Richard Seaberry, Albert Petrocelli, John Knox, Arthur Lacker and Edward Doty were dozens of lifeguards who answered the call in one national tragedy to die in another.
And while New York and the country were celebrating Friday’s 19th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as they were in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the ranks of the nearly 200,000 Americans who died from COVID-19 were filled with dozens. Heroes like the ones who risked their lives to save others when the dual towers fell.
“Brutal underestimation” were the words used by New York City 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 those people, more than 100 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 4 dozen people with the disease and more than a thousand people who tested positive, and he’s one of them.
“In March, we posted a video asking our other people 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. I know 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 it felt like his body was in a fireplace and at the same time, it was so hard to breathe that he felt like he’s drowning. I’m not easily scared, 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 also died in April. He was the head of the New York City Fire Battalion on September 11 and, along with his fireman son, Albert Jr. , responded to the fire at the World Trade Center where his other son, a raw-fabric runner named Mark, caught on the 93rd floor. north tower. They never discovered Mark’s body.
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, double the global number, according to the most recent NBC News figures.
President Donald Trump, accused of lying to the American public about the severity of the pandemic while privately admitting to journalist Bob Woodward that the coronavirus was “fatal,” traveled Friday to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for the rite on Flight 93 National Memorial.
While Trump has praised his administration’s reaction to the pandemic, the United States now accounts for more than a fifth of the more than 910,000 international coronavirus deaths and 28 million cases shown, according to the University’s COVID-19 scoreboard. Johns Hopkins.
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 all boast of the wonderful paintings we make with the pandemic, while normalizing other people who die. We lose 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 the flu season approaches, Americans will have to stay on the lookout for COVID-19, while the number of new cases has slowly declined in recent times. “We have to cower and cross this fall and winter, because it may not be easy,” Fauci told a medical panel at Harvard Medical. School. Fauci provoked Trump’s wrath and survived an attempt by the White House to discredit him after contradicting the president’s most positive assessment of pandemic progress.
Trump’s management apologized Friday after the New York Daily News reported that the Treasury Department had “diverted” $4 million during the more than 4 years of the FDNY World Trade Center’s fitness program, which is helping New York City firefighters, paramedics, and paramedics with 9/11 similar ailments pay their bills. “It’s not true, it shouldn’t happen this way, and we’re doing everything we can, running with the city to verify this really unfortunate situation,” Treasury Department spokeswoman Rebecca Miller told the paper.
The race for toilet paper and other essentials may be over, but grocery costs have risen again. August was the most expensive month for groceries this year, only slightly 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 increased to $ 138. 63 in August. Why? “Consumer promotions continue to drop below their pre-COVID-19 grades for the fifth month in a row,” said Phil Tedesco, director of retail sales for Nielsen. analysis. That is what made this month more expensive than in recent months. “
Bars re-opened Monday at 50% of their capacity in Florida, a hard-hit state where infection and mortality rates have declined, but another 176 people died from COVID-19 overnight and 12658 new cases have been reported. Dade County and Palm Beach County will continue to be closed for the time being, authorities said. Florida experienced an explosion of new cases and deaths when Gov. Ron DeSantis, at Trump’s request, ordered on April 29 that his state be reopened after only a year. When it became clear that the bars were suitable centres for the spread of COVID-19, DeSantis ordered its closure on 26 June. Florida reported 12,481 coronavirus deaths on Friday and 654,731 showed infections since the onset of the pandemic.