Death Comes to the Men Who Cleaned up Ground Zero

[Divernan]

Death comes to the men who cleaned up Ground Zero
(from the Mail and Guardian Online, Africa's first on-line newspaper)

www.mg.co.za

(go to International - North America section)
10 September 2006 07:13

Josephine Damato is not yet a "9/11 widow" but she expects to be all too soon. "The doctors say he is one step from cancer," she says, her slim hand beginning to shake as she reaches out and strokes her husband Mike's wrist. Mike Damato was fit and earning $140 000 a year as a builder until he began working at Ground Zero just hours after hijackers had flown two planes into the World Trade Centre. He is 33, but now has the lungs of an asthmatic in his sixties -- the corrosive dust and toxic air he breathed for months at the disaster site are eating away at his throat and oesophagus.

More than 40 000 people, mostly men, toiled to clear the terrible pile of building, aircraft and human debris from the smouldering rubble. Now those men are beginning to die prematurely from cancers and lung diseases and a report published last week warned that 70% of rescuers, contractors and volunteers at Ground Zero suffered lung damage. Many have died or are dying and others have been told they will be sick for life. "There is going to be a new generation of 9/11 widows -- more than those created by the original attacks," said Marc Bern, a New York lawyer.

"It's scary. I watch Mike sleeping at night, barely breathing and sometimes his chest just stops moving and I think, 'Is this it?'" says Josephine. Many nights he wakes up racked with pain as acid bubbles up from his stomach, burning his chest and throat. And he coughs fit to burst, often going down into the kitchen so as not to disturb the children. "It's like trying to breathe through a straw," he says. His ailments are all too familiar to the thousands of ordinary workers -- not feted as heroes like the firefighters or police -- affected by the toxic dump that is Ground Zero. He used to play basketball and jog. "I used to run two or three miles. Now I have trouble walking up two flights of stairs." He is on six different prescription medicines.

In Mike Damato's medical records, doctors confirm his illnesses are due to exposure to Ground Zero toxins. The caustic erosion of his oesophagus is at a pre-cancerous stage. He worked on the "bucket brigade", passing pails of debris hand to hand. He was told the dust-thick air was safe and never wore a mask to protect him from inhaling microscopic particles of glass, asbestos and other carcinogens. "It was just chaos. We started cleaning the New York Stock Exchange because that had to be open. There were pieces of the planes. There were body parts, we found fingers," he says.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. but..but...but..Whitman and Guiliani said the air was OK!!!!!!!!!!

Those damn lying hypocrites!!!!!!!
I am only sorry that Dimson didn't spend enough time there to be affected!

[liberaldemocrat7]

12. They should put Whitman and Giuliani on trial.

Charge them with criminal neglect and manslaughter. Then if foudn guilty lock them up and throw away the key.

[Rainscents]

2. This is so sad.

Our govenments don't give a shit.

[kestrel91316]

3. Why does Mike Damato hate America?

[dmkinsey]

4. Kinda reminiscent of the

people sacrificed in the Chernobyl disaster.
Except the insult to our people could have been mitigated quite easily.

[bluedeminredstate]

5. Didn't Congress just

kill proposed funding for these people? I could be wrong, but in any case these true heros are the forgotten story of September 11th, 2001. The death toll from these illnesses which are a direct result of the cleanup will exceed the original death toll from the planes and building explosions. Along with returning Iraq vets, there will be a health care fiasco to deal with while Bush clears Brush at the ranch and Pickles makes it all go fuzzy with her happy pills.

[HockeyMom]

6. Give it 5, 10, 15 years more

When we will be seeing the effects upon people not working directly on the site, but working and living in the same general area.

I can tell you even living 30 miles away, when it reached us, it was very, very bad. I do not know how all those people could live that way day after day.

[Divernan]

7. Excellent 2006 documentary damning Whitman: "Dust to Dust".

If you think you're angry after reading this article, check out this new documentary, narrated by Steve Buscemi. I just watched it on the Sundance channel. You can watch it on line.

www.tinderboxfilms.com/dust.htm

Dust to Dust investigates the public health impact of the WTC attacks on rescue workers and the residents of lower Manhattan and unearths the political coverup by the EPA (Whitman) and the President's Council on Environmental Quality (headed by hotshot corporate lawyer Connaughton). The film gives voice to the surviving heroes of 9/11: the first responders, workers, and residents of lower Manhattan (including many school children), many of whom are now sick and dying from their exposure to contaminants.

The opinion is that many more will die over the next ten years than were killed in the initial attack - only these Americans are dying because of Bush's greed to get Wall Street up and running asap. In my opinion Connoughton is more responsible than Whitman, because he was the one who caused deletion from the original EPA report of those sections admitting that toxic levels were in the dangerous zone and warning residents and emergency workers to avoid the area.

[zreosumgame]

8. These were mostly preventable

but of course the dumbaya mis-admin needed to pretend to be in charge and thought good resperators would be scarey to us. These are direct victims of the neo-con cabal

[leftyladyfrommo]

9. Anyone with half a mind would have known that air was dangerous

and would be for a long time.

No one working there should have gone in without a mask and other protective gear.

And no one should have ever believed anyone that told them that air was OK.

[Divernan]

10. I think even normally cynical people were so frightened that they needed

to believe people like Whitman. Even Guliani told them it was safe, and Bush went to Ground Zero without any mask - which also led people to believe it was safe. Bush may regret that eventually - it can take asbestos fibers decades to cause mesothelioma - but they do cause it.

[Bluerthanblue]

13. I agree, not sure

if 'frightened' is the best word to describe what folks were feeling, but being very cautious about what people involved in combing through, and removing the debris were exposing themselves to is often not an issue until the adrenenaline and shock have long worn off.
Think about those who waded through the toxic water of NOLA- waiting till you have everything you need, could mean the difference between saving a life- And causes people to put the CHANCE they might be harming themselves while trying to help on the back burner.

They tell us microwave cooking is completely safe.

They told the people witnessing the a-bomb tests out west there was no danger of exposure to radation.

They sold us asbestos insulation for our homes and public buildings.

When I was a kid, we had little plastic mazes with liquid silver (mercury) in them, and I clearly remember pushing a pile of it that had come out of a broken thermometer around on a counter. Now we understand the danger.
They continue to tell us dental amalgam fillings are completely safe- yet our saliva, and the length of time some folks have fillings in thier mouths are believed to be potentially VERY dangerous.
They tell us aspertame is harmless-

If they know for sure something is dangerous, and tell people otherwise, THEY bear responsibility.- The authorities KNEW better- and many rescue people, and local residents of NYC are paying with thier lives.

[Bluerthanblue]

11. hindsight is 20/20- blaming the man

for not wearing a mask, isn't fair. The authorities are sticklers when it comes to issues that will cost them money- but often care very little about the true welfare of the people they claim to 'oversee'.
It wasn't the 'ideal' circumstance for many people who were there. Anyone with half a mind would KNOW that cigarette smoke - first AND second hand- is dangerous, and counter protective to the human lung- yet people smoke, and corporations continue to make money selling the deadly shit to people who are addicted to nicotine.