Mom Who Got Uterine Cancer from 9/11 Finally Receives Victims' Benefits for Her Disease (Exclusive)
Karen Smith got uterine cancer from the toxic chemicals near to Ground Zero. She is one of the first women to be certified by the World Trade Center Health Program, which finally added uterine cancer to the list just this year
Karen Smith was working in downtown New York City on the morning of September 11. She had taken the Path train from New Jersey to the World Trade Center stop, and bought a bouquet of flowers from the farmer's market there while on her way to her office at 40 Wall St.
"I started walking away from the farmer's market, and people were pointing, looking behind me, and it was like, 'What is happening?' And it looked like something had crashed into the tower, because at that point it was just an inferno," she tells PEOPLE.
Smith, then age 44, and working as a senior vice president of national operations for Managed Health Network, went to her office and headed for her desk. "I kept there, for emergency purposes, a little radio buried in my desk and I got it out, plugged it in, and they said a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. I'm like, 'Oh my God.' People were just starting to come into work and we were trying to figure out what to do."
As the situation worsened, Smith and her coworkers could see ash and fire falling from the sky and decided to evacuate. "We just had everybody put wet paper towels over their nose and mouth as we went out to the street and I took the ferry back to New Jersey," she says.
Smith didn't realize she was covered in ash until she reached the ferry station near her home. "My daughter came and got me and she said, 'Mommy, you can't get in the car. We have to brush you off a little.' I said, 'What do you mean brush me off?' At that point, I looked down, and I was just covered. And anyway, so when New York City got reopened the following week, I went in with one or two other employees and we just straightened up the office and made sure people could come back to work because everybody left in a hurry."
Smith returned to the office a week later and continued working there for three years. She says, at the time, she did not think the area was still dangerous.
"The head of the EPA said the air's okay, right? The air quality is okay," she remembers. "I thought, okay, we've got to get back to work. We got to get back to normal. People have to resume their lives ... So we did. Everybody went back to work."
Years later, when she was diagnosed with uterine cancer, she did not make the connection between her office's proximity to Ground Zero and her illness.
"I'm in the healthcare industry, so I always had my annual checkup, my annual physical, as well as my annual mammographies, pap smears, all that good stuff on an annual basis. I never missed one, and nothing ever showed up. And then in June of 2021, I started having symptoms and I called the gynecologist. It was a Friday, she wasn't in the office. Sunday, Monday they sent me for an internal pelvic ultrasound. And then the following day, they did a biopsy in the office, which was god awful."
The biopsy and additional testing showed Smith had a type of uterine cancer that was not due to a genetic predisposition. But she also didn't smoke or drink or have any of the contributing lifestyle factors. Neither Smith nor her doctors made the connection to 9/11. However, her daughters convinced her to consider the possibility that working close to Ground Zero for years after the attack had damaged her health.
When Smith got her diagnosis, uterine cancer was not on the list of illnesses caused by the World Trade Center disaster. Most of the scientific studies being done after 9/11 were conducted on first responders, who were primarily men. Researchers did not initially study the relationship between women's cancers and the disaster.
Finally, on January 18, 2023, uterine cancer was added to the list — now 69 cancers have been identified as being caused by 9/11. There's also a list of respiratory illnesses and other conditions.
Smith, now 66, was certified by the World Trade Center Health program in March, and is one of the first women in the program with uterine cancer. She is now eligible to seek compensation for her illness through the Victim Compensation Fund.
Once someone is certified as having a 9/11 related illness, they are entitled to free healthcare for the illness and do not need to rely on their private insurance.
"You can go for your annual screening and you're going to doctors who have been dealing with people within the 9/11 community for two decades. So they're not going to ignore your symptoms," says Sara Director, a Partner at Barasch & McGarry law firm, which helped Smith.
"They're going to be able to connect the dots in ways that other doctors can't. Once you're certified, you can make the claim to the Victim Compensation Fund for compensation," she tells PEOPLE. "You can also make a claim for past medical expenses that you had to pay out of pocket for your treatment for that illness. If you are unable to work and deemed disabled, you can make a claim for lost wages."
In addition, if someone passes away from their illness, the family can make a claim for wrongful death and other damages. "It's pretty comprehensive," Director says. "It does offer financial stability, but nobody wants it. Everyone just wants their health back."
As for Smith, her cancer is improving, but she is not yet in remission.
"I feel really well right now. I'm feeling, I would say great," she says. "I'm not back to my normal pre-surgery self because I haven't regained all my strength or energy. I lost a lot of weight after the radiation and the surgery. And of course chemo is awful. I lost weight during chemo, but I lost a lot of weight during and still from radiation because it really does a number on your GI system when you're having that radiation in your pelvic area."
Smith wants her story to bring awareness to other women who may be suffering from a 9/11 related illness. "I'm hoping that it is a way to get the word out there that women who have a cancer diagnosis to say, 'Wow, I was there. I need to connect this. I need to apply for the health benefits as well as compensation fund.' That's really what I'm hoping, really just part of the awareness campaign.
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