Ivonne Sanchez was responding to an emergency in the Bronx when the first plane flew into the World Trade Center on 9/11. By the time the NYFD EMT was able to make it downtown, the towers had collapsed.

From that moment, she rushed to help the survivors who escaped the disaster. And for the next 10 months, she recovered the bodies of those who didn’t.  

“We were just in rescue mode,” Sanchez said. “We were just trying to get all the people out quickly and safely as possible and try to figure out what was going on from there on.”

In the years after, Sanchez initially developed asthma, as did many first responders given the air pollution from the towers’ collapse. But after she retired in 2004, she developed breast cancer and had a mastectomy. The following year, the city allowed people to reclassify their reasons for retirement—a procedure that could make them eligible for more benefits related to 9/11-health conditions. 

But when Sanchez tried to reclassify her retirement and add her breast cancer diagnosis via the New York City Employees’ Retirement System in 2014, she was denied four times. She argues the cancer was linked to her work at Ground Zero, but needs the retirement system’s medical board to reach the same conclusion. Ultimately, the retirement board approved only benefits for her asthma, a decision that came in 2018.

“I lost out on several thousands of dollars because it took four years,” Sanchez said. And if she were to die from her breast cancer, she would not get the full benefits.

First responders who worked at Ground Zero frequently run into red tape as they develop health conditions such as cancer. These types of long-term illnesses tend to emerge well after exposure to pollution or another health hazard, making it hard to prove cause and effect.

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