LI 9/11 Survivors Felled By COVID: Families Eligible For Benefits

LONG ISLAND, NY — When Arthur Lacker of East Meadow arrived at Ground Zero on September 12, 2001, he and his fellow construction team members didn't even don masks. Lacker would spend two and a half years helping to clean up the site of the 9/11 attacks, inhaling air declared at the time to be safe.

Robin Lacker is Arthur's widow and she told Patch that it took years for the health consequences of Arthur's time at Ground Zero to become evident. In 2014, growths in his lungs were found and removed two years later. Lacker recovered enough from lung cancer to go back to working full time and enjoying life with his family even as he struggled with chronic asthma, repeated lung infections and bronchitis episodes. In February 2020, he visited his daughter and granddaughter in Florida with Robin, developing a cough that Robin said soon became "constant."

Within five to seven days, she says, Lacker was suffering from a full-blown, severe COVID-19 infection. He died in the hospital April 2.

"He was 73, but a young 73," Robin recounted. "He had ten, fifteen years of life left. When I dropped him off at the hospital that day, I never thought he would never leave. People say, oh, he was older, but he was full of life. He never stopped. He worked up until the days before he was hospitalized.

"Nobody understands he pain he went through."

Attorney Sara Director of the law firm Barasch & McGarry is a Glen Cove native who lives in Locust Valley. She represents more than 20,000 people with 9/11-related claims.

She told Patch that 9/11 survivors are uniquely vulnerable to COVID-19.

"They have a compromised immune system to begin with, and are at greater risk to contract and succumb to the disease," Director said. She estimates that 100 of the firm's 9/11 clients have died from coronavirus this year.

Earlier this month, 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund Special Master Rupa Bhattacharyya announced that if a 9/11 survivor's death certificate cites COVID-19 as cause of death along with one of the recognized 9/11-related conditions, including 68 types of cancer, the victim's family is eligible for a wrongful death settlement.

To receive compensation, the 9/11 survivor must be certified with the World Trade Center Health Program and registered with the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Director wants to spread the word in the 9/11 community that the VCF’s Special Master has extended the deadline for victims and their families to register if their illnesses were certified by the health program or their loved one died more than two years ago. The new deadline is July 29, 2021. The old rule was that claims had to be filed within two years of certification and within two years of someone’s death.

"We want to insure that no single survivor and first responder who is eligible to receive the compensation is left out because they didn't know about the deadline," Director said. "These are people who have been victimized twice: first by being told the air was safe and clean, and now, because of their service, they are susceptible all over again to this virus."