9/11 responders await Zadroga Act money

Chris Baumann felt such pain and despair that he deliberately walked into traffic hoping to be hit by a car. John Devlin reflects on the prediction he made while searching the ruins of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 - "We're taking years off our life being here." Glen Klein remembers when a "good day" at Ground Zero was finding a small piece of flesh or bone so a family had something to bury.

For many of the firefighters, police and civilians who worked at Ground Zero, Sept. 11, 2001, never ended. Almost a decade after they turned out by the thousands to search for the dead and clear debris, many suffer a range of physical and psychological illnesses that have steadily worsened.

No one can say exactly how many of these illnesses are directly related to their work. Researchers believe it will take 20 to 30 years before they understand all of the health ramifications from the toxic legacy wrought by tons of rubble and black smoke that rose from the pile. Doctors monitoring the workers are convinced that many of their illnesses are related to exposure to the air at the site.

The Zadroga Act signed last month will fund responders' health care for the next five years and provide some cash compensation for those who Congress recognizes sacrificed their health and well-being, even their livelihoods.

But federal officials have yet to decide whether to include some conditions, such as cancer, where there is not yet hard evidence of a link to WTC toxins. Also undecided is whether people who got a payment from the 2001 Victim Compensation Fund but who now are much sicker should be eligible for additional cash. By taking the earlier payout, they waived their rights to any further settlements from lawsuits.

Through all the uncertainty, responders and their families deal daily with the consequences of illnesses that have had a devastating impact. Here are three of their stories:

Chris Baumann 47, Lindenhurst

- New York City police officer in traffic division, assigned to lower Manhattan.- Worked at Ground Zero on Sept. 11. Has not worked since.

- Retired on disability April 30, 2004

When Chris Baumann goes to sleep at night, he knows what awaits him: nightmares that he likens to a panther crouched at his feet.

"Picture going to bed every night, and having a full-grown panther, claws and all that, waiting to jump on you," he said. "Could you go to sleep?"

Baumann said he's been wracked by those dreams since Sept. 11, 2001, when the New York City traffic cop rushed to the Twin Towers and encountered "the end of the world."

Just before the first tower fell, Baumann had been helping to evacuate people from a nearby building on Rector Street, he said. As he ran back toward the towers and was about two blocks away, he heard a rumbling and saw a large, dark cloud. Baumann was thrown backward, landing on his back 10 feet away in total darkness. He groped to find his legs as he gulped air turned black by pulverized debris.

A woman died in his arms. Another screamed as she lay fatally injured. But the most haunting picture for Baumann was of a small arm in the rubble. It was detached and burned, and at first Baumann thought it was a doll's arm. He fought to believe that the child it belonged to was somehow still alive - hurt, but alive.

"I was in the center of hell," Baumann said.

Only later did the toll become clear. Baumann's eyes were burned by jet fuel, leaving him blind for months. A concussion he suffered when he was slammed backward has left him with severe memory loss - great swathes of his history with his wife of 24 years, AnneMarie, have been erased.

His thyroid and lungs have nodules, and discs in his neck and back are herniated. He has nerve damage - one of his legs always feels wet, like he brushed against the bathroom sink. He had a coronary double bypass, and takes a handful of pills a day - but avoids other prescribed pills, because he can't afford them. Although his eyesight has been mostly restored, Baumann said he's in constant pain. He tried to commit suicide shortly after 9/11, while he was blind, by deliberately walking into traffic on Sunrise Highway.

Dr. Dominic Posillico of Farmingdale, Baumann's internist, said most of Baumann's conditions are directly related to his day of work at Ground Zero, and that he's at risk of developing cancer from the toxic dust he inhaled but was unable to expel. Under the 2001 Victim Compensation Fund, Baumann received a low six-figure settlement (his family will not disclose the exact amount), but his condition has worsened since then. His brain injury was diagnosed too late to apply, and his earlier compensation now might prevent him from getting any payout under Zadroga, although he will get health care paid.

He's on a disability pension and receives Social Security payments for his illnesses.

Dr. Jim Melius, an epidemiologist and chairman of the steering committee for the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program, said no one could predict in 2002 how sick or disabled workers would become.

"Most of these people [now] have chronic respiratory disease. In 2002-03, they were presenting with asthmalike symptoms. We treated them with the standard, long-term asthma meds and hoped they'd be OK," Melius said.

Looking back, Baumann wonders whether he should have accepted the earlier compensation. "We were all physically and emotionally hurt. Who thought straight after 9/11? And here you have people saying that you gotta make decisions now."

The payment went to bills, and to presents for the couple's two children, Christopher, 16 and Courtney, 18, to make up for the hardships the family faced after 9/11. With his wife working only part time, Baumann fears the family probably will have to move.

"We're making it now, but what worries me is 10 to 20 years from now," he said. "I'm on a raft in the ocean, and the raft has a slow leak."

John Devlin, 49, Brightwaters

- Heavy-machinery operating engineer with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 15

- Worked for 9 1/2 months at Ground Zero.

- Receives workers' compensation and Social Security.

By the second week working at Ground Zero, John Devlin said, he and his colleagues started having breathing problems and coughing up phlegm.

"We're taking years off our life being here," Devlin remembers saying. "It was a martini of toxic chemicals."

He operated front-end loaders, bulldozers and a turbo Bobcat helping to clear debris.

In 2004, Devlin, a father of Daniella, 20, and Matthew, 15, who said he never smoked, led an active life, practiced martial arts and was passionate about horse-riding and skiing, received $65,000 from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001.

