THE HIGHEST COST Transcript

00:38:00
JD: I got there the first 24 hours, stayed locked down for 72 hours, e were not allowed to leave, went home, got some sleep, and then worked 7 days a week, 12 hours a day for 9 and half months down there, for over 2500 hours.
01:00:00
JS: Buses and buses load of fireman going down there and, you know, getting in the pile and doing all the stuff.
01:06:00
JD: I thought I was going down there, take my heavy equipment, lift it up that steel and finding survivors, that’s what I thought… so when I got down there, you know it wasn’t good, it was bad, so bad…11 years later it’s still tough, it’s still tough man, I never really talk about this stuff, I’d like to forget about the whole damn thing to be very honest with you..
01:39:00
JS: These guys worked there a lot longer than me, I was just there for a couple of week, a month or two, but guys do because they don’t want to leave a fireman behind, nor other people, but as a fireman model you never leave a brother behind, it’s just put in a thick skull of a firemen and that’s what they do…
02:03:00
JD: Everything is a bit of a blur down there, time really stops there, I lost a year.
02:08:00
JS: Clouds, smoke and debris and no masks, the city was caught over the head, no supplies for the guys, there were given painters masks, basically stuff you use to do cheap rock, after about 20 minutes they’ll be worthless because you breath heavy and the moister will just put a hole in it, besides the fact that is not keeping anything out of it, they are not made for what was going on down there.
02:44:00
BL: One of the thing that is very peculiar about 9/11 is that, although you had that initial explosion and initial fire, those fires persisted for literally months after 9/11 and so you had a tremendous amount of dust in the air you continue to have the burning of the fires and so you had all the toxins that were produced as a results of the burning of these materials that were also in the air. So when you have plastics and concrete that’s pulverized, you have that type of dust, from the concrete being pulverized and then you have the toxins that come from plastics and those can be the things like PCB and other hydrocarbons that are carcinogenic and very toxic.
03:41:00
JD: They started this thing, while were down there, called the World Trade Center monitoring program, which was basically, if you were down at Ground Zero, they were monitoring your health, because we were all getting sick with yellow and green stuff and the cough, they called it the WTC cough, that was a big stroke. A couple of years later it started getting worse to where I developed this sore throat and it just persisted and I would go to the monitoring program and they were treating me for gastritis, giving me Nexium, I couldn’t even put the pill down, because it was so severe, like the over counter stuff, that spray that you buy over the counter, I was drinking it by the bottle, that’s for so much pain I was in. I knew there was something wrong, so I went to the monitoring program and kept complaining and they realized there must be something wrong and there is nothing they can do, so I went to Stony Brook and I didn’t think it was going to be that bad but turned out I had level 4 inoperable throat cancer, I had 6 months to leave from that day, they told me, 6 months, go and get your stuff in order John.
05:15:00
JS: In 2011, last year, in March, beginning of March, I started having headaches, and this is ten years after the devastation. I had headache for ten-fourteen days and my wife, the nurse; she said let’s go to the doctor. I went to the doctor and I went for a MRI, and I got phone call from the doctor’s office, saying that the doctor wanted to see me about the MRI, which is not usually a good thing. I was at work the night before, the next morning, at 8:30 in the morning I was in surgery, I had my head cut open and I had a brain biopsy and they told my wife I had a large mass brain lymphoma, brain cancer.
06:40:00
JD: I want you to feel my throat, have you ever feel the bottom of your shoe? Come here, don’t be scared, feel it like that…that’s radiation fibrosis, that’s the constriction of the muscles of my neck from the radiations, I fight to keep my head up, because it always wants to drop and I cannot really turn left or right.
07:06:00
JS: Without my wife I couldn’t handle coming out my first visit and getting all the pills I had to take. She came out with this bag that was this big with twenty something pills, take these two this morning, two at noon, this one at ten o’clock, it was just a crazy, crazy schedule of stuff.
07:30:00
JD: I take pills for pneumonia, I take pills for my pain, I take pills for my stomach, I refuse to take pills for PTSD, I think that’s something that you have to learn to control yourself. I never liked pills in my life and here I’m taking pills almost, everyday of my life I take pills, if I don’t I’m in the hospital. I’ve taken a few already this morning, so I’m just going to take two right now, one is for my stomach and one is for, right now, my pain; tonight I’ll take another one, the same stuff, I’ll take, this will go tonight and this will go again with two more of these.
