work), the need for hired help to aid with
household chores, and future medical
expenses. The motion was granted in its
entirety and Ballow secured a final award
of $1.2 million for Nandan.
Nandan and Ballow have kept in
touch, and always call each other on
their birthdays. “I am so proud to have
represented this man, who never did an
unkind thing in his life,” Ballow says. “I
gained so much from this experience,
personally and emotionally.” Nandan is
currently living with relatives in Canada
who can care for him. “Unfortunately,
[because of the attack] Parasar is surviving
rather than thriving,” Ballow says. “The
people who did this, they never got to
see the pain and suffering of the Parasar
Nandans of the world. People from all
walks; they’ll never be the same again.
These were gut-wrenching sets of facts,
but I’m proud to have been a part of it.”
John G. Rusk, left, with client Thomas Mulligan, a former firefighter who was injured while helping
after 9/11. “We weren’t just firefighters at that time,” says Mulligan. “We were whatever was needed.”
JOHN G. RUSK / RUSK, WADLIN,
HEPPNER & MARTUSCELLO, MARLBORO
& KINGSTON
While Nandan’s injuries were impossible
to ignore, others suffered wounds invisible
to everyone around them. Such was the
case of Kathleen Barbera, a securities
compliance examiner who worked for the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“She wasn’t working in one of the two
towers; she was in one of the surrounding
buildings, Number 7, which ended up
collapsing later that day,” Rusk says. “She
was working at the time when the planes
hit and began the evacuation process. In
the course of evacuating from her building,
she had the unfortunate experience of
actually seeing bodies falling from the
buildings and landing around her. She
said it was almost like bombs going off.
She could barely describe it. Her physical
injuries were relatively minor. But she was
severely traumatized emotionally.”
In Barbera’s case, Rusk had to recreate
the morning of September 11th, as she
experienced it, for the special master.
“That made 9/11 very personal and real,”
Rusk says, “because it was no longer what
occurred on television. You got to see how
even people who didn’t necessarily lose
their life or suffer real horrendous injuries
were impacted. It’s like [you could] almost
touch and feel it firsthand through these
people who were there when the attacks
occurred, and you had to reconstruct very
closely what that day was for them.
“You needed to show [Special Master
Kenneth Feinberg] that your client was there
working that day,” he continues. “You’re
dealing with people who had to punch in
or put paperwork in, and now the building
they were doing these things in just isn’t
there anymore. Obtaining and compiling
documents and recovering receipts for train
tickets, you had to reconstruct and find
documents the best you could, get affidavits
that, yes, this person did report to work that
day. It brought that whole day back on a
minute-by-minute recount.”
Rusk’s other client, Thomas Mulligan,
was easier to account for. When the attacks
occurred, FDNY put out a call asking every
firefighter, regardless of his or her situation,
to report for duty. Mulligan, a firefighter,
answered the call. “As soon as I heard what
was happening, I just grabbed my gear and
went,” Mulligan says. “It was utter chaos.
We’re used to a chain of command. But at
that point, we had already lost so many
chief officers that it was just chaos.”
“The fire department was very good
about keeping track of who reported,”
Rusk says. “That documentation was a
little bit easier.” Mulligan, an ex-cop turned
firefighter, was about to retire from the fire
department because of a back injury, which
required surgery. He reinjured it while
working on the pile of rubble.
For two weeks, Mulligan was on-site all
day and returned home in the late evenings.
“We weren’t just firefighters at that time,” he
says. “We were nurses. We were priests. We
were whatever was needed.”
The reality of the situation hit Mulligan
when he was doing reconnaissance
around the site’s perimeter. “We were
looking for bodies, but we came across
books, pictures of people, things like
that, almost a mile away,” he says. “And
then I find this book that came out of
the firehouse that was right next to
the Trade Center. When you study for a
promotion, you have these books. They’re
very important, like bricks of gold. I had
studied this same book that I found, just
sitting in the road. One of the guys in
the house must have been studying for a
promotion. … It still had his name in it.”
Rusk says it was difficult to get Mulligan
to seek help because Mulligan didn’t think
he deserved it. “He felt there were so many
other people who had been killed or had
suffered injuries that were so much worse
than his that he didn’t feel worthy,” Rusk
says. “He said to me, ‘I was able to walk
away. I wasn’t on my cell phone talking to
my family saying this is the end.’”
However, on the eve of the deadline
for all the paperwork to be in, after some
encouragement from Rusk, Mulligan
changed his mind. “We still joke about
that, how hectic it was sitting in my office
the day before, trying to get all this done,”
Rusk says.
