By Brian Zanzonico
On Feb. 13, a 3,000-page story "Weeks After a Death, Twists in Some 9/11 Details" called into question the late New York City police officer Cesar Borja's role at ground zero after the attacks of 9/11. Borja became the symbol of workers who grew ill from breathing in the toxic dust that enveloped the World Trade Center site for weeks. Citing government records and in-depth interviews with Borja's family, the Times reported that Borja did not work a shift at ground zero until late December 2001 - after much of the debris was hauled away and the fires extinguished. This came after Borja's son, Ceasar, championed the cause of sick workers and met with President George W. Bush to ask for more aid.
For Valenti, who suffers with pulmonary fibrosis, the same lung ailment that killed Borja, the Times's revelation did little more than pour cold water on an inspirational story.
"When the Times story broke, I called Ceasar and spoke to him and his mother," Valenti said. "I told them we support you 100 percent, and that the Times were wrong."
Valenti, who spent days at ground zero after the Twin Towers collapsed, said if Borja spent shift after shift working traffic and security posts on neighboring streets after 9/11, as the Times reported, it would be enough to cause lung disease.
"It doesn't matter if you were at the site or two or three blocks away," Valenti said. "You can still get sick because the air quality wasn't good."
According to the Times story, Borja kept a memo book with detailed notes from early in his career through April 2002. The first mention of working at ground zero is Dec. 24, 2001, with almost all the rest coming in February, March and April 2002.
Valenti met Borja's family at the late policeman's wake at Gleason Funeral Home in Bayside. As Valenti offered condolences to the late policeman's family, his wife grabbed him.
"Ceasar's mom said, Are you Vito? She burst out crying and held me," Valenti said. "My heart goes out to you. I see you with the oxygen tank and I think of my husband. God bless you."
Valenti's lungs were severely damaged by the toxins he inhaled while working at ground zero following the 9/11 attacks, and as a result he needs a double lung transplant. Forced to quit his job as a grievance representative for Local 372, which represents Board of Education employees, because of the illness, Valenti also had to give up his health benefits. He has lived on donated oxygen for months because the deadline for reporting workers' compensation claims expired long before he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Without a double lung transplant, pulmonary fibrosis sufferers usually die within five or six years.
His health insurance ran out before he completed a series of tests that would have put him on the national waiting list for a lung transplant. But a judge ruled on Dec. 20, 2006, that Valenti is entitled to workers' compensation, which will cover medical expenses associated with his pulmonary fibrosis and allow him to see doctors and finally get his name on the transplant list. He also receives $400 a week in back pay from August 2005.
Comments about this story? FSeditor@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 240.
