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American Morning
NYC Firefighters Reserve the Right To Sue City Over WTC Cough
Aired January 31, 2002 - 07:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: How serious is the World Trade Center cough? More than four months after 9/11, the fires are out, but there are still major concerns about toxic exposure from the site. The EPA has conducted thousand of tests and ordered repeated assurances that the air in lower Manhattan is safe to breathe.
But for many who have been working at ground zero, their symptoms say otherwise. Our own Michael Okwu spent a good deal of time reporting from there. He is with us now to talk to us a little bit about what he experienced and the possible lawsuits looming from the so-called World Trade Center cough -- so nice to see you in person for a change.
MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you, Paula.
ZAHN: I usually have the pleasure of seeing you on remote. So first of all, did you have any reaction to the environment? You were down there for many, many days without a respirator on.
OKWU: I was down there for many days. I was caught up with the same adrenaline rush I think that a lot of the rescue workers and, of course, later the recovery workers had. And it's an extraordinary, extraordinary story.
Let me tell you first about the pending lawsuits. What's going on right now is that firefighters, and there are thousands of them who were exposed, and it's a force of some 11,000. I am told that literally most, if not all, of these firefighters at some point did their own tour at ground zero. And what happened is that they were exposed to lead, all sorts of contaminants, asbestos, PCBs that were in this sort of mushroom cloud just hovering over the World Trade Center. And they have though essentially filed a notice against the city to reserve the right to sue within a year should they decide to go ahead and follow up and do that.
As one person who is closely involved with this told me, he said that this is really just the beginning chapter of this story. So many people obviously lost their lives in the World Trade Center, but they expect that many more may lose their lives 10 to 15 years down the line.
ZAHN: You got the cough though?
OKWU: I got the cough myself, when I was down there, and I was there for several weeks, as you know, following this thing. I was wearing a mask from time to time, but as you know, sometimes when you're about to go on live, you have to take off the mask. And I can tell you that I saw all sorts of particulates in the air, and I was treated.
ZAHN: And what are we going to see now in this piece that's coming up? This, by the way, I'm looking at now is just what is seared into my memory in the early days of the aftermath. You were one of the first to get into ground zero and show us this horrific site.
OKWU: And the whole time that I was reporting there, I was basically standing underneath a mushroom cloud, as I put it, but my store really pales in comparison I think to so many of the recovery workers, who are still down there at the site.
We want to show you right now their story.
ZAHN: Okay, thanks.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OKWU (voice-over): At the threshold of ground zero, Thomas Manley, firefighter and union boss, slips his uniform over his suit, a ritual he has performed on many mornings since September 11.
OKWU (on camera): How many times have you been here since September 11?
TOM MANLEY, UNIFORMED FIREFIGHTERS ASSN.: It's hard to count.
OKWU (voice-over): A ritual, but never routine. It's the same uniform the 19 year veteran wore on 9/11, as he and others anxiously lay between the mushroom of lead and PCBs.
(on camera): What did it look like after that first building came down? You could see things in the air.
MANLEY: Oh, yes. I have a picture of New Yorkers after the first building came down, and it looks like it is snowing. That's how much debris was still in the air. You had concrete dust. You had glass particles. You had asbestos. You had toxic smoke. You had computers that were incinerated.
OKWU (voice-over): Particles that Manley and other firefighters inhaled during those first frenzied days searching for life. None of them wore respirators, because, he said, the fire department didn't issue them until at least a week after the attacks.
Today, he slips one on and walks into the heart of the site to make sure other firefighters are wearing theirs. Every time a grappler unloads more twisted cargo, it could release more toxins.
More than 1,300 firefighters have filed a legal notice against the city reserving the right to sue. Manley and others suffer from the World Trade Center cough. MANLEY: It's a heaviness in the chest. It's like a bad cold that doesn't clear up. I had a couple of guys that were actually spitting up blood.
OKWU: One in three firefighters who worked on ground zero now has respiratory problems. A fire department spokesman confirmed that 750 are on medical leave. Some will be forced to retire early.
But the spokesman said even when the firefighters were given respirators, they didn't always wear them.
Four months ago, they were selflessly focused on rescuing lives. Today, they are just as focused on recovering bodies.
MANLEY: You know I was just telling you what's there, you'll take the respirator off, you can smell. You know, you don't always go by your sight, because a lot of times you won't see it before you smell it.
OKWU: The grim truth about the task at-hand and a hero's mentality that can often be costly.
Michael Okwu, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Palmer Doyle is one of the thousands of New York firefighters who claim to be suffering from the World Trade Center cough, and he has helped to organize a group of New York's bravest who are now taking some legal action. He joins us now, along with Tony Gentile, the attorney representing the firefighters.
Welcome, and welcome back to you, Palmer.
PALMER DOYLE, FIREFIGHTER: Good morning, Paula.
