Customer Reviews

One Of Them: A First Responder's Story

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Steve Centore's memoir is both a compelling read and a public service. Brutally honest, his book illustrates how a federal employee and serviceman was failed by the very government he faithfully served. His journey from health to illness is moving, even upsetting but the story is one that must be told.

Steve Centore's memoir is a gripping account of one man's journey from dedicated career civil servant (longtime Navy, Department of Energy) to one whose service at Ground Zero decimated both his health and career. Centore's 9/11 illnesses from his 4-month stint at Ground Zero (monitoring radiation at the site) came on during the early days of the 9/11 Health epidemic, when World Trade Center clinics were embryonic and little was known about the connection between 9/11 and disease. Centore's superiors at the Dept of Energy turned a cold shoulder, not only denying his illnesses and ostracizing him, but actually smearing him professionally in order to hasten his departure. Meanwhile, a laundry list of ailments began to disable him (pulmonary, circulatory, gastro-intestinal) along with crippling PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) which left him with blackouts, depression and an utter inability to cope with everyday life. Centore's wife, Susan, was caught in the grip of watching her formerly robust husband deteriorate before her eyes. Pleading with indifferent doctors and HMO's to help her husband, Centore was shuttled in and out of doctor's offices and hospitals before suffering an almost complete shut down of his body systems.

Finally diagnosed with a non-functioning liver, Centore was given 24 hours to live if a donor was not found. Miraculously, an organ materialized and a transplant was performed. Since the surgery, Centore has regained a semblance of health, but he continues to struggle daily with 9/11 illnesses from his toxic exposures (over 2500 chemicals, including asbestos, lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, benzine and other PVCs, PAHs and other cancer-causing substances). Centore has since become an advocate for 9/11 Health issues, lecturing, blogging, and contacting public officials to support and pass pending 9/11 Health Care legislation H.R. 847, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. Centore's act of writing the book is one of the courageous early acts of advocacy and whistle-blowing on the government denial and neglect of the 9/11 population. He has traveled to Congress where he testified before a House Committee on the effects of the 9/11 Health Crisis on the responder population. This is an important book which will stand as a milestone testimony of this crisis which (with over 400,000 people affected by 9/11 toxins in Lower Manhattan) will continue to reverberate for decades to come.