Add The New York Post on Google The family of a 9/11 first responder has been denied disability benefits more than a dozen times — even as City Hall uses his words as a rallying cry for the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks.
NYPD Det. Michael Hanson, who spent eight months digging at Ground Zero after the 2001 attacks, died of Lou Gehrig’s Disease in 2018, with his wife and daughter maintaining it was because of his work on the pile — a claim the city has denied them 13 times.
So it stung the family when Mayor Mamdani last week quoted Hanson’s inspiring words to his fellow ESU detectives — words memorized over the memorial wall in the unit’s headquarters. They were especially upset that he got the quote wrong.
“Does he know that the man he’s quoting died worrying about his family being taken care of because the city has denied him benefits that should’ve been there for someone sick or dying from 9/11 exposures?” Hanson’s daughter, Kate Hanson, wrote on Facebook this week.
“Does he know that despite how easy it is to rip a quote off of a wall, he didn’t even get it right?! Nope that’s right. He left off the end of it,” she wrote. “Now 25 years after 9/11, the mayor not only uses that quote and my father‘s name and reputation in his fluffy political speech.”
It is not clear if the family applied for the benefits since Mamdani took office.
The mayor invoked Mike Hanson last week during a briefing just days before the upcoming 25th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center that killed nearly 3,000.
“Last week, Officer Perry was honored with a street named after him in East Harlem,” the mayor said. “Today, we honor every NYPD officer who died on or after 9/11, those who gave so much to protect and to serve. In the words of ESU Detective Mike Hanson, who before he passed gave his younger officers a rule to work by: ‘Do what you can for who you can, with whatever it takes.'”
Hanson’s widow, Cathy Hanson, said he left out the last part of the quote, which ends with, “to get it done,” and hangs above the memorial wall at NYPD Emergency Services Unit headquarters.
For the family, the botched quote just adds insult to injury after their claims for 9/11 benefits were nixed.
“He was denied 13 times for a 9/11 pension,” Cathy Hanson told The Post Thursday. “If the mayor or his staff would’ve took a couple of minutes to figure that out he could’ve mentioned that people who suffered that day are still being denied. I have been fighting for eight years.
“I promised Mike I would fight for all those who came after him who are suffering from neurological illnesses,” she said.
Big Apple 9/11 first responders and public employees are eligible for a disability pension through the New York City pension system if they took part in the rescue, recovery and cleanup following the Sept. 11, 2001, and died as a result of a qualifying WTC condition.
Hanson, an Orange County resident, served 21 years in the department before he retired in 2006. He as diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, in 2018, and died six months later, on Oct. 18, 2018.
His family attributed the disease to the more than eight months working at Ground Zero after the attacks — including 11 hours on the day the towers fell.
According to a 2023 state Appellate Division ruling on the dispute, the judges said it was only “possible” that WTC “toxic exposure contributed to his illness,” but noted that the high level of toxins in Michael Hanson’s brain tissue and body fluids warranted further medicla review.
The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