None of that included any estimate for future lost wages - Devlin always thought he'd work, and before 9/11 he earned more than $100,000 a year. The 2001 compensation fund payout went to household bills and his medical treatment.

Five years later, he was diagnosed with inoperable Stage 4 throat cancer that has spread to his lymph nodes and which doctors at the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program have said they believe is linked to his exposure at the site. After punishing amounts of radiation and chemotherapy, Devlin was left without salivary glands and in constant pain. The scarring from aggressive treatment left him without a voice at first. Intensive speech therapy has helped so that now he talks with a rasp. For a year, he had to rely on a feeding tube because the treatment destroyed parts of his throat, burned his epiglottis, which closes the airway passage when food is consumed, and left him unable to swallow.

Recently, the tube fell out and Devlin decided not to allow doctors to put it back in, saying the feeding tube confined him to his house and took a devastating toll on his quality of life. He's opted instead for a diet of soft foods and shakes that he said he constantly aspirates, giving him recurring bouts of pneumonia and worsening his 9/11-related lung condition.

The oncologist treating Devlin, Dr. Roger Keresztes of the Stony Brook University Cancer Center, wrote he believed the cancer is also connected to exposure at Ground Zero. New York State Workers' Compensation Board ruled the cancer work-related.

Devlin's noncancer treatments are covered by Zadroga Act health care provisions. But his cancer is not included on the list of recognized 9/11 ailments.

Even if it ends up included, a decision that will be left to the Zadroga health administrator, Devlin may not benefit from the law's compensation provisions because he already received the Victim Compensation Fund payout. "If I knew I was going to get cancer, I would have never signed anything," he said.

Devlin chafes at suggestions responders are greedy.

"People's lives are shorter. . . . We're dying. I'm grateful the law passed, but you can't pick and choose. It was an act of war. . . . The law was passed for the 9/11 responders that were down there and if you can prove you were there, there shouldn't be one legitimate responder who's sick left out.

"Until that happens, this law is flawed. We're all in this together, like we were down there."

Glen Klein, 52, Centereach

- Detective with the NYPD Emergency Services Unit. Worked 800-plus hours at the World Trade Center site, starting Sept. 11, 2001.

- Retired January 2003, and seeks to have his service pension reclassified as a disability pension

If New York City police needed to do a scuba rescue, handle a hostage situation or respond to a terrorist threat, they called Glen Klein's team.

Klein belonged to the unit dealing with the toughest situations cops can face. Klein and his colleagues were closer than brothers. "We depended on each other for our survival," he said.

The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, members of the unit rushed into each of the burning World Trade Center towers. Klein was at his Levittown home when the first plane hit at 8:46 a.m. He was nearing the scene when the second tower fell.

"We lost 14 of our guys," he recalls. "It was like someone coming in and killing my family."

Klein remembers those first few days when there was still hope maybe a colleague would be pulled alive from the rubble - then the reality that instead nearly 3,000 people had perished, followed by months searching and meticulous documentation as body parts were found. "A good day was when we found a bone or a piece of flesh. It made you happy because you knew you were giving a family closure. . . . It takes a toll on you, but I have people now who still thank me for digging for their loved one."

After Sept. 11, Klein lost enthusiasm for the job he'd loved, and retired.

Meanwhile he'd had a bout of searing stomach pain and began noticing he was short of breath. His regular 5-mile run became a 3-mile loop and then a walk-run-walk until he had to give it up sometime in late 2003 or early 2004.

Pre-9/11, X-rays and annual medical exams showed no problems with his lungs. Now, there is scarring and nodules on them and he needs an inhaler to walk up more than three flights of stairs.

Along with the physical ailments, there was a psychological toll. He lost patience with his young children, started overdrinking, and would have to pull over while driving to cry.

For his wife, Carole, a nurse practitioner, it was as if a big part of the man she knew before 9/11 fell with those towers.

"It's been a challenge to live through it and we're still living through it - it just never goes away," she said. "He's not what he used to be. He can't focus, he gets distracted very easily . . . he's lost interest in pretty much everything."

She insisted he seek psychological help and he was diagnosed with 9/11-related post-traumatic stress disorder. He's now on medication for it, has ongoing therapy and now helps support other responders suffering the same - especially police.

Dr. Benjamin Luft, director of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program in Islandia, affiliated with Stony Brook University Medical Center, said the relationship between PTSD and physical impairments for 9/11 responders is complex and interconnected. "These patients often have significant physical and mental health conditions which exacerbate each other. The physiological changes that occur in PTSD can worsen respiratory and cardiac problems, and same is true vice versa," he said.

Klein chose to be included in the recent mass settlement in federal court in Manhattan for people who sued New York City and Sept. 11 contractors. He has yet to learn the final amount he will receive, but has been told he falls in a tier that would qualify for a mid-five-figure sum.

Treatment of Klein's PTSD and physical injuries will be covered for the next five years under the Zadroga Act. He didn't apply to the 2001 compensation fund, so he's eligible to apply for compensation under Zadroga as well. His lawyer Sean Riordan said that because of Klein's physical injuries, "we're hopeful" his PTSD will also be considered a factor in calculating Zadroga compensation.

Any compensation, though, probably won't calm the fears Klein has for the future. While his family is managing to pay the bills, Klein said not a day goes by that he doesn't think about going to a doctor's office and being told he has cancer.

"I know that my life is going to be cut short and I just want to make sure that my family is well taken care of when I'm gone," he said.