His name is Christopher Hynes, and he once was a 30-year-old New York City police officer who felt so committed to the rescue-and-recovery effort at Ground Zero in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 that he unquestioningly worked more than 100 hours at that toxic crime-scene without being issued the proper protective respiratory gear.

Today, he’s a 36-year-old New York City police officer suffering from coughs, chest pains and shortness of breath. He can barely walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. He has been diagnosed with sarcoidosis and Lofgren’s syndrome — ailments medical experts have unequivocally associated with breathing the benzene, asbestos, mercury, PCBs, glass shards, pulverized concrete and 400 other lethal toxins known to have permeated Ground Zero. As a result, he has been sued for more than $5,000 in medical bills, and the NYPD refuses to pick up the tab.

“I never smoked in my life,” he says, “and I never had a breathing problem in my life,” but the city claims there’s no link to Ground Zero dust, and the NYPD medical division has denied him line-of-duty-injury designation three times.

The division issued these denials even though its counterpart at the Fire Department routinely grants line-of-duty status to and pays all medical bills for similarly affected firefighters. And in late May, the city’s chief medical examiner ruled that exposure to toxic dust at Ground Zero contributed to the death of a downtown attorney who died of sarcoidosis five months after 9/11.

The PBA agrees with Officer Hynes, who is assigned to the 43 Pct. and is currently on restricted duty, that there’s something rotten about all this, that the administrative code makes the city responsible for all medical expenses incurred by any police officer who is injured or becomes ill in the line of duty. So, on June 1, PBA attorneys sued in State Supreme Court in Manhattan to recover more than $1,600 in medical bills for Officer Hynes and for a line-of-duty designation for his ailment, which would make the city liable for all his medical bills.

Denying line-of-duty status to police officers suffering from 9/11-related sarcoidosis is inconsistent with the latest science and studies.

Christopher Hynes with his wife, Leslie, and son Christopher, 3.

To quote from PBA President Pat Lynch’s comments to the press when the PBA suit was filed: “It adds insult to the suffering of Police Officer Hynes, who has been denied this status while the firefighters with whom he worked shoulder-to-shoulder at the WTC have been granted line-of-duty status for the same illness. It’s a shame that once again, the PBA has to force the city to take justified and appropriate care of a sick police officer who did his job without question or regard for his own safety. The city needs to think more about right and wrong than about fiscal liability.”

Amen.