[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 17154-17155]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     HONORING T. MICHAEL NICHOLSON

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ERIC J.J. MASSA

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 8, 2009

  Mr. MASSA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor T. Michael Nicholson, 
a man who has suffered tremendous personal loss but has used it as 
inspiration to help others.
  Michael, at a young age, in a desire to help his community became a 
volunteer firefighter. He was only a junior in high school. He joined 
the Bushnell's Basin Volunteer Fire Department in the town of Perinton. 
Six months after joining he was struck by a car while directing traffic 
to a fire scene. Michael was severely injured and was given a 50% 
chance of living.
  His legs were broken, his back was broken, and his skull was 
fractured. Michael was in a coma for three weeks which he was not 
expected to come out of.
  The State of New York agreed to compensate Michael with eighty 
dollars a week for what they deemed partial disability.
  However, the long term effects Michael suffered from prevented him 
from living a normal life and $80 a week was insufficient to live on. 
He pled his case to an administration law judge with hopes of being 
allowed a total permanent disability status.
  His request being denied, Michael was told, ``If you want to do 
anything about this, then change the workers' compensation law.''
  So he did.
  Using this as inspiration Michael has led a crusade to overhaul the 
way the workers compensation system treats firefighters. Against all 
odds he has scored victories in the State Senate and Assembly where a 
law was created to bring the weekly benefit rate up to $400. This was a 
significant increase especially since some firefighters were trying to 
live off of $25 a week.
  On November 29th, 1992, the United States Department of Justice 
created the Public Safety Officer Disability Benefit which awards 
federal benefits to any Public Safety Officer in the United States who 
is permanently disabled from an ``in the line-of-injury'' suffered in 
their community.
  Disabled firefighters have Michael Nicholson to thank for this. With 
his hard work and drive

[[Page 17155]]

he was able to fix what was unfair and it is for this reason I honor 
him.

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