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Jamesport man, a retired FDNY firefighter, battles 9/11-related cancer

Two years before Mr. Brickman’s initial cancer diagnosis, President Obama signed the James L. Zadroga 9/11 Health & Compensation Act, which was named after a New York City Police Department officer who died of a respiratory disease related to his efforts after 9/11. The fund was designed to help the growing number of first responders who were succumbing to various diseases in the years following the terrorist attack.

brickman_3The Zadroga Act was first written to cover 9/11-related health problems only through 2015. When efforts stalled in Congress to extend the health care program, it took a long, consistent effort by the families of those affected to get the government to act. Jon Stewart, former host of “The Daily Show,” was a strong advocate for first responders and produced a powerful segment last December in which he attempted to reinterview first responders he had originally met 5 1/2 years earlier. Only one of the four men could return. One had died and the other two were too sick to return.

Later that month, the House and Senate both voted to extend the Zadroga Act for 75 years, guaranteeing that men like Mr. Brickman will continue to receive the coverage they need.

“Isn’t that what this country is about?” Mr. Brickman said. “You take care of your own.”

Mr. Brickman, who said first responders weren’t provided adequate protection from the toxic air at ground zero, tries to avoid getting swept up in the politics. He knows there have been some local politicians who fought hard for the first responders. And he knows that without the support of the health coverage, he could never afford medications like one drug, used as part of a study, that cost about $13,000 a month.

“It just seems unfair that they would stretch this out and give people like me anxiety,” he said.

Mr. Brickman holds a display of a 2001 spread in The New York Times that featured every fallen firefighter on 9/11. (Credit: Joe Werkmeister)
Mr. Brickman holds a display of a 2001 spread in The New York Times that featured every fallen firefighter on 9/11. (Credit: Joe Werkmeister)

Mr. Brickman rarely talks about his experiences on 9/11 or attends support groups, although he recently visited Fighting Chance in Sag Harbor, a group for cancer survivors. He shies away from attending local 9/11 memorial ceremonies as an honored guest and he has never visited the ground zero memorial. On a recent visit he wore a shirt with the Superman logo on it and Superman-themed shoes. His kids, Steven, 13, and Quinn, 10, like to think of their dad as a superhero after everything he’s been through. He sits on the porch of his Jamesport cottage beneath a large banner of a U.S. flag designed with the names of all the 9/11 victims.

He has a large framed copy of a 2001 issue of The New York Times that features the photographs of every firefighter who died on 9/11, such as Lt. Robert Nagel, with whom Mr. Brickman worked closely at Engine 58. He doesn’t display the frame; his house is too small, he said. But he occasionally takes it out to show his boys and share stories about the firefighters he knew. His son Steven’s middle name is Robert after Mr. Nagel.

Steven Jr. was born two years after 9/11. Mr. Brickman said his son helped provide him with a renewed sense of life after the depression that came with leaving his job before he was prepared to and the devastation of 9/11. The former fireman became a stay-at-home dad while his wife worked as a waitress.

“He was in charge of everything,” Ms. Brickman said. “He was always very hands-on with the kids.”

Ms. Brickman typically stayed behind with the kids when her husband traveled into the city for doctor appointments. He relied on the steady support of friends and family, such as Fran Trapani, a retired fireman in a neighboring firehouse, his brother Gerard, who’s also a fireman, and a lifelong friend, Chief John Sudnik. Mr. Brickman and Mr. Trapani became close friends. Mr. Trapani’s mother had died at Sloan Kettering and two of his brothers have undergone cancer treatment.

Mr. Trapani, who lives in Farmingville, was familiar with the facilities in the hospital and agreed to help guide his friend.

“He was there for every single visit,” Mr. Brickman said. “He’s a great guy. I don’t know how I would have done it without him.”

As Mr. Brickman looks back now, 15 years after 9/11, there are no heroic stories of how he helped pull someone from the rubble. Hope quickly faded at ground zero of finding anyone alive after a few days. The destruction was simply so catastrophic that even finding bodies intact was rare. He remembers the blank, empty stares on the faces of firefighters; the small fires that burned untouched around ground zero as people dug through debris; the late summer heat; the smell of death that set in as time passed.

“It was the kind of s— that made me cry when I called my wife,” he said.

It would be understandable for Mr. Brickman to wish he had never left his home that September. He had no professional duty to be there. They never did pull anyone to safety. And he’s now stricken with diseases that could end his life.

But he doesn’t look at it that way.

No regrets, he said. He still dreams about putting on the uniform.

“If I could fight one more fire I’d be thrilled,” he said.

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