By Denise M. Bonilla; Joseph Mallia; Andrew Strickler
Newsday (New York)
Copyright 2006 Newsday, Inc.
Regina “Reggie” Cervantes
Formerly of Ridgewood and now living in Oklahoma, Cervantes, 45, was an EMT for Flatlands Volunteer Ambulance and First Aid Corps in Brooklyn at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 13 and 14.
Cervantes rushed from her home to the World Trade Center on 9/11. She helped with triage and was one of the workers who helped dig out Fire Department Chaplain Mychal Judge and take him to the morgue.
The report from Mount Sinai Medical Center came as no surprise to Cervantes, who said that since 9/11 she has suffered from upper respiratory and sinus infections and was recently diagnosed with polyps in her sinus.
She said she also has trouble walking and has constant pain in her kidneys and lungs.
Cervantes, who moved to Oklahoma in 2002, in part to give her two young children a better life, has not been able to work and has had to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket for medication.
“This isn’t where I wanted to be five years from 9/11,” she said. “And I don’t see my health getting any better. I’m only 45 years old and it’s a struggle every day.”
John Feal
Feal, 39, of Nesconset, a demolition company supervisor, searched for survivors and excavated debris from Sept. 12 to 17, totaling about 120 hours.
Feal, who lost half his foot when it was crushed by a steel beam at the World Trade Center site on Sept. 17, 2001, took his shoe off in public yesterday.
He did it at the Manhattan news conference announcing the Mount Sinai study findings, after walking up to Dr. John Howard, appointed by President George W. Bush as director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
“I said, ‘Your boss is still the person who neglected us all. Look at the foot, and don’t worry about me — think of the 40,000 other people who are sick and dying.’”
Feal, who also has a scarred right lung and asthma, said the Mount Sinai study results were fine — but they were old news.
“This should have come out five years ago,” he said. “Why wait until now?”
Feal runs fealgoodfoundation.com, a charity that he said benefits the families of World Trade Center workers who have since died of illnesses caused by the toxic air.
Mike McCormack
A hospital technician and civil air patrol pilot, McCormack, 47, of Ridge, spent eight days at Ground Zero.
As a hospital hyperbaric chamber technician and scuba instructor, McCormack was well aware of the risks posed by the acrid clouds at Ground Zero when he arrived after the towers’ collapse.
But for the next eight days, McCormack cleared rubble in a “nasty cocktail” of airborne chemicals and concrete dust, and even found the American flag that had flown outside the trade center. For much of this time, he says his only protection was a simple paper mask.
“It was like trying to hold back the tide with a pitchfork,” he said.
Within hours, McCormack began coughing up gray and black mucus; three days later, he was coughing up blood.
McCormack now battles an extreme respiratory sensitivity that has forced him to give up scuba training and his work as a helicopter pilot with the Civil Air Patrol.
A 5-millimeter nodule in one lung — a metal shaving now covered in scar tissue — prevents him from working in oxygen treatment centers.
“I’m sure my time at Ground Zero has shaved years off my life, but how many years I don’t know,” he said.
McCormack said the results of the Mount Sinai report were not surprising. “I’m filling my time advocating for these people, and I hear these stories all the time,” he said.
Marvin Bethea
Bethea, 46, of Kew Gardens Hills, rescued the injured at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, then returned to help search the debris on Sept. 14.
The study “said what we expected,” said Bethea, a St. John’s Hospital-Queens paramedic who was sent to the World Trade Center by New York City dispatch system.
“I was there for the clouds of both towers. I got buried twice. I looked up as the tower was coming down,” Bethea said. “Imagine someone taking a big bucket of toxic dirt and pouring it down your throat.”
Bethea had a stroke in October 2001, five weeks after the attacks, and has suffered from asthma, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, high blood pressure and sinusitis. He attributes these ailments to his Ground Zero work.
“Anyone who was there when the towers fell, it’s like they got an IV of these poisons,” Bethea said. “We were literally exhaling concrete. As a black man, I was white from head to foot. Your body got filled with toxins.”
He now lives on Social Security disability payments, worker’s compensation and an $11,000 annual union disability pension, he said.
He spends his time lobbying Congress and the State Legislature to pass laws to provide pensions for EMTs who were part of the New York City 911 dispatch system, but who were employed by voluntary hospitals and not by the city.
Lawrence Provost
Provost, 27, of Syracuse, was a U.S. Army reservist who volunteered to help excavate at the World Trade Center for about a week.
Provost calls himself “one of the lucky ones.” On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, he was living in Syracuse when he heard about the attack. He says he donned his uniform, got in his car, and arrived in lower Manhattan by early evening.
Provost spent the next week working in a loosely organized crew of about 200 other reservists, clearing debris by hand from the smoking rubble.
He says he did not get the hacking cough and nausea suffered by many people at the site. But Provost did develop a painful red rash that spread up his arms, neck and back.
“It got so bad that I had to have my dressings changed every few hours,” he said.
Provost, who later served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, said the condition eventually forced him to abandon the site.
Today, Provost’s ongoing skin problem — he says the still-undiagnosed rash frequently flares up about three days a week — is a painful reminder of his time at Ground Zero.
“It’s pretty much always with me,” he said. “It’s embarrassing to have to put on female make-up to hide the rash on my face, but that’s the way it is.”
Provost, who is scheduled to testify Friday in front of a federal hearing on the health of 9/11 first responders and residents, called the statistics in the report “astronomical.”
“I’m in shock, actually,” he said. “I knew the numbers were going to be high, but, my God, I didn’t think it would be this bad.”