Fifteen years ago they toiled in the smoking pit of Ground Zero and other 9/11-sites — and now they have to prove it.
Several hundred EMS workers who registered with the city as part of the WTC clean-up effort decades ago are now being told the FDNY can’t confirm their participation.
In a letter dated May 12 from the NYC Employees Retirement System, workers were told they had 60 days to get their own proof, such as “log books....affidavits from fellow workers or supervisors ... photographs ... or badges or passes” from specific sites.
“Please be advised .... that your employing agency could not confirm that you participated at the WTC site, the Fresh Kills Landfill, the city morgue or temporary morgue on pier locations,” said the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily News. The letters — which arrived during National EMS Week — threw many on the force into a tailspin.
“I sent in my notification form years ago, and got a notice back that NYCERS received it. I go every year for an annual WTC checkup, and now they’re telling me I don’t qualify?” said one confused medic.
In the chaotic days after 9/11 many city agencies pitched in to help search the rubble for bodies as well as evidence.