08:35:00
JS: Besides the fact of how many pills you’ve got to take, the money it costs for these things is phenomenal; it’s incredible, it’s crazy. We had a bill after my stamps cells bone marrow transplant and my time in the hospital for 226,000 dollars. My wife keeps all that bills, you know, the fact that matters that we’ve been lucky with the insurance but that doesn’t mean we have no bills, you know, we just had a little less of people that didn’t have insurance coverage.
09:09:00
JD: I think I was close to 700-800 dollars in bills when I was dying so I had a lawyer fight for me to be recognized that my cancer was directly linked to Ground Zero. New York state recognized that I got my cancer from Ground Zero, so New York state compensation which basically is an insurance for when you work and you get hurt on the job, they’ll cover your medical expenses, your lawsuits and I get 400 a week, 1600 a month to live on, I’m fighting for my life and now I have to fight to be recognized as an emergency responder but my state did, but my federal government, up till today, still doesn’t recognized this cancer and we have all the reports, independents reports, fireman and cop union showing how fast cancer has spread in the 9/11 community, that they can’t buried their heads anymore. There is so much evidence out there on how many people are getting cancer, we where eating down there, they a tent for us to stay and eat, that shit was in our food, we were not just breathing it, it was in our food man when we were working down there, what about my kids? I brought that shit home.
10:49:00
MB: The government created something called the victim compensation fund, which basically said that as long as you agree not to sue the airlines for their bad security, than you can make a claim to the government for your medical expenses and your pain and suffering. So, then we started to campaign to try to convince the government to reopen the victim compensation fund because so many people were getting sick later and later or their breathing problems were getting worst and worst. In January 2010 president Obama signed legislation, which the Congress passed allowing the victim compensation fund to be reopen and they called it the James Zadroga victim compensation fund act.
11:44:00
JF: The James Zadroga health and compensation fund is a five year bill, originally was a twenty year bill, then a ten year bill and then a seven year bill, but it’s a five year bill and it’s still a victory for us and it’s a five year bill that offers compensation and health care for 9/11 responders, volunteers and people of lower Manhattan that were affected by 9/11. This bill took almost nine years to pass, we walked the halls of Congress for years trying to get elected official to understand the importance of this bill, the life severing measures that this bill would offer. You know, those that we couldn’t get it done, there is not a better feeling in the world knowing that you prove them wrong.
12:28:00
JD: I’m proud of people like us that actually went down there, did the work, came back, we are here eleven years later to make sure that the 9/11 responders aren’t forgotten.
12:40:00
CNN: Zadroga ruling tells cancer-stricken Ground Zero workers Go Die! Well, this is because a new report finding not enough evidence to link cancer in 9/11 responders to the dust and smoke at the World Trade Center site and other areas where firefighter and police officers were working; it means that those who were working at Ground Zero and places like Landfield and Staten Island in the days following the 9/11 attacks will not have their cancer treatments cover as part of a government health program.
13:07:00
MB: It’s ironic that now they have to fight for themselves and so many people outside of New York are against them. People have a short memory.
13:16:00
JS: When I found I had cancer, it’s just devastating, you don’t even know where you are hanging, it’s such a burden on my wife, the pressure of, you know, am I gonna make it? I didn’t have a will to take firemen, so many firemen out there and people in general that don’t have a will, health care proxy, everything was in a rush, I mean, there was a chance I wasn’t lasting long, you know. But one of the first thing I said to my wife was, we had a little young girl, you know, she just turned five, she was four when this all happened and I said there is no way cancer is beating me.
13:55:00
TV: The Congress last year set aside 4.3 billion dollars to threat and compensate first responder who were exposed to fumes and dust, everything from asthma, chronic respiratory illnesses were covered but not cancer.
14:10:00
BL: One of the things that happened with that toxic exposure, what was released in the environment were known carcinogens, these are thing are known to be related to causing cancer.
14:25:00
JF: When I thought we were busy for all those years we became busier because now we knew we had to get cancer edit. So forty five cancers were recommended by the scientific technical advisory committee; in the perfect world all those forty five cancers get edit, that’s not gonna happened, eight, thirteen, thirty one, who knows, doctor Howard of NIOSH, who’s the administrator of the bill, he will make a determination within sixty days from April 2nd, he has until June 2nd. I don’t ask for a lot of favors but sometime favors are needed, like the bill and Jon Stewart, the cancer and Jon Stewart and I figured, let me just ask him if he would do this video so we can put it on out website and no hesitation, absolutely, when you need it by…
15:12:00
JON STEWART: Please, you need to cover cancer under this bill and not just one type of cancer, five or ten, all of cancer, eightysies. After all isn’t covering their chemo bills the least we can do in return for their hard work, devotion and humanity? Make cancer eligible for cover under the Zadroga bill because if you know someone that has been to the hell and back to Ground Zero, look I’m telling you about it, I think it’s best not to mess with him or do it because is the right thing to do, it’s up to you, thanks.
