Mary Kohler

It is more important, now more than ever, to recognize and learn from the triumphs and failures of our nation’s past.  No matter how recent our lapses of memory, our errors in judgment facilitate the re-creation of problems. 

In the wake of recent layoffs, bailouts, and the case of the Chicago worker’s, who refused to leave their factory window without their severance and vacation pay, we must remain conscious that this is a government by the people for the people. The plutocrats who run our government seem to forget this whenever it is convenient for them. 

It is during these moments in American history that great Americans have risen like Cincinnatus to remind these sniveling deceivers of the American people that we citizens are their bosses and not the other way around.  The story of Mary Kohler is a classic example of an American using her power as a free voice to return the government to its role as the servant of its citizens.

In the year 2000, there was a battle for what is right going on in Philadelphia.  The focus of that battle was a firefighter named Mary Kohler.  While she had never used drugs, never been promiscuous, and never had a blood transfusion, Mary Kohler somehow contracted Hepatitis C in the late 90′s.

Not a day has gone by since she contracted the disease that she hasn’t wondered just who gave it to her. Kohler once delivered a baby on the streets of Philadelphia, not long before she contracted the disease. She pulled the child out by the buttocks and resuscitated the infant. The only rubber gloves available were sized for men and the cold weather cracked their protection. 

Mary Kohler had selflessly aided a bleeding victim, she had directly put herself in danger

This was before firefighters were trained in handling possible Hepatitis cases and before plastic mouthpieces were mandatory for CPR. The unfortunate reality of the Kohler case is that in her eleven years of stand out service, she could have contracted the disease anywhere. Hepatitis C is spread by blood-to-blood contact and there is currently no vaccine available. 

Anytime in the line of duty when Mary Kohler had selflessly aided a bleeding victim, she had directly put herself in danger of contracting the fatal disease as well as AIDS, HIV, and many others.  Plagued by severe vomiting and blurred vision, Kohler longed with all of her heart to return to saving people and prolonging life.

The City of Philadelphia does not currently offer a worker’s compensation plan to any firefighter with hepatitis, unless they can prove that they contracted it on the job. At the time that Kohler contracted the disease, the City of Philadelphia didn’t even recognize firefighters with hepatitis C as injured-on-duty.

Mary Kohler did her best to extend her sick days and use the sick days pooled by other firefighters to remain on the payroll pending her return to health.  She remained listed as an active firefighter until December of 2006, when she finally retired.

Kohler spent fifteen days of December 2000 camped out on the cold floor of Philadelphia’s City Hall to protest the blind eye that the city was aiming at infected rescue workers.  It was the Christmas season, the season of giving. The Firefighter’s Union asked Philadelphia to return their health benefits to the levels they were prio to 1992. At that time, the city was undergoing a financial crisis and asked the firefighters to cut back on their health benefits. 

The union agreed to the cut for the good of the city but by 2000, Philadelphia was prosperous. When asked about the 1992 standards of health benefits, then Mayor John F. Street claimed that restoring the benefits would put Philadelphia’s citizens in financial danger. Street routinely walked by the protesting Kohler as he walked into his office. 

At the time of her protest, Mary Kohler was visibly sick, although Street showed no emotion in his passing.  She eventually became too sick to survive another day on the floor and went home, in what she thought was defeat.  She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Not only did Kohler’s case bring the attention of hepatitis dangers to the forefront of the firefighter’s community, which brought thousands of sick in for early treatment and prevented the infection of thousands more. But a year after her protest ended, the state of Pennsylvania passed a law classifying hepatitis C as a work related illness for rescue workers. In April of 2007, she was finally given her rights to worker’s compensation. 

…declared that Mary Kohler had contracted hepatitis on the job…

A board of union representatives and city officials in Philadelphia declared that Mary Kohler had contracted hepatitis on the job. Her seven-year battle with the city had finally ended, although her battle with hepatitis is still raging.

The City of Philadelphia still does not officially recognize Mary Kohler’s hepatitis as a work related injury (the vote for her compensation was 5-3, the three negative votes coming from the city).  Their official statement read,

“The city respects her contributions to the Philadelphia Fire Department and to the citizens, and wishes her well. But we have to take the positions we take because we have a fiduciary responsibility to every pensioner and every survivor of every pensioner.”

Sounds like the usual bullshit to me.  With a regular pension, Kohler would have only received a taxable portion of her pay.  Talk about taxation without representation.  Worse, her medical coverage would’ve ended in five years.  What company would provide her health insurance with her condition?  How would she survive on less than $18,000 a year, before taxes, when her treatment costs that much, if not more? 

The disability pension will allow her 70 percent of her former pay, tax-free – about $38,000 – and lifetime coverage for her hepatitis C related medical costs. This is a drop of piss in the ocean of debt that the citizens and officials of Philadelphia owe to heroes like Mary Kohler, who so selflessly would dive head first into a swimming pool of blood in order to save whoever they might find drowning in it. 

To rub more salt in the wound of her victory, Mayor Street told Daily News reporter Mark McDonald that he remembered Kohler, but said he didn’t know “whether she should get a pension or not. I don’t follow that.”

In the past, most often depicted in historical accounts of the Civil War, a charging military brigade would include a flag bearer.  It was that person’s job to hoist the Stars and Stripes high into the air and carry it into battle. Opposing troops often made a sport out of shooting the unarmed flag bearer and his flag, as a sort of morale softener. When the flag bearer fell, the next man in succession would take the flag from his fallen comrade and raise it back to the sky. 

Mary Kohler held the flag of Sacco and Vanzetti, Eugene Debs, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. high in the sky and shouted out for what she knew to be right.  She ran face first into the web of lies being spun by penny-pinching politicians with high salaries and expensive city-owned cars with drivers.  She reminded them that it is the people who are the bosses of the politicians, that it is their job to serve us.  Most importantly, Mary Kohler would not take no as an answer. That is why she is most certainly an American You Should Know.

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