11 and/or roughly the eight months that followed. It distributed $7 billion to 5,560 claimants before it closed in 2004.Ĭongress reopened the fund in 2011 and broadened eligibility to include people like Sorrentino who were present in lower Manhattan on Sept. The fund was initially meant for the families of people injured and killed in the attacks. “Congress reopened the Victim Compensation Fund in 2011 and broadened eligibility to include people like Chris Sorrentino. Noting how latency periods in some cancers can take decades, Bhattacharyya added, “It may be years yet before we do know.” We still don’t know,” she said at a Thursday panel discussion on the issue. “There’s no way to know how many of those people might get sick. The potentially exposed population might run up to 650,000, according to Rupa Bhattacharyya, the Victim Compensation Fund’s special master. Almost 30,600 survivors were enrolled in the program at the same time. crash responders were enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program, according to statistics.
If those numbers hold true - with a breakdown of approximately 90,000 first responders and 310,000 non-responders, dubbed as survivors- there could still be “hundreds of thousands of survivors that may be eligible now or in the future (if they aren’t sick now),” according to a World Trade Center Health Program spokeswoman.Īs of June, 81,460 first responders to the Twin Tower and Pentagon attacks, plus the Shanksville Pa. Some estimates say approximately 400,000 people were exposed to the dust and pollutants in the Twin Towers’ debris cloud and smoldering pile. Twenty years after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 destroyed the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center and reshaped so many facets of American life, observers worry there’s too many people who went through that day and the following months in lower Manhattan, who now may be letting the specially-designated benefits and money slip by. ‘There’s no way to know how many of those people might get sick’ They don’t always know these funds are available to them. Whenever he talks about 9/11 with people he learns were there, he’ll bring up the assistance he received - and how it might help them one day too. The problem, says Sorrentino, and others, is there still may be too many people who don’t realize the programs are for them. ”The fund is a godsend to anyone who really needs and deserves this,” he said. “I’d give it all back in a heartbeat if I didn’t have to go through what I went through,” he emphasized.īut nobody can undo the past, so Sorrentino will tuck away the money as a nest egg - or as a backstop against whatever financial uncertainties lie ahead. Sorrentino received a six-figure award last month, noting it was on the high end of the range. The fund caps pain and suffering awards for 9/11-related cancers at $250,000, $90,000 for non-cancer conditions and also pays economic loses. He’s also received money through the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, a separate payment program administered by the Justice Department. “My surgeon told me, ‘Thank God you were standing up for yourself to keep going and not take no for an answer … Another three, four months, we would have been giving you a timeline.’”įor all his doctor visits, procedures, post-surgery hospitalizations, check-ups and medications, Sorrentino says he’ll have to pay just one pending $2,600 bill for a cardiologist’s check-in. The approximately seven-hour surgery capped months of appointments and tests where doctors could not determine what afflicted Sorrentino. Two months after, Sorrentino underwent surgery in a race against the aggressive disease that had “spread like wildfire.” One month later, Sorrentino learned he had bladder cancer.
The father of the groom spent it gritting his teeth through the pain that felt like a constant burn or vise-tight pinch. It was May 4th, 2019, the wedding day of Sorrentino’s son. Nearly two decades later, the after-effects of that horrific day cast a shadow on a joyous day. “The most horrific day of my life, I can tell you that.” “Unless you lived it, you can’t explain the feeling and sound of that day,” said Sorrentino, 59, now a maintenance engineer for a Brooklyn hotel. “‘Unless you lived it, you can’t explain the feeling and sound of that day.’ ” - Chris Sorrentino on Sept.