9/11 claims another victim as dust is linked to lawyer's death
Saturday, 26 May 2007
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Almost six years after terrorists tore a hole in Lower Manhattan, the medical examiner's office has stirred controversy by determining that a woman who died months later from a rare lung disease after inhaling toxic dust from the collapsing Twin Towers will be added to the official list of victims.
Felicia Dunn-Jones, a civil rights lawyer, worked in a building a block from the World Trade Centre and inhaled pulverised particles of cement, glass, lead and asbestos as she fled the area of destruction on September 11 2001. Within a few weeks she developed a cough and died in February 2002.
A spokeswoman for the office, Ellen Borakove, said the case of Ms Dunn-Jones was the only 9/11-related fatality it had formally been asked to review, and the only one definitely linked to the collapse of the towers, but indicated others might be considered. "We certainly never turn anybody down," she said.
The decision of the chief medical examiner, Charles Hirsch, means that the death toll at Ground Zero after the inclusion of Ms Dunn-Jones rises to 2,750. Another 184 people were killed the same morning at the Pentagon outside Washington, as well as 40 who died in a hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
It has stirred fresh anxiety, however, not least among families of those who died in the rubble itself on 9/11, who wonder how many others might be added to the roll of victims in the future.
Within hours of the announcement, union leaders who represented emergency rescue workers who died after being deployed to Ground Zero were asking if they should not similarly be added to the list. "First responders who expired as a result of their 9/11-related injuries should in fact be given that same honour," said Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association.
Additionally, questions were instantly raised about the growing numbers of city workers who joined the months-long clean-up effort at Ground Zero and who are now suffering from breathing problems. Thousands have recently joined a class-action lawsuit seeking to sue the city for negligence.
Police officials pointed to the case, for instance, of 34-year-old James Zadroga, a detective who became ill and died of respiratory disease after working for hundreds of hours at the Ground Zero site. A medical examiner in New Jersey ruled that his death in 2006 was "directly related" to his clean-up duties.
Indeed Mr Zadroga's father, on hearing of Ms Dunn-Jones' change of status, said he would submit a request that the city review the case of his son. 'I'm going to go through the process, definitely," Mr Zadroga said. "All these guys were heroes there. They're all dying." Mayor Michael Bloomberg said all decisions regarding the death toll numbers rested with the medical examiner. "It's his definition that we will follow in this city." But he made a distinction between what happened to Ms Dunn-Jones and to clean-up workers now suffering medical problems.
"This one case... the woman was killed as a result of being there at the time of the attack," he said. "Think of it as though somebody had a beam fall on them and it just took a little while for them to succumb to their injury. Not somebody who was injured the next day if a beam fell on them during the clean-up. That's a very different situation."
But some legal experts thought the decision would add energy to the class lawsuit against the city, which 10,000 plaintiffs have joined. "I have clients who are saying, 'should we dig up the bodies and have autopsies and have tissue samples'," said David Worby, who will represent them.
