By Andrew Coen
Five years later, Rivelli and many other area first responders are feeling the health effects from breathing in the contaminated air around Ground Zero during the cleanup of the site that housed the twin towers. A week before commemorating the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a Mount Sinai Medical Center study was released showing that nearly 70 percent of recovery workers who responded to the World Trade Center site to assist in the rescue and recovery efforts suffered lung problems during or after their work at Ground Zero. The study was based on medical exams conducted between July 2002 and April 2004 on 9,500 Ground Zero workers, including firefighters, police officers, construction workers and volunteers.
Rivelli, 49, a Nassau County police officer whose cousin Joseph of Inwood was killed in the terror attacks, said that in the last five years he has been diagnosed with four different ailments, including allergy-induced asthma and sleep apnea, meaning constant trips to the doctor for checkups. "For the two weeks you were there, you came home looking like a ghost," said Rivelli, who took part in the rescue mission for two weeks after the 9/11 attacks and estimates he was at Ground Zero for 25 hours. "We knew there were going to be problems."
Former Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Chief John Heidrich, a recently retired NYPD officer who responded to Ground Zero, said he has not suffered any ill effects, which he attributes to wearing a mask at all times during the cleanup efforts. "I made sure I took all the precautions," said Heidrich, who estimated he spent more than 500 hours over a two-month period at Ground Zero and at the Fresh Kills landfill site on Staten Island where the thousands of recovered victims' bodies were stored. "Knock on wood so far, so good."
John Tansey, a Hewlett-Woodmere parent and New York City police officer who was also at Ground Zero in the two weeks following the terror attacks, said he has luckily not experienced any health issues yet. However, he said he realized the risks he and other first responders faced as a result of breathing in all that toxic air, and he knows he is not out of the woods yet. "There is always concern," said Tansey.
The numerous health problems suffered by first responders have created a financial challenge for them in terms of paying for various treatments because personal health insurance has taken a major hit, according to Rivelli. Rivelli said he and some other local police officers have attended hearings before Nassau County government officials asking that the county pay for some of the insurance costs. A court date on the matter is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 15.
"Right now it's just preventative maintenance," said Rivelli, who takes eight to nine pills a day for his ailments. "You keep going to the doctors and just make sure it doesn't get worst."
Peter Reinharz, who helps oversee Nassau County's Workers Compensation Program, said that Rivelli's case has already been approved for funding for his "restrictive airwave disease," but that some of his other ailments such as sleep apnea must be proven by an independent doctor to have been caused from the air at Ground Zero in the days following Sept. 11, 2001. "It has to be causally related to the job," said Reinharz. "This is still public money we're dealing with."
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