's fairly common among World Trade Center responders, but it's something a lot of clinicians wouldn't recognize, wouldn't know," she said.

Or the lungs. A standard pulmonary test doesn't reveal the true extent of Sept. 11-related damage, she said, because although it can measure lung capacity it doesn't gauge the wear-and-tear inflicted on the organs.

"A lot of guys on the surface seem to have normal lung function, but compared to what they had before, their lungs have aged a whole lot faster than they should have," Kirkland said. "Again, that's not something the average clinician would think to check."

The clinics in the network have seen an increase in people coming in for treatment, a trend Kirkland expects to continue.

Firefighter Terry Trepanier, who spent 10 days climbing around the smoking debris pile with his rescue dog, Woody, is one of the network's patients, undergoing a day-long exam at a Cincinnati clinic.

Trepanier and many colleagues returned to Ohio with "World Trade Center cough," and he failed his first lung test after the 2001 attacks, though his lungs have recovered since.

The out-of-state rescue teams have some advantages over the locals: On balance, they stayed on the smoking pit far fewer days, and many arrived with respiratory gear.

Still, concerns about ground zero's health effects linger within Trepanier's Ohio crew.

"We still talk about it when someone gets sick," said the 52-year-old lieutenant and paramedic. "In the back of our minds, we wonder if this is something from the World Trade Center, or is it just something else."

Earlier this year, long-term health worries led the White House to name Dr. John Howard, the head of NIOSH, to coordinate the various ground zero health programs.

The task is complicated by the sheer number of people who responded after Sept. 11, and the myriad government and private entities involved. Officials say it is virtually impossible to construct an accurate attendance record for one of the most chaotic events in American history.

Political leaders hope that the Mount Sinai study and Howard's attention will boost an overall 9/11 health effort that has moved in fits and starts. Earlier this summer, New York Gov. George Pataki signed legislation expanding benefits for the families of those who died of apparent Sept. 11-related illnesses.

Help couldn't come soon enough in the opinion of Willis, who is now retired on disability pay.

"It's not a matter of getting care, it's a matter of getting the right care," he said.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press.