The following is the fifth in The PBA Magazine’s series of question-and-answer reports on New York City police officers who sacrificed their health because of their selfless work at Ground Zero and other locations in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In this case, the Q & A had to be conducted with the executor of the police officer’s estate because she had already died from her WTC-related illness.

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Growing up in Brooklyn, Tom Angiolino was discouraged by both parents from becoming a cop. It wasn’t the usual parental advice since his mother was a detective who moved from assignment to assignment within the Brooklyn Rackets Squad and his father worked out of the 77 Pct. on Atlantic Avenue for some 17 years. Angiolino ultimately followed their counsel, striking out on his own career path to his present status as a senior vice president for the Willis brokerage insurance company head-quartered in downtown Manhattan. It is from this position, literally walking steps from Ground Zero, that he has become very involved in the NYPD, specifically in the excruciating story of Louise Johnston, yet another fatality of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

PBA: When did you first meet Louise?
TA: Long before she ever became a cop. She was our babysitter in Sheepshead Bay. We were neighbors, lived only a couple of doors away from one another. The funny thing was, as much as my mother had talked me out of joining the department, she all but recruited Louise, telling her that the NYPD was the best way for her to stay out of trouble. She was a tough kid. Knew what she wanted, or thought she knew what she wanted. Very confident. Anyway, my mother’s advice took with her, and she ended up working with the Brooklyn South Task Force for 18 years.

PBA: And you had continuous contact all that time?
TA: Not as close neighbors because we ended up moving to New Jersey. But we always kept in contact and heard all about her first years in uniform. She was a thin and wiry woman, very muscular. She never lost her toughness and absolutely loved her job. They moved her around a lot in the Task Force, and she did just about everything, including a lot of undercover work.

PBA: Then 9/11 came.
TA: Right. She was down there from the very first day doing rescue and recovery work. It’s hard to believe it in retrospect, but she ended up doing at least four and usually five days a week all the way from September 11 to November 28. She might not have been the only cop to have been down there that much, but it’s hard to believe there were others who were down there more often.

PBA: When did she start feeling she had been too exposed?
TA: It was something that built up over a couple of years. That seems to be the pattern with people who drew lengthy duty at Ground Zero or at the landfills. She’d get what she considered minor ailments, but always put the best interpretation on them. I think that’s almost inevitable. Aside from her job, she also had a pre-school daughter to worry about. But then, when she was pregnant with a second child, a routine examination turned into a black day. Her primary physician found metastatic lung cancer, and all the tests over the next few weeks confirmed that diagnosis. From that point on, she followed the double trail of most other officers who had been assigned to Ground Zero – medical visits with one specialist after another. The progress of her illness was so swift that she never lived to see her case come before either the NYPD medical board or the Police Pension Fund (PPF) board of trustees. In the fall of 2007, the PBA filed her posthumous application with the PPF for a line-of-duty WTC designation in an effort to obtain maximum survivor benefits for her children.

PBA: How did the hearings go?
TA: The procedure involves an application to the PPF followed by a hearing before the NYPD medical board, which makes its recommendation to the PPF.

Even though her primary physician insisted it wasn’t just a coincidence that a perfectly healthy woman contracted cancer after prolonged exposure to Ground Zero, there was little immediate sympathy. Or maybe there was sympathy, but not much else. They could hardly say she was making up her illness, but they insisted she lacked direct evidence it had been caused by her assignments in uniform. In fact, the medical board twice recommended denial of the application – on Oct. 22, 2007, and Sept. 19, 2008 – because it decided that her illness developed too soon after 9/11 to be related to her work at Ground Zero. Finally, on the occasion of the PBA’s third application, the medical board came to its senses and decided that the state law that presumes cancer deaths of this sort for first-responders are WTC-related entitled her to lineof- duty death status. On March 6 of this year, the medical board recommended approval and on May 13 the PPF granted the designation.

PBA: She was a single parent throughout her ordeal?
TA: Yes. And as I think I mentioned, she was independent-minded about just about everything. She’s got this terrible disease and two children on the one hand, and a fairly extensive family of sisters on the other. But it was really rare when Louise asked anyone, even her own family, for help. You didn’t wait for an invitation. You either helped or you didn’t. Of course she was grateful, but also because it came from your initiative, not hers.

PBA: And what exactly has your role been in all this?
TA: I think she always trusted me. Well, no, I don’t think it, I know it because she told me she did. The sicker she got, the more her daughter and son were on her mind and we talked and talked about who would be the best people to become their guardians. I have four grown kids between 20 and 31, so my wife and I were not the ideal solution for children who are today nine and four. The same thing with her sisters. They, too, have grown up kids. Finally, she decided to entrust them to two friends – an attorney and his wife, who works for the State of New York. I’m the executor of the estate, as well as co-trustee of the guardianship.

PBA: How were the final months?
TA: Louise died on March 6, 2007. She was holding her own for a long time through all the chemo and other treatments, but she ended up bed-ridden at the Lutheran Hospital for close to three months. One night, more than 500 cops and their families showed up for a fund-raiser for her in Bay Ridge. She was loved by a lot of people.

Postscript: Police Officer Louise Johnston was, in her lifetime, a true “forgotten victim” because she went to her grave not knowing that her children would be taken care of.