MANHASSET, NY. (1010 WINS) -- A former NYPD officer who received a double lung transplant a year ago urged others with 9/11-related illnesses to get treated as he met with the doctors who saved his life.
William Giammarino, 62, returned to North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset on Tuesday to thank the doctors who transplanted his new lungs and raise awareness for other 9/11 first responders dealing with illnesses related to the terrorist attacks that were 24 years ago this Thursday.
“I would just like them to know that they can go through the World Trade Center [Health Program], get certified,” Giammarino said. “They can get free healthcare. I’m very thankful to all these people that I am so well now. You can look at me and you wouldn’t even realize. I talk to people on the street—nobody would think that I had a lung transplant.”
Before the surgery “it was bad,” Giammarino said. He couldn’t even tie his shoes or take a shower without losing his breath. “I would take the oxygen into the shower with me, and I’d be out of breath, I’d have to stop.”
“I was terminal,” he said. “If I didn’t get a lung transplant I probably would have died.”
Now a year post-surgery, Giammarino said he hasn’t felt this good in a long time. He works out every day and goes for miles-long walks with his wife.
The father of two from Holbrook was a member of the NYPD Emergency Services Unit and dispatched to the World Trade Center on 9/11. He returned to Ground Zero nearly every day for five months to work “the Pile.”
He was diagnosed with COPD a year after and later required an oxygen tank.
He ended up on a lung transplant list—a surgery he had last September that was covered by the WTC Health Program. He received a double lung transplant on Sept. 9, 2024, and took his first unaided breath with his new lungs two days later on Sept. 11.
“He’s living an excellent quality of life,” said Dr. Aldo Iacono, medical director of advanced lung failure and transplantation at Northwell Transplant Institute. “You really can’t tell that he has any trouble at all.”
“We can help other people like Billy, we can see them, those that are exposed,” Iacono said. “There are thousands of patients in this area.”
According to the hospital, of the nearly 137,000 current members of the WTC Health Program, more than 55,000 have been diagnosed with some type of respiratory disease, including 3,959 first responders with COPD. As of Sept. 1, 117 patients have been approved to receive lung transplants. About 8,200 enrolled WTC patients have died over the last 19 years.