NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The principal at PS 130 in Chinatown is suffering from kidney failure that could be the result of exposure to chemicals during her heroic actions after the 9/11 attacks.
Lily Woo slept at the school for three days after 9/11 until every family came to pick up children.
“If you look down our hallways, it appeared as if someone threw sacks of flour — just opened it up and threw it on the floor,” she told WCBS 880. “The whole hallway and everything was covered in white dust.”
Twenty-two years later, her kidneys are failing and she’s on dialysis.
“It really bothers me that you see all the announcements that say ‘if you are south of Canal Street, you can have this,” she said. “My school happened to be one block north of Canal Street.”
“There is no invisible curtain that keeps the dust and all the bad stuff in the air from flowing over to our side of the world,” she continued.
Several people have tested to see if they qualify as donors for her, but she has yet to find a match.
The average lifespan on dialysis is five to ten years, according to the National Kidney Foundation. Woo has been on the donor list for four-and-a-half years.
If you’d like to check whether you’re eligible to donate, you can do so here.
Most people can live normal lives with one kidney, and if a donor later suffers from kidney failure, they are put on a high-priority list for replacement.
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