An FDNY firefighter says he was forced to retire on half his salary after the city-mandated COVID-19 vaccine left him with permanent heart damage.
O’Brian Pastrana now wants a judge to award him a more lucrative disability pension, which would pay three-quarters of his final salary tax-free, according to court papers.
Pastrana, 37, got the jab in October 2021 because the city required it, and had an immediate allergic reaction, including swollen lips, chills and body aches.
Despite three trips to the emergency room, he claims he was forced to get the second Pfizer shot a month later.
“I thought I was going to die after that second dose,” Pastrana told The Post, adding he was again rushed to the ER after the second shot.
By February 2022, the married father of two was diagnosed with myocarditis, which results in potentially fatal inflammation of the cardiac muscle, and was nearly in heart failure, court records show.
The heart condition is a rare side effect of the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pastrana was then told he could never be a firefighter again, and forced to retire in March after over a decade on the job.
“I was completely blindsided,” he wrote in a statement to the court. “To say I was devastated would be putting it mildly.”
The shock turned to anger when Pastrana was given a paltry non-line-of-duty pension, which pays out less than half of what his $92,000 salary plus overtime would pay, he claimed.
It left him feeling alienated from the “so-called brotherhood.”
“You realize that you’re just a number or name on a piece of paper,” he added.
Pastrana is pushing for a judge to give him an accidental disability pension.
“I just want to be able to support my family,” Pastrana, who served with Engine 67 in Washington Heights, wrote in a Manhattan Supreme Court petition naming the city, the city Fire Pension Fund and the fund’s board of trustees.
“Just about every doctor in the record indicated that he was being retired as a result of COVID-related disease as a result of the vaccine,” Uniformed Firefighters Association consultant Louis Sforza said during a pension board meeting, according to the legal filing.
Mayor de Blasio mandated all city workers be vaccinated against COVID-19 in October 2021, sparking widespread protests and lawsuits.
“Firefighter Pastrana’s case starkly reveals the city’s systemic failure to provide adequate support to firefighters who have sustained injuries due to the city’s vaccine mandate,” his lawyer Christina Martinez said.
Pastrana still contends with health problems and works as a school bus driver to make ends meet.
He is a “shell” of his old self, he said, unable to play catch with his 12-year-old daughter or help his wife around the house. He has been diagnosed with PTSD, depression and anxiety.
“Now I have to catch my breath just from finishing a sentence. Meanwhile, I was a NYC firefighter,” he said.
The FDNY referred a request for comment to the City Law Department, which said it is reviewing the case.