15:45:00
JD: If they don’t put cancer in the bill, my brothers and sisters, you should follow me with the camera to DC, around June 5th, because I’ll be heading there if I have to go on my own, I will lock my self to that damn door and let them arrest me and see what union cop down there will arrest a union responder.
16:09:00
JS: This is not a question of why the people got cancer down there, I mean, people like puppets on a string, just watching and let these people decide, talk about, are you kidding me? As I said before in other interviews you didn’t see any politician in that pile digging up the rubbish, digging up dead bodies, you didn’t see any of them; if their kids were sick or they were sick it would be a different board game of how quick the Zadroga bill and cancer got passed in the game.
16:39:00
JD: We are only asking for what we are entitled to, you lied to us, you told us that the air was good, we did what we were supposed to do believing that our country was on our side, that our government was on our side and it’s sad to say that the country don’t give it a shit.
17:07:00
JF: To not be able to put food on your table and provide for your kids because you got sick from lies from 9/11 and didn’t get the proper respiratory gear it’s the biggest insult. You know, tonight we are gonna go to a fund raiser; this family was left with mountains and mountains of medical bills, mountains medical bills, because their husband and father died of 9/11 related cancer.
17:47:00
JF: I promised a thousand dollar donation to the Dineen family but I lied we are going to give the Dineen family a five thousand dollars donation.
18:19:00
JF: Now, going back to what I said before, when a community comes together to help a family in need, perhaps you put a dollar or five in this helmet that’s gonna be passed around and we help the Dineen family one more time, thank you and God bless you all.
19:09:00
JS: They gave money for the Zadroga bill to people with injured back, carpal tunnel, I’m not looking to take money from anyone’s pocket, but couldn’t you went down on 9/11 with a hurt back? Couldn’t you have carpal tunnel already? The fact that matter is that they didn’t have to prove this, for people like us to get it, with cancer like myself, I’m supposed to prove that I had cancer from down there, why didn’t anybody have to prove that they got carpal tunnel from down there? That they hurt their backs from down there? The reason why you have to prove that you got cancer down there it’s because a lot of people got cancer from down there, that’s why you’ve gotta prove it because they know that they have to lay out that money.
19:49:00
JD: Hey, have you thought, I have thought this so many times, can we get our bill in place before the next terrorist attack please?
JS: Yeah
JD: I was thinking about it, so many times, it’s so close; they would put on the back burner again so they won’t have to pay us
JS: They say in June or whatever
JD: June 2nd it’s supposed to come out
20:10:00
JF: I didn’t walk the halls of Congress for seven years to not have cancer edit to this bill, when we negotiated to get this bill pass we had to come back to New York with something, we took it on the chin, but we haven’t stop fighting nor advocating to get cancer edit to this bill. So, I say today, whoever doesn’t think that cancer will be edited to this bill, you can leave! I guarantee cancer gets edit. What you see today it’s a small prelude of what I’m going to do if they don’t answer, I’ll do occupy Ground Zero, don’t worry of what they on occupy Wall street, I will fill Ground Zero with sick 9/11 responders, you can’t demonized us anymore.
20:55:00
BL: I believe that the way we responded to the responders, overtime, was inappropriate. Why should they be carrying this on their back? They did the right thing, it’s now time for our government and out society to do the right thing.
21:17:00
FOX: Federal health official voted Friday in favor of a controversial 4.3 billion dollars 9/11 health program already in place, it will now include people with fifty types of cancer, covering fourteen broad category of the disease. It comes after years of emotional lobbying of people who fell ill and argue it had to do it sifting through the sought. Cancer could qualify for treatments and payments as long as a good case is made it was caused by caustic dust.
21:48:00
JD: I’m seeing the firemen that, the guy that I picked out over here, the people that I picked out over here, all the bodies I got over there, you know, it looks nice but I don’t know, I wanna get out of here.
22:42:00
And I ain’t dying…not yet.
22:50:00
CREDITS