NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- A retired city EMS captain may only have months to live, but since getting a terminal cancer diagnosis he’s had to fight for his life and his pension.
Capt. Mike Earley was given a year to live back in May after being diagnosed with 9/11-related pancreatic cancer, but the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS) still hasn’t approved disability pension, according to the Daily News.
Earley said that NYCERS is still seeking more information from him despite sending them “every piece of paperwork Sloan Kettering has on me,” Earley, 55, said in the report.
If approved, Earley’s family would get 75% of his salary, but nearly six months after the diagnosis, he still hasn’t seen it.
“This should have been done already,” he said. “But they don’t care about a dying guy’s problems.”
Earley joined EMS back in 1991, and spent months at Ground Zero. He retired in 2019, and now says he feels “beaten up” by his cancer treatment.
Local 2507 World Trade Center liaison Gary Smiley said the delays mean “everybody is working on the assumption that they are waiting for him to die.”
Smiley himself is going after NYCERS for his own disability pension after suffering from illnesses from his own time at Ground Zero.
For Earley and his family, the report says if he dies before the pension is approved, the claim they’ll have to fill could take years to finish up.
Earley told the Daily News that if the pension is finally approved, it’ll help pay for their Long Island home’s mortgage, which he said his wife can’t pay on her own.
NYCERS told the Daily News it couldn’t comment on the specific case, but claimed nearly 60% of applicants seeking disability pensions complete the process in about four months or fewer, but if it takes longer “complete submission of medical records is typically a factor.”