Lung transplant gave Ground Zero first responder, of Holtsville, the chance to breath easier, walk on his own

Fourteen officers from NYPD’s elite Emergency Service Unit were killed the day armed men flew planes into the World Trade Center 24 years ago; 11 who worked rescue and recovery at Ground Zero have died since of illnesses the department says are related to the "toxic and hazardous" nature of that work.

That number nearly grew to include William Giammarino, a retired ESU officer from Holtsville. He worked Ground Zero for five months, did his shifts on the pile and one year later developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a respiratory condition often found in heavy smokers that afflicts close to 4,000 Ground Zero responders. The disease inflames and obstructs the body’s airways. Giammarino’s got so bad he gasped for breath when he walked short distances. He got exhausted putting on his shoes. He showered with an oxygen tank.

But on Tuesday, Giammarino walked under his own power into a news conference at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, if not a medical miracle, then something close: breathing with a donor’s lungs, implanted into his chest a year ago to the day.

"I go to the gym every morning, 45 minutes to an hour," Giammarino, 62, told reporters. "I walk two to three miles at night with my wife. I’m healthier now than I was 10 years ago."

Roughly 3,000 lung transplants take place every year in the United States, a number that is limited, in part, by the supply of suitable donor lungs. North Shore University has the only lung transplant program on Long Island. 

Giammarino’s doctors said the need for transplants could rise in coming years, especially for the 137,000 patients in the World Trade Center Health Program, a federal program treating the attacks’ survivors, as those patients age and the long-term effects of exposure to what doctors have called the "toxic cocktail" of gas and dust at Ground Zero manifest.

 Newsday reported this month that the Trump administration has kept administrators of the program from meeting with a panel of doctors, union leaders and advocates over the past eight months, which panel members said prevented them from examining the emergence of rare diseases reported by a number of survivors. Advocates also warn the health program is in danger of running out of money. "We know that unless Congress acts, people are going to be denied care," said Benjamin Chevat, executive director of Citizens for Extension of the James Zadroga Act, Inc. 

More than 55,000 patients in the program have been diagnosed with some kind of respiratory disease. About 8,200 have died over the past 19 years.

"I would know if a World Trade Center patient was in my office before they came into the room because they couldn't stop coughing," said Dr. Jacqueline Moline, director of Northwell’s Queens WTC Health Program, at Tuesday’s news conference.

Almost a quarter century after the attacks, she said, "longer latency diseases that take time to develop occur, including things like COPD, which can be acute or develop over time and worsen. ... It’s a steady increase and I fear that it will be more and more as the years go on."

No firefighter would go into a burning building without a breathing apparatus, commonly known as a Scott pack, but Giammarino said he got nothing of the sort. "Eventually, they gave us masks," he said. "They were paper masks. I don’t believe they were made for that situation. You wore it as best you could."

More effective protective gear would have helped responders like Giammarino "without a doubt," Moline said in an interview. "There were 150 [chemical] components to the dust and the fumes, and not breathing that in means not having acute injury to the lungs, and particulates deep in the lungs to start the scarring process and begin destroying the lung tissue. Many of the responders’ problems would not have been as severe."

Giammarino, in an interview, said his condition "got worse and worse. It started out simple, then it got to the point where, ‘I’m not going to complain. There’s guys who died on 9/11.’ So over 20 years, it became full-blown."

In an interview, Dr. Si Pham, Northwell’s surgical director for advanced lung failure and transplantation, who performed Giammarino’s surgery, said he removed the diseased lung and sutured the new lungs in. The whole operation, he said, took 12 hours. The median length of survival for patients who undergo a lung transplant is 6.8 years, though for some patients it is much shorter and for others much longer. Giammarino, Pham said, has a long life ahead of him.

"I’ve been doing this many years," Pham said. "Seeing him, people like him, come in, almost dead, and then come back — as you see him now — it’s the most rewarding thing in my career ... It’s a privilege, and I count my blessings every day to be able to be part of the surgery for these people."