A Highland Mills widow who has spent eight years fighting New York City for 9\/11 survivor benefits says she was stunned to hear Mayor Zohran Mamdani invoke her late husband\u2019s name during Wednesday\u2019s dedication of the NYPD\u2019s new 9\/11 Memorial Wall \u2014 a memorial that does not include his name.<\/p>\n
Cathy Hanson says her husband, Mike Hanson, an NYPD Emergency Service Unit officer, spent nine months working at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11 attacks. He later developed ALS and died in 2018.<\/p>\n
Hanson says her claim for 9\/11 survivor benefits has been denied 13 times because ALS is not recognized as a qualifying 9\/11-related condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really upset. We were denied 13 times. This has been an eight-year battle,\u201d Hanson told News 12 by phone Thursday.<\/p>\n
Hanson says testing showed her husband had been exposed to the heavy metal antimony, which she says damaged his nervous system as a result of his months working at Ground Zero. During Wednesday\u2019s memorial dedication at One Police Plaza, Mamdani mentioned Hanson near the end of his remarks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the words of ESU Detective Mike Hanson, who before he passed gave his younger officers a rule to work by: \u2018Do what you can for who you can, with whatever it takes,\u2019\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n
Hanson says hearing the mayor use her husband\u2019s words while his name remains absent from the memorial initially made her angry.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople that didn\u2019t know anything and watched that conference would assume that the guys mentioned by Mamdani are up on that wall,\u201d Hanson said. \u201cAll they had to do was Google Mike\u2019s name and that he was denied.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the mayor or his staff could also have seen that Hanson\u2019s name was not among those memorialized.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll they had to do was look up on that wall and know that Mike\u2019s name wasn\u2019t there,\u201d Hanson said.<\/p>\n
Hanson’s fight is no longer only about her husband. She believes other 9\/11 responders and their families are confronting similar battles as neurological illnesses emerge years after their Ground Zero exposure.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just extremely frustrating to me and my family. I\u2019m trying to help thousands of others that are coming down with these neurological illnesses,\u201d Hanson said.<\/p>\n
She became emotional while describing why she has continued fighting after 13 denials.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt keeps me going because I promised Mike that I would fight for him and for all others that came after him,\u201d Hanson said through tears. \u201cI have never broken a promise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanson says she has watched friends of her husband develop Parkinson\u2019s disease, dementia and other neurological illnesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many of his friends have come down with Parkinson\u2019s and dementia and all of these neurological illnesses, and their families are going through the same thing that I\u2019m going through,\u201d Hanson said through tears. \u201cI know it\u2019s from that day. From his time down there. I just know it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanson did welcome the Mamdani administration\u2019s recent release of thousands of previously unreleased city records concerning the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, including records involving air quality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very happy that they released all these files the other day that showed about the air quality, which we knew all along,\u201d Hanson said.<\/p>\n
In a statement to News 12, City Hall Deputy Press Secretary Sam Raskin said, \u201cWe are looking into the details of this case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanson spoke with News 12 Thursday morning while spending time with her 10-month-old grandson, who could be heard playing in the background. She and Mike now have six grandchildren.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Hanson says she and her youngest daughter plan to visit Mike\u2019s former NYPD Emergency Service Unit in Manhattan, visit the memorial and have lunch with his former colleagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are family,\u201d Hanson said. \u201cIt just reminds me so much of Mike.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family will then return to Orange County for an evening ceremony at the Highland Mills Fire Department, where Hanson says Mike volunteered for 30 years and once ran the department\u2019s annual 9\/11 ceremony.<\/p>\n
News 12 has extensively followed Hanson\u2019s yearslong fight for survivor benefits.<\/p>\n
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:<\/p>\n
Widow of Highland Mills 9\/11 first responder denied survivor benefits 13 times<\/a><\/p>\n