:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/RR3AACLWLRGNTAYSOW2HBRUAAA.JPG "NYPD lieutenant who nearly died of COVID wins fight for disability pension")
A NYPD lieutenant nearly died from a COVID-19-related infection that he contracted on the job, but he won his battle to retire with a disability pension.
Last Tuesday, Lt. Yvan Pierre Louis retired from the Police Department. This marks the end of a 32-year-long career.
Pierre-Louis was one of 10 officers from different ranks who were diagnosed with COVID in the first days of the pandemic. Lou Turco, the head of the NYPD’s Lieutenants Benevolent Association, stated that these officers were never able again to work full-duty.
Pierre-Louis applied to the city’s Police Pension Fund for the same disability pension that officers who were injured in the line-of-duty would receive — an approval Turco called “the right decision.”
Turco said, “When it all started with COVID we thought about 9/11.” Turco said that the air quality was good, but it was a fabrication. People have died of cancer as a result of all the toxins.
Turco recalled that “When COVID struck, all the union presidents sat down with the departments, and said, “We can’t go though what we did with 911,”
The Police Pension Fund is willing to provide disability pensions for severe COVID cases.
NYPD Detective Mike Smith nearly died from COVID. He was given the last rites and received a disability pension in June. Police Pension Fund board members weighed Smith’s request for a pension. This was partly due to the difficulty of determining the source of COVID infections.
Pierre-Louis, 61 believes that he contracted the deadly bug while on courthouse duty in Manhattan. Since then, he hasn’t worked.
He recalled that “the judges and lawyers were wearing masks but we weren’t wearing masks.” “A nurse at Central Booking took my temperature. It was 99.1 degrees, which was quite high.
He fell quickly ill and was kept in his home in Hempstead for a week before being admitted to the hospital.
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Pierre-Louis was in a coma for over two months and had to be on a ventilator for five days. He was treated with last rites, just like Detective Smith.
Pierre-Louis was stronger and began to heal — something doctors said was a miracle.
Pierre-Louis stated that the doctor would have cried because it was the first time they had a COVID patient who was supposed to die. “They thought they would put me in the morgue. The doctors thought I was not going to leave.”
Pierre-Louis, who had never suffered from a serious illness while on the job, now has COVID-related nerve damage. He needs an oxygen tank in order to breathe.
He said, “I love music and I love dancing.” “If I tried dancing, I would have to stop after about one to two minutes. Dance is a physical movement and your oxygen levels will drop if you do that.”
A grandfather to eight children, the man said that if it hadn’t been for the infection, he would still have stayed with NYPD “until they kicked me out”.
He said, “I can’t say anything negative about the Police Department.” They have some amazing people. They did everything I asked. They were kind to me.”