This article was written by Mary Williams Walsh; and it appeared in the August 9, 2000 New York Times Newspaper;  There has been a renewed effort by Michael Nicholson to try and get the PSOB to compensate firefighters injured before 1990.

 "Fury of a Volunteer Firefighter Scorned"

They light the fireworks on the fourth of July. They pull people out of burning buildings. They teach children not to play with matches. By one estimate, they save taxpayers $37 billion a year.

Few people embody America's ideals like its 1.1 million volunteer firefighters. Gritty, charitable, self-reliant, they answer millions of calls for help each year. And each year, thousands get hurt.

It is then that many discover that their generosity is not necessarily matched by the society they serve. Disabled volunteer firefighters generally get workers' compensation, but the benefits vary widely. Some states match what career firefighters receive. Some pay less. Some pay nothing.

Michael Nicholson got next to nothing after he was hit by a car on a fire call in 1972, when he was a 17-year old volunteer firefighter in Bushnell's Basin, outside of Rochester. Both his legs were broken, his skull was fractured, his lungs collapsed, he suffered a stroke, and he sank into a coma for three and a half weeks. His parents were told three was a 50/50 chance he would live.

When he regained consciousness, he required leg braces and crutches to walk. A junior in high school, he could no longer concentrate on his favorite subject, criminal justice. His memory failed, and his emotions flared inexplicably. He needed speech therapy but flew into a rage when the therapist told him to forget his boyhood dream of becoming a state trooper.

The State of New York agreed to compensate him with $80.00 a week for his permanent disability.

For more than 20 years, Mr. Nicholson struggled along on those meager checks unable to move out of his parent's house. Then, in 1993, an administrative judge laughed at his request for an increase in his disability benefits. It was a routine bureaucratic put-down, but Mr. Nicholson could not shrug it off.

Since then, he has led a crusade to over-haul the workers' compensation system treats volunteer firefighters. Against all odds, he scored victories in New York. Now he is gearing up for the ultimate battle: to set a federal standard for compensation.

If nothing else, his accomplishments show what one determined human being can do to fix a system that most people do not notice is broken because it's victims are invisible. "This sounds quixotic," said Stewart Schwab, a professor at Cornell Law School and an expert on workers' compensation. "But he seems to have a track record for knocking down a few windmills."

A big reason for the energy of his efforts was his belated understanding of how serious his injuries were. It was not until 1990 that he underwent neurological testing that disclosed that his memory was so erratic and his emotions boiled over so often because of brain damage.

"I just thought that was the way I was," said Mr. Nicholson, who needed three years to finish his senior year in high school and five years to complete a two-year degree in criminal justice at Monroe Community College. His first job, as a sheriff's dispatcher, lasted only five months.

Over the next 17 years, Mr. Nicholson was fired 27 times, from jobs as seemingly simple as supermarket bagger. "They'd holler at me and tell me: Hey! Don't you remember I told you not to do that?" "he said" "And I'd say, "No," and they'd fire me."

New York State paid Mr. Nicholson so little in part because I, too, had failed to understand the extent of his injuries and categorized him as only partially disabled. But in a 1993 review of his case, Mr. Nicholson said neurological findings showed that he would never be able to work and told the judge that $80.00 per week was not enough.

"{He kind of laughed and said, "Well, if you don't like it, change the workers' compensation law,"  "I'll never forget the way he laughed. That's what made me determined to try to do something."

It did not occur to him to appeal the judge's decision; instead, he looked up an old friend, Jim Alesi, who had become a state senator. He asked Mr. Alesi how to go about changing the law. The senator said he supposed he could write a personal bill that would legally raise Mr. Nicholson's payments to the 1992 rate of $400.00 per week for cases like his. But he warned the former firefighter not to get his hopes up.

Undaunted, Mr. Nicholson spent four years making rounds of every fire hall, village board, town council and county legislature he could find in his part of the state.

"I'll never forget the day he walked into my office," said Ed Riley, fire coordinator for Monroe County, which has over 40 fire depts. Mr. Nicholson, walking with a cane and carrying a cassette player to record conversations-without it, he often forgets what people tell him-spilled out his story, saying he could not bear living under his parent's roof for the rest of his life.

"I was shocked." Mr. Riley said. "I'd been in this job for 12 years, and my biggest thing is to make sure everybody's in good shape. I was saying: Where have you been? Why didn't anybody tell me about you before?" 

The answer was that because Mr. Nicholson could no longer play baseball, march in parades, or take part in other all-American events that bring firefighters together, he had simply been forgotten.

The county coordinator began taking Mr. Nicholson to the various meetings fire officials attend. A groundswell began. Brigades wrote letters to their representatives in Albany, urging them to pass Mr. Nicholson's personal bill. Fire Chiefs around the state began wondering how many other disabled volunteers might be lost in the system.

Eventually about 30 disabled volunteer firefighters were discovered, some housebound and receiving payments of as little as $65.00 per week.

In Albany, the legislature first enacted Mr. Nicholson's personal bill, then a second personal bill for another disabled volunteer who died before the workers' compensation released the higher benefits. A third general bill raised the benefits of all the forgotten volunteers.

Those victories have emboldened Mr. Nicholson to consider ways of righting what he considers a national wrong: the lack of consistency in the way states handle workers' compensation for volunteer firefighters. He has been researching state laws on the Internet and getting in touch with National firefighting organizations. His goal is a federal standard.

"It's an interesting twist," said Professor Schwab, noting that most attempts to standardize state compensation practices are the work of Insurance companies and other business interests, trying to limit payouts. "He's coming at it from the opposite perspective," he said.

And I'm not done:

On November 29, 1990, The United States Congress passed an amendment to the Public Safety Officer's Benefit Act, which took care of those who became permanently and totally disabled because of a catastrophic injury. 

However, the act covered only people who sustained their injury on or after November 29, 1990. This leaves out myself and the other living public safety officers who were volunteer firefighters, paid firefighters, police officers, etc. that were injured prior to the date of this law.

I have been lobbing for three years to find someone that would listen to me and not just brush me off as a person who has suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury. One Representative to a National Fire Service organization once told me at a State Convention, "Mike, we all have empathy for you and the other disabled firefighters out there, but there are more important issues for us to deal with! Another time a Lame Duck Congressman told me that the cost of such an undertaking would be way too much to even consider.

I kept on, and was able to hook up with a New York State Senator who was a co-sponsor to the previous bills in 1996 & 1998 that were signed into law for myself and other total permanent disabled volunteer firefighters.

Senator Randy Kuhl won Amo Houghton's seat in Congress through letters and discussions, fully understood what I have been lobbying for.

June 17, 2005 Mr. Kuhl, of New York introduced the following bill, which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary;

H.R. 2970-, which would provide public safety officer disability, benefits to officers disabled before the enactment of the Federal public safety officer disability law of November 29, 1990

I have contacted the New York State Association of Counties, as well as the National Association of Counties for their support for a resolution to the bill

I have written to and received numerous e-mails from other National State Fire Service Organizations, National Police Organizations across the Country, that support this bill and don't want to let their brothers and sisters who were disabled before November 29, 1990 be forgotten about any more.

I'd like to ask for the help of firefighterclosecalls by printing my story and ask anyone that reads this to please contact Congressman Randy Kuhl, Jr. at 1505 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 and ask that he resubmit this bill into the 110th Congress. 

 

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