New Jersey first responders who volunteered at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11 attacks will now be eligible for an accidental disability pension under a bill signed into law by NJ Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday, NJ.com reported.
100 police officers, firefighters and other first responders gathered at Liberty State Park, just across the Hudson River from where the Twin Towers once stood for a ceremony where Murphy signed this and another 9/11 related bill.
“They didn’t think of themselves, they only thought of others,” Murphy said of those who responded after the 2001 terrorist attacks. “They didn’t ask to go, they just went.”
“But, over the last 18 years”, the governor added,” the effects of breathing the toxic fumes at Ground Zero “have taken their toll on the health of too many of these heroes.”
“We remember their sacrifice, we honor their service, and today we act to help them when they need that help the most,” Murphy said during the ceremony at the old Central Railroad of New Jersey terminal.
Murphy said he was reminded of Luis Alvarez, a retired New York police detective who appeared with the comedian Jon Stewart last month to push federal lawmakers to reauthorize a fund to compensate victims and their families, North NJ News reported. Alvarez, who searched for survivors in the debris of the fallen World Trade Center towers and developed cancer years later, died two weeks ago.
The two measures were named after firefighters from North Jersey who suffered injuries in the wake of the terrorist attacks. One of them, Thomas P. Canzanella, was a Hackensack deputy fire chief who died 12 years ago of cardiac arrest.
The Thomas P. Canzanella Twenty First Century First Responders Protection Act extends state workers’ compensation protections to first responders so “they should never have to question whether they will be compensated accordingly for the sacrifices that they make,” said one of the sponsors, Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, D-Mercer., North NJ news explained.
The other bill Murphy signed was named the Bill Ricci World Trade Center Rescue, Recovery, and Cleanup Operations Act. It gives disability coverage to police and firefighters who were part of the rescue, recovery or cleanup at the World Trade Center site between Sept. 11 and Oct. 11, 2001.
Bill Ricci is a Clifton firefighter who assisted in rescue and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center. Eighteen years later he had been diagnosed with a respiratory disease that he said leaves him unable to meet the physical demands of his job. Because he wasn’t on official duty when he volunteered at Ground Zero, Ricci said he doesn’t qualify for an accidental disability pension, equal to two-thirds of his salary, NJ.com explained.
