‘It just adds salt to a wound’

updated 5:56 p.m. ET Sept. 22, 2006

NEW YORK - Glenn Winuk was found in the ashes of the World Trade Center with surgical gloves on his hands and a medic's bag at his side. A card in his wallet identified him as a volunteer firefighter.

The discovery confirmed what friends already knew. As the towers burned, the 40-year-old lawyer had rushed from his nearby office to offer help as a veteran EMT.

"He died a hero," said his brother, Jay.

Yet, in the eyes of the federal government, he did not die in the line of duty.

In a decision sent to Winuk's parents days before the fifth anniversary of his death, the Justice Department rejected their application for a $250,000 benefit for public safety officers killed on the job.

Its reasoning was apologetically bureaucratic; while Winuk was an associate member of the Jericho Fire Department on Long Island, he hadn't been on active duty since 1998.

"I recognize the decedent's heroism that day and readily acknowledge and salute his bravery: Glenn J. Winuk gave unstintingly of himself, under the most dreadful circumstances, and gave unto death itself," wrote Domingo S. Herraiz, director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

"The law does not entrust me, however, with authority to distribute federal benefits in recognition of the ultimate sacrifice paid by good Samaritans, no matter how deserving," he added.

Disputes arise regularly
The denial is one of several difficult rulings the bureau has made while administering the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Act, a 30-year-old program that provides a one-time payment to the families of slain police, firefighters and government rescue workers.

Since the program's inception, disputes have arisen regularly about deaths due to medical conditions, self-inflicted gunshots or auto wrecks.

There has been debate, too, over precisely who counts as a public safety officer.

In July, a federal judge overturned a decision to deny benefits to a civilian pilot killed battling a wildfire near Hopland, Calif. Although the program excludes contractors, the court said the aviator qualified because of his actions for the state's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

In March, a judge said the benefit was wrongly withheld from a 14-year-old junior firefighter hit by a car while answering an alarm on his bicycle. Christopher Kangas of Brookhaven, Pa., was a volunteer apprentice whose duties were limited to drills and firehouse chores.

Jay Winuk said his family also plans to appeal the ruling on his brother, who was on active duty for 19 years before switching to associate status.

"It just adds salt to a wound that's about the biggest wound you could have," he said. "It's like they're trying to find every which way not to honor this guy."

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