by JOHN MARZULLI
Numerous firefighters who survived 9/11 have found themselves trapped in desk jobs - too ill to battle blazes but not sick enough to qualify for disability pensions, the Daily News has learned.
A group of 30 active and retired firefighters are now preparing a class-action lawsuit to force the Fire Department to make up its mind - restore them to active duty or let them retire on disability.
The firefighters were designated for light duty by FDNY doctors who found them disabled by asthma or other lung-related problems. But in late 2003, the medical board of the pension fund changed the standard for lung disability, according to the Uniformed Firefighters Association.
"The rules changed after the Fire Department realized how many firefighters were affected by 9/11," said lawyer Jeffrey Goldberg of Lake Success, L.I., who is preparing the lawsuit.
"There's no logic to keep them on the payroll. I think there's a political agenda to protect the pension fund."
Prior to the change, firefighters who flunked a breathing test - called the Methacholine challenge - were generally granted a tax-free disability pension by the trustees on the pension board. Now they're being sent out by the medical board for a pulmonary function test that the union charges doesn't check for the "reactive airway condition" that afflicts many of these firefighters.
"These firefighters are stuck in career limbo and need resolution," said UFA vice president James Slevin. "They have been found to be disabled by Fire Department doctors and would like to go on with their lives if they cannot go back to firefighting duty."
Fire Lt. Brendan Whalen retired from Engine 35 in Harlem in July after pushing pencils in an office for nearly two years so that he could qualify for a less lucrative 20-year service retirement. He balked at going off his meds in order to take another pulmonary function test.
"They want me to go in distress and see the fluid build up in my lungs," said Whalen, 42, who was outside the North Tower when it fell. "Do you take a diabetic off insulin to see if they're still diabetic? I sat and cried in that doctor's office because I saw my career go out the window."
A city law department official said the board reached the right conclusion. "The board is an independent, expert medical panel that makes its determinations based on objective and credible evidence," said Inga Van Eysden, chief of the department's pensions division. "We believe that its decisions were appropriate in these cases."
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