After being in the ICU for 22 days, COVID-19 survivor Michael Goldsmith woke up not being able to hear. Everything sounded like Charlie Brown s teacher, he explained.
Goldsmith, 34, of Bergenfield, was the first NYU patient to get a cochlear implant due to COVID-19. But the hearing loss was only the start of his troubles. After returning home on April 18 to his wife, Elana, and two kids, he suffered mental problems including cognitive impairment, slowed speech and PTSD.
Although his insurance can barely cover it, he said, therapy is his only answer. It s grueling and it s extremely hard to talk about; I get PTSD just from that, said Goldsmith, referring to his prolonged exposure therapy, in which the patient is required to confront his or her worst fears.
NorthJersey.com
It was the morning of the 9/11 attacks, and John Mormando was watching Barney & Friends with his kid. Not 10 minutes later, he switched channels and watched the towers come down on live television.
Normally he would have been working downtown as a trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange, only a few blocks from the World Trade Center. But his wife was on a business trip, so he stayed home with his 2-year-old son. Six days went by, and Mormando was ordered to go back to work.
The Environmental Protection Agency said the air was safe to breathe at Ground Zero. Later a 2003 report from the Office of Inspector General found that the EPA did not have enough information to make that claim.
A champion for young people
Teaneck is like a quilted blanket, according to Scott Pleasants. The town is unique, everyone in it looks different, yet it’s all stitched and tied together.
This is what led Pleasants to move to town in 1997 with his wife, Yolanda, to raise their family of four. And it’s Teaneck’s diverse, idiosyncratic community that drives him to fight for its youth today.
When Pleasants kids were entering middle school in the early 2000s, he noticed that something was off. His children weren’t being awarded appropriately for their academic achievement, he said. Back then, good grades meant ice cream and a sheet of paper to stick on the fridge. It wasn’t bad, but Pleasants wanted better.
Hackensack mayor condemns harassment of priest by ICE protesters outside Bergen jail
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HACKENSACK As ICE protests raged outside the Bergen County Jail on Saturday, a handful of protesters harassed a priest they happened upon outside a nearby church.
The. Rev. Brian Laffler of the Church of St. Anthony was walking to his 6:30 p.m. Spanish service when protesters spewed malicious comments at him, saying he was going to hell and was probably a rapist.
Laffler was escorted away by city police who were already on the scene monitoring the protest, which was happening a few blocks away. The incident was captured on a video shared on social media.