Talk:1975 New York Telephone exchange fire

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The New York Telephone Exchange fire occurred on February 27, 1975 in the New York Telephone Company switching center at 204 Second Avenue (at Thirteenth Street in lower Manhattan). The building at the time was used to connect phone lines to trunk lines and disrupted service for about 175,000 customers connected to the building through 105,000 service loops. Just after midnight on February 27th, 1975 a short circuit on the first floor of the building started the fire, which quickly spread to the subscriber distribution frame. Calls to the Fire Department of New York failed because the telephone lines were disconnected from the fire. In an attempt to activate the alarm in the street, an employee’s call got through to the fire department at 12:55 A.M. However, the fire was not declared under control until 3:40 A.M. Shortly after that, the fire reignited and was officially declared under control at 4:46 AM.This was "the worst single service disaster ever suffered by any single Bell operating company" before or since.[1]

Due to the chemical toxins that were released during the fire, many firefighters who fought the fire in 1975 are developing cancer. The burning toxins from the PVC insulated wiring that was present in the fire is thought to have elevated a risk for certain types of cancers. There are thought to be around 40 cases of cancer that could be linked back to the fire.[3] Dr. Steven Lin, a doctor at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, investigated the relationship between the toxins and the cancers developed by firefighters. He concluded that polyvinyl chloride, a chemical present during the fire, leads to various types of cancer. However, these cancers are developed twenty years after exposure. During the fire, the Fire Department of New York did not document the medical records of the firefighters, making it difficult to track the progress. Instead, they put a red stamp on the firefighters documents that said "Telephone Exchange FIre." The Fire Department interviewed two hundred and thirty nine fire fighters involved in the fire and found eighteen had died. Seven of these eighteen deaths were from cancer and six of those deaths were from first responders. The average age of those deaths was fifty. In the 1990s, The Fire Department of New York created a law that compensated all firefighters who developed cancer after the fire by paying then seventy five percent of their pension. The Fire Department assumed all cancers were a result of the fire. However, if the cancer is diagnosed after retirement, there is no compensation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martaconsidine (talk • contribs) 04:12, 5 November 2015 (UTC)