Richard Seaberry, Albert Petrocelli, John Knox, Arthur Lacker and Edward Doty were dozens of first responders who answered the call in one national tragedy to die in another.
And as New York and the country celebrated on Friday the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as they were in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, the ranks of the nearly 200,000 Americans who died from COVID-19 they were filled with dozens. heroes like the ones who risked their lives to save others when the dual towers fell.
“Brutal underestimation” was the words used by New York attorney Michael Barasch in a recent interview in which he said that 22 of the 20,000 9/11 lifeguards and survivors he represented with Ground Zero-related ailments had died of COVID-19.
Since then, Barasch has learned that five times as many 9/11 lifeguards have died of coronavirus than he initially thought.
“Of these people, more than a hundred died of COVID-19 due to Ground Zero-related illnesses,” Barasch spokesman Patrick Rheaume said Friday.
Up to 68 of the cancers and dozens of respiratory diseases reported through many 9/11 lifeguards have made them “particularly vulnerable to a disease that attacks the lungs and immune system,” Rheaume added.
John Feal, a demolition manager at Floor Zero who runs the Fealgood Foundation, which advocates for lifeguards, said he knew at least four dozen other people with the disease and more than a thousand people who tested positive, and he’s one of them.
“In March, we released a video telling our workers to take this seriously, and then, a week later, they gave it to me,” Feal told NBC News. “To this day, I don’t know how they gave it to me. All I know is I’ve never felt so much pain before.
Feal, who lost part of his left foot after a 4-ton metal beam fell on him to zero, said he felt like his body was in a chimney and, at the same time, he had so much trouble breathing that he felt like he was drowning. I’m not afraid easily, however, it scared me, ” he said.
Knox, 84, a former New York firefighter who arrived here after his retirement to search for bodies on Ground Zero, died in March. Seaberry, 63, a Queens medical emergency veteran who also participated in rescue and crisis recovery efforts, died in April. Lacker, 72, a structure employee who worked the well for two years, also died in April.
Petrocelli 73 when he too died in April. He battalion commander of the New York Fire Department on September 11 and, along with his firefighter son, Albert Jr. , responded to the fire at the World Trade Center where his other son, a raggedy racer named Mark, trapped in the 93rd floor. north tower. Mark’s body was never discovered.
As the United States cried on September 11, the number of coronavirus deaths increased from 1,249 to 193,186 and the number of cases shown rose to nearly 6. 5 million, the two numbers in the world, according to the most recent NBC News figures.
President Donald Trump, accused of mendacity to the American public about the severity of the pandemic while privately admitting to reporter Bob Woodward that the coronavirus is a “lethal substance,” traveled Friday to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for the rite at the National 93 Flight Memorial.
While Trump has praised his administration’s reaction to the pandemic, the United States now accounts for more than a fifth of its more than 910,000 international coronavirus deaths and 28 million cases shown, according to Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 scoreboard.
Feal said he always tried not to take a political aspect when he fought george W’s administration. Bush after September 11 to get assistance for lifeguards, and last year, when he effectively lobbied Congress with comedian Jon Stewart to renew the investment for ‘9. “11 Victims’ Compensation Fund.
But Feal admitted that watching Trump go to Shanksville on Friday, he was caught filling pieces of paper in balls and throwing them on the TV screen.
“The federal government’s reaction to the pandemic has been a disaster, simply atrocious,” Feal said. “We pride ourselves on the wonderful paintings we make with the pandemic as we normalize other people who die. We’re wasting contact with humanity. And I’m not the only one who thinks that. “
In coronavirus news:
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert and a common Trump target, warned that as flu season approaches, Americans will still be on the lookout for COVID-19, while the number of new cases has slowly declined in recent times. weeks, the country is still experiencing new epidemics that can be more severe as the climate cools. “We have to cower and cross this fall and winter, because it may not be easy,” Fauci told a panel of doctors at Harvard Medical School. Fauci provoked Trump’s wrath and survived a White House attempt to discredit him after contradicting the president’s most positive assessment of pandemic progress.
The race for toilet paper and other essentials may have ended, but grocery costs have risen again. August was the maximum expensive month for groceries this year, just a little in May. The national average for a 37-piece basket peaked at $138. 78 in May. , then fell in June and July to $136. 40 and rose to $138. 63 in August. Why?” Consumer promotions continue to be eliminated under their pre-COVID-19 grades for the fifth consecutive month,” said Phil Tedesco, Nielsen’s director of retail sales. “August saw a fall to this very important extent from July, which has made this month more expensive than in recent months. “