Say EMS Lieut. Died Due To WTC Illness

By ARI PAUL

An Emergency Medical Service officer who worked 100 hours at Ground Zero during the first two weeks after 9/11 died Nov. 26 from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

BRIAN ELLICOTT

Appointed to EMS in March of 1993, Lieut. Brian Ellicott, 45, was an active member of Emergency Medical Dispatch and on 9/11 was working at EMS Station 4 on South St. in Manhattan, the closest station to the World Trade Center site. He stopped working due to his illness late this summer. Lieutenant Ellicott died at a Staten Island hospital with his father, wife and his best friend by his bedside, said District Council 37 Local 3621 President Thomas Eppinger, who represents EMS officers. Lieutenant Ellicott is also survived by a son and a daughter.

Fourth EMS Victim

Lieutenant Ellicott was the fourth EMS worker who did extensive 9/11 rescue and recovery work to die, said Mr. Eppinger, but the first officer and member of Local 3621. He added that 69 of his members have reported contracting a 9/11-related ailment.

Mr. Eppinger said that Lieutenant Ellicott's original Workers' Compensation claim was denied and that the union and the family would fight for a Line of Duty death pension. The family has also planned to hire an independent medical examiner to perform an autopsy, because it fears Chief Medical Examiner Charles S. Hirsch will conclude that the death was not related to working at Ground Zero.

In the first several months of Ground Zero rescue and recovery work, many workers were not given respirators and were exposed to toxins such as benzene, copper dust, pulverized concrete, asbestos and human remains. Many unions have argued that some of their members have contracted respiratory illnesses, some fatal, after working at the site. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reported in August that Ground Zero workers suffered higher rates of asthma than the general population.

'Have to Fight System'

"We have this problem where if you become sick you have to fight the system, and that is not what it should be about," Mr. Eppinger said, in reference to denied Workers' Comp payments and disability pensions. "It's not about getting someone's name on a wall. This is about saving someone's home and putting food on the table."

Funeral services were held Dec. 1 at the John Vincent Scalia Home for Funerals in Staten Island.

"The guy gave his blood and his sweat for the city, and it's not a lot to pay back his family a Line of Duty death pension," Mr. Eppinger said. "Brian, you know, gave me permission to do whatever it takes to use his story, his face to help his family and everybody else, and I will do that. I have to."