News report on WTC remains recovery ceremony, Oct 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Health, compensation issues riself in swirl of Trade Center dust ■ Police sergeants demand closer The city doesn’t regularly monitor cops for health effects, or give them chest X-rays, liver or blood : monitoring of the effects of tests. fallout from 9/11 attacks Under his health plan, Gadaieta can see a pulmo­ nologist,- but protesters said he would have trouble finding one trained to look for problems relating to By HEIDI SINGER Trade Center dust. ADVANCE CITY HALL BUREAU About one third of the city’s 5,000 sergeants have During the months following Sept. 11, Police Sgt. taken sick leave due to Trade Center-linked health Nick Gadaieta worked at the Fresh Kills landfill problems, according to David P. Duffy of Sergeants about twice a week. The Tottenville resident took for a Better Association, the group staging yester­ meal breaks near the rubble, and when he removed day’s protest. his “space suit,” his street clothes quickly became Any officer is expected and advised to report powdered with dust. health problems to the NYPD, said Lt. Brian Burke, He wasn’t worried — nobody had lectured him on an NYPD spokesman. the importance of decontamination. He threw them in the wash with his children’s laundry. Dozens of cops are now participating in a long­ term study of health effects from Sept. 11. For a few days after each Fresh Kills tour, Gada­ ieta suffered respiratory problems — a cough and The results of this study could help other officers if congestion. they develop health problems in the future, he said — The dust he breathed, wore and ate is still being but only if they lay the groundwork by undergoing picked over by scientists trying to determine its tox­ initial tests with their doctors now. icity, and Gadaieta now wonders if more permanent Union officials are concerned about monitoring the damage will surface later. health effects partly because they want sick cops to “We’re all happy we lived through it,” he said. “But be able to retire at “line-of-duty” pay rates, applying it’s something we think about — whether we lost to officers who were injured on the job. years off our lives as a result of it.” Joel Kupferman, of the New York Environmental Yesterday, Gadaieta joined two dozen sergeants on Law and Justice Project, said firefighters are moni­ the steps of City Hall to demand that authorities do tored more closely than cops, in part because the more to monitor the health of cops assigned to Fire Department is accustomed to dealing with res­ Ground Zero or Fresh Kills. piratory problems. The officers are part of a splinter group hoping to take control of the Sergeants Benevolent Association He said even today, the city doesn’t take basic pre­ (SBA) in its upcoming elections. They argue the city cautions like providing high-efficiency vacuums to and their union should be more aggressive in moni­ properly clean Trade Center dust that he said still toring officers’ health. plagues Lower Manhattan stationhouses. SBA President Bernard Pound wasn’t available for “It feels like we’re second-class citizens,” said comment yesterday. Duffy.

SI Advance 5- no3 NYC-WTC_000143015