Public Employee Press

Lt. Brian Ellicott
Toxic air of 9/11 takes another hero

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

EMS Lt. Brian Ellicott has become the first member of Uniformed Emergency Medical Service Officers Local 3621 to die due to an illness contracted by breathing toxic, asbestos-laden air as he risked his life to save fellow New Yorkers at Ground Zero at the World Trade Center.

When he passed away Nov. 26, he joined a growing list of Paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians from Local 2507 who have become ill and died after their brave rescue mission exposed them to the fumes of burning chemicals, plastics and human bodies and the gritty dust that filled the air at the site.

Lt. Ellicott, who was assigned to Station 4 in Lower Manhattan, worked more than 100 hours during the first two weeks of the desperate effort to find and save survivors.

Ellicott died after 45 days in the hospital battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer, that started in his chest and eventually spread to his back and paralyzed him from the chest down.

“I knew Brian for many years, he was a good man,” said Thomas Eppinger, president of Local 3621. “I promised Brian that if anything happened to him I would fight for his family.” He left behind his wife, Rose, and children, Rose and Brandon.

The list of District Council 37 members who have died due to illnesses contracted while they worked at Ground Zero continues to grow.

EMT Timothy Keller passed away on June 23, 2005, from a heart attack brought on by respiratory illness. He was 41. Keller was among the first rescue workers to ­arrive at Ground Zero, where he witnessed the collapse of the Twin Towers and was enveloped in the deadly dust cloud that rose on Sept. 11, 2001, to mark the mass grave of thousands.

EMT Felix Hernandez, who worked at Station 17 in the Bronx, died on Oct. 23, 2006. Like Keller, he was a member of Local 2507. Both Keller and Hernandez were non-smokers who developed respiratory illnesses after working at Ground Zero.

Paramedic Deborah Reeve, who worked at Station 20 at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, passed away on March 15, 2006; she was 41 years old.
Paramedic Reeve was assigned at various times after 9/11 to the morgue at Ground Zero, where she helped identify body parts from the rubble.

Paramedic Carlos Lillo, 37, also of Local 2507 and Paramedic Lt. Ricardo Quinn, 40, of Local 3621 died in the collapse of the Twin Towers, which also claimed the life of the Rev. Mychal Judge, a Fire Dept. Chaplain in Local 299.

Despite their bravery at Ground Zero, the DC 37 members dying of diseases caused by the toxic air of the disaster site have had to fight every step of the way to have the city and the pension system ­acknowledge that fatal illnesses were caused by their “line of duty” work.

“It’s time that the federal government steps up,” said Eppinger. “This was after all, an attack on the United States, not just New York City.”