LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A Las Vegas man who stated he contracted most cancers from his time as a volunteer firefighter at floor zero is now asking for the neighborhood’s assist with funeral and burial bills.
“This is a photo of me at ground zero,” David Bliss stated, sharing a photograph. “Standing right where the South Tower used to be.”
Bliss walked 8 Information Now by way of the time he’ll always remember.
“Now we’re coming up on 24 years,” he stated. “And it still weighs heavy on me.”
He shared every part he remembers concerning the days he spent at floor zero after the September 11, 2001, assaults.
Bliss now lives in Las Vegas, however at the moment, he was a volunteer firefighter in Ohio. The day after they noticed the planes hit the World Commerce Middle, he stated he and his finest good friend drove to New York Metropolis, the place they joined the New York Hearth Division’s Station 54.
“I asked them if we could go in and help,” he recalled. “They asked us if we had our gear.”
He spent two weeks conducting search and rescue within the rubble, which ultimately become restoration efforts.
“I would think I would hear someone say, ‘Come rescue me, come rescue me,”‘ he recalled. “And I didn’t.”
The expertise took a psychological and bodily toll that has stayed with Bliss a long time later, together with a most cancers prognosis a number of years in the past.
David Bliss says he contracted most cancers from his time as a volunteer firefighter at floor zero is now asking for the neighborhood’s assist with funeral and burial bills. (KLAS)
David Bliss says he contracted most cancers from his time as a volunteer firefighter at floor zero is now asking for the neighborhood’s assist with funeral and burial bills. (KLAS)
David Bliss says he contracted most cancers from his time as a volunteer firefighter at floor zero is now asking for the neighborhood’s assist with funeral and burial bills. (KLAS)
“There’s no cure for me,” Bliss stated. “Because it keeps spreading.”
He now has stage 4 lung most cancers attributable to the carcinogens on the website, and regardless of his efforts to combat, it has unfold to his pancreas and liver.
“Knowing I’m dying of cancer. Would I do it again?” Bliss stated. “Yes, most definitely.”
He now must pay for his funeral and burial bills, so he filed a number of claims with the September eleventh Sufferer Compensation Fund.
“I keep getting denied. Same thing, did not prove proof of presence,” Bliss stated. “Even though there are eyewitnesses who remember me in there.”
Proof of presence could be decided by way of medical information or eyewitness statements, in keeping with the VCF web site, which Bliss instructed 8 Information Now he has offered.
He has additionally tried to get assist from Congress, the lawyer basic and even the president, however regardless, nothing is occurring.
“There are a lot of us that have literally given our life up for this country,” Bliss stated. “And this country is turning their back on us.”
Due to this fact, Bliss and his spouse hope the neighborhood can step as much as assist them, all to recollect Bliss and the numerous others who made the final word sacrifice.
“After a while, they started putting banners up, ‘We will never forget,’ Bliss said. “Effectively, it did not take folks lengthy to overlook.”
8 Information Now despatched an e mail to the Sufferer Compensation Fund, which the Division of Justice oversees, however didn’t obtain a response by the point this text was printed.
Bliss and his household have arrange a GoFundMe to assist elevate funds.
