First responder issues reminder as deadline to sign up for 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund is 1 year away

Barbara Burnett was with the NYPD's intel division on Sept. 11, 2001. She and hundreds of other first responders helped evacuate the World Trade Center. Now she has lung cancer.

News 12 Staff

Jul 29, 2020, 9:17 PM

Updated 1,532 days ago

Share:

With the deadline to apply for the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund approaching, there is a push to spread the word to anyone who breathed in toxic dust in the aftermath of the attacks that they are eligible to apply.
Barbara Burnett was with the NYPD's intel division on Sept. 11, 2001. She and hundreds of other first responders helped evacuate the World Trade Center. Now she has lung cancer.
"I didn't find out until 2004 that I was sick, when I started passing out at work," she says. "And now in 2017, I now have lung cancer."
Burnett signed up for the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund in 2011. On Wednesday, she joined a news conference at Eisenhower Park to get out the word that people who were present in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11 have just one more year to sign up for the fund. The deadline is July 29, 2021.
"All my treatments are covered ... so every time something comes up that's related, they take care of it," she says.
The reminder comes a day after two studies were released by Stony Brook University, both finding that first responders on 9/11 are at a higher risk of developing cognitive disorders like dementia.