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Farewell to a Silent Hero

Captain Mike Gilberg passed away on May 1, 1997. He was a 53-year-old Los Angeles County fire fighter/paramedic who, during the last years of his life, served with a hazardous materials unit. His team's job was to contain leaks and spills which jeopardize the areas where we live and work.

Mike wanted to have his wife and family provided for should he succumb to the hazards of fire fighting. None of the accidental death and disability policies he bought to protect his family covered the possibility that he might die of AIDS, a disease which most policies do not consider "accidental."

No one knows how many years ago Mike's team responded to that fateful call. It might have been an overdosