By EMS1 Staff
NEW YORK — An EMT who helped in the cleanup effort of Ground Zero was denied disability pension and told that his asthma was mainly caused by his weight.
NY Post reported that EMT Michael Abramowitz was told he was medically unfit to work by FDNY doctors in 2010 due to his asthma and psoriasis.
Abramowitz, who helped transport bodies to the morgue at Ground Zero, applied for a disability pension after a doctor certified that his asthma was “related to 9/11-related dust exposure.”
The New York City Employees’ Retirement System disagreed and blamed his weight for his health issues.
Abramowitz is 5’9” and weighs 291 pounds, up from 225 in Sept. 2003.
“The medical board is of the opinion that the applicant’s mild restrictive pulmonary disease is secondary to this weight gain over the years,” the board said in 2011.
Abramowitz sued the board after being denied again in 2014 and Judge Bernard Graham ordered the board to revisit his case since Abramowitz suffers from 9/11-related asthma, calling the decision “not rational.”
After the ruling, Abramowitz appealed with the board again but was rejected for a third time. He is set to go back to court again.
“I feel very insulted,” Abramowitz said. “We were down there on the front lines with the cops, firefighters, sanitation workers. My weight went up. I got married … you’re going to eat more. It’s a shame. It’s a crime what they’re doing to us. If I was a firefighter, I would have gotten “the disability pension.”