‘Absolutely Horrifying’

“We didn’t think about all the contamination,” says Sanchez. After just two days, his throat became irritated and he developed a chronic cough. But it was another year before Sanchez, a lifetime nonsmoker, was screened and diagnosed with several ailments—ranging from asthma and acid reflux to posttraumatic-stress disorder—and traced them back to his days at Ground Zero. He now takes 18 different medications a day and hasn’t been able to work for three years, nor can he pick up his 5-year-old son or play soccer on the weekends any longer. Some days, he can barely climb a flight of stairs and must use a cane because of the pain in his joints.

Sanchez filed for Worker Compensation in 2003. He says he was offered a lump-sum payment of $20,000 but turned it down. “People took those offers, but what happens after that money is gone?” asks Sanchez, who says he used to make about $1,100 a week before he was forced to stop working. “Respiratory illnesses don’t get better. I know the amount of World Trade Center dust I inhaled. I know what I am up against.”

He is still negotiating a settlement. In the meantime, he’s been relying on Medicaid to cover his health costs and on savings and aid from charities and his family for everything else. He’s hoping that the government might offer help. He and other ailing workers have read about the six- and seven-figure settlements for those injured at Ground Zero who filed with the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund (which stopped accepting claims in December 2003). But only responders who were hurt within 96 hours of the planes crashing into the twin towers were eligible for compensation through the fund and, in most cases, they had to have been diagnosed within three days. For many responders, the health problems emerged well after Sept. 15, 2001.

Of the 2,680 people awarded compensation (at an average payout of nearly $400,000), almost 60 percent of recipients were firefighters, and 8 percent were police officers. But only about 100 construction workers, 68 maintenance and janitorial workers and 25 EMTs and paramedics received compensation through the fund, according to the fund's special master, Kenneth Feinberg. It’s not clear how many workers in those categories applied. But out of 4,435 total injury claims filed, less than half received awards. Feal filed but was turned down since he was injured and treated on Sept. 17.

Eventually, he got about $50,000 in a Worker Compensation settlement and used it to help pay legal costs and overdue bills and rent. (Medicare covers about 75 to 80 percent of his health-care costs, he says.) When that money ran out, he sold his 1979 Corvette to supplement the $1,300 a month he gets in Social Security checks. “That’s about what I used to earn in a week,” he explains. “I pay more than that in rent.”

Feal has now filed a lawsuit against his construction and insurance companies, which is under appeal. “I don’t want to be a millionaire,” he says. “I just want to be able to have the life I had before September 11.”