Retired NYPD Detective George Bender, a highly decorated and respected member of the NYPD, faces foreclosure after being unable to work due to World Trade Center-related PTSD.
After the terrorist attacks, Bender, now 49, was grieving the loss of his best friend in the attacks while he worked at the World Trade Center site and at Fresh Kills.
“You know the movie Terminator? That’s what it was like,” he told Daily News reporter Graham Rayman. “Scrap metal everywhere. There were big lights. Twelve hour hours usually at night. I picked up heads, I picked up arms, bones. They used to make us throw them into a bucket like it was nothing. You walked it over to a (temporary morgue) building for them to try to do IDs. Everything was caked in ash and wet. It’s very hard to relive it again.”
The family fell into debt while waiting for promised disability benefits to be paid. Their situation has now stabilized, and the bank is postponing the immediate foreclosure, but the Benders are not out of the woods yet.
