Courtesy Diane DiGiacomoDiane DiGiacomo was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer after 9/11.
She was a miracle worker to dozens of lower Manhattan residents who fled their homes without their pets after the 9/11 attacks.
But now Diane DiGiacomo, who rescued countless cats and dogs from apartments in the shadow of Ground Zero, is in need of a miracle herself.
The 52-year-old former animal rescue worker is battling Stage 4 breast cancer that has spread to her brain and bones.
DiGiacomo weighs only 60 pounds and struggles to speak on her own.
But the courageous Brooklyn mother is not only fighting for her life. DiGiacomo is fighting for the extension of the bill that provides medical treatment and compensation to Ground Zero workers.
Congress has allowed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act to lapse, jeopardizing thousands of ailing 9/11 first-responders and their families.
“They have to do something,” a weakened DiGiacomo told the Daily News from a bed inside her sister’s New Jersey apartment, her voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s a terrible thing to turn to the government and they turn their back on you.”
DiGiacomo was working as a special investigator for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals when the World Trade Center was reduced to rubble.
Courtesy Diane DiGiacomoDiGiacomo was a special agent from the ASPCA humane law enforcement.
She was one of about a dozen ASPCA workers tasked with saving pets left behind by their owners – a job that got little attention in the wake of the twin attacks.
“I went to the apartments where people were displaced because of the tragedy,” said DiGiacomo, who joined the agency in 1997. “That was my job – to rescue animals.”
To the families desperate to be reunited with their furry friends, DiGiacomo was their savior.
“They were thrilled,” said the single mother with a 21-year-old son.
“They were beyond happy to get their animals back.”
“Animals are like their children,” she added, “you don’t just leave them behind.”
Like the first-responders who toiled for months at Ground Zero, DiGiacomo had no idea the air she was breathing was toxic.
She was diagnosed with cancer last year. The disease spread quickly despite her receiving treatment at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Courtesy Diane DiGiacomoShe was a first responder to the terrorism that killed thousands in New York.
DiGiacomo moved into her sister’s Lyndhurst home three months go after the veteran animal rescue worker could no longer walk up the stairs to her brother’s apartment.
“Everyone’s world has changed since she’s been sick,” said the sister Donna DiGiacomo, 47.
Donna DiGiacomo echoed her sister’s call for Congress to extend the Zadroga bill.
“How could you put a deadline on people’s lives?” she said. “There are a lot of families that don’t know what’s coming their way. If you don’t have that support, this is a very difficult situation.”
DiGiacomo’s brother Paul, who is the vice president of the NYPD Detectives Endowment Association, said his sister’s case demonstrates the importance of the legislation.
“There are many people who are in her condition who will lose medical funds and who will lose support for their family if the bill is not passed,” Paul DiGiacomo said.
Diane DiGiacomo’s son Stephan has taken a semester off from Brooklyn College to help care for his mother.
Moved by her ordeal, Stephan DiGiacomo now plans to pursue a career in medicine.
“There were heroes out there like my mother who did their job, and they need to be acknowledged and compensated,” Stephan DiGiacomo said.
With Rocco Parascandola
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