ZAHN: First of all, how are you feeling these days?
DOYLE: Well, I'm a little better. I've had a problem with my ears lately, though. But, you know, I'm back working in the firehouse. It's just -- you know, there's a lot of other firemen that are having some -- some problems.
ZAHN: Let's go back to September 11th. You weren't even on duty...
DOYLE: No.
ZAHN: ... but you dispatched yourself down there.
DOYLE: Yes.
ZAHN: Were you wearing a respirator at all in those first several days following this attack?
DOYLE: No. We had stopped on the way in and picked up some painter's masks. The -- you know, the thin white masks. But we didn't have any respirators.
ZAHN: Which don't screen out...
DOYLE: Not really.
ZAHN: ... any of this horrible stuff that some independent tests are showing are in the air. So what are your symptoms to this day? Now it's your ears that are bothering you. Do you still have the cough?
DOYLE: Off and on, not as bad as I had it in the month of October. I was out with bronchitis for a while. But lately, though, I've had an inner ear infection that, you know, I'm trying to get through that. I'm on a medication for that now.
ZAHN: Do doctors think that's related at all to what you were exposed to downtown?
DOYLE: Well, I've never had any ear infections, so -- you know, again, I couldn't tell you if it is, but...
ZAHN: Your chief concern now, though, of you and your colleagues, is the fact that you do not qualify for the September 11th fund. So you're worried, what, that perhaps you're going to get sick down the road in a serious way with some kind of chronic illness and you won't be covered?
DOYLE: Well, we've been told that we're guinea pigs because they don't know what's going to happen to us -- the firemen that worked down there. The initial seven to 10 days, we didn't have the proper breathing equipment down there. So We have guys that are having some serious problems developing right now. Odds are, down the road, it's going to get worse. You know, again, we don't know what's going to happen, but what we're looking at is that we're protected if something happens.
I have two young children, you know, my wife. If, God forbid, I'm not around in five years -- I'm 46 years old -- I want to make sure that they're properly taken care for. And we're trying to do that with the -- with the other firefighters. Also, the police officers, the iron (ph) workers, we want to make sure that they're taken care of. Because everybody -- you know, we didn't hesitate to go in there and work. And now we're starting to develop some problems.
ZAHN: And there is nothing short of a lawsuit that will provide this kind of protection?
GENTILE: Absolutely nothing. The fund clearly has indicated -- Washington has indicated that they want to exclude anyone who was treated for the first time after September 15th. The final regulations aren't out, but that seems to be certain. So their only recourse is to file a notice of claim. And I have to tell you, the consequences of that are severe, because already I have 20 firefighters who have been rejected by the city of New York on those because they were three days late. They filed on December 20th. Now we have to make motions to have them put into the notice of claim provisions and to be allowed to sue within a year and 90 days.
ZAHN: Why is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) such a hard time? Is it because of the dollars potentially involved here?
GENTILE: Sure. They went and they've already gotten a ceiling or a cap on their damages. The port authority has gotten their indemnification. The airlines have gotten theirs. And these firefighters have been excluded from the fund. So now we have to go to court and litigate a common law cause of action.
I would have preferred, along with many other trial lawyers, if we would have been able to put them in the fund. But now they have no recourse but this. I have to add that out of the 250 firefighters that I represent, 10 percent of them that I have right now have positive CAT scans showing lung damage recent from this event. That's a very severe finding. In addition, we've independently tested their uniforms and other equipment, and there are PAHs, biroapenzine (ph), which is a significant carcinogenic agent that was in the material.
ZAHN: All of the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) from independent testing. So in the meantime, you, along with your colleagues, live in a state of limbo. A final thought on what that is like, particularly when you talk about looking down the road with your wife and your children.
DOYLE: Well, one of the things that has upset me, it's one thing to do the right thing, it's another thing to say the right thing. All the politicians are saying the right things. They look great on TV and everything, but when it comes down to -- you know, take care of us now -- we saw Christine Whitman on the TV the other night saying there were -- "There were plenty of masks down there for the firemen. They chose not to wear them." That is a terrible untruth that was told.
ZAHN: And so far, if you were to look at the EPA tests that were done, nothing that is described in those tests is as bad as you say your independent tests have shown.
DOYLE: Exactly.
ZAHN: Does that make you mad?
DOYLE: Of course it does. We were down there the first two weeks when it was, you know, it was horrific. The air quality down there is better. Of course it is. But the initial two weeks that we worked down there, when we should have had the proper equipment, we didn't. And we're going to pay the price down the road.
ZAHN: We appreciate both of you sharing your story with us this morning. Palmer Doyle, good to see you again.
DOYLE: Thank you.
ZAHN: Mr. Gentile, nice to meet you for the first time -- Jack.
GENTILE: Thank you. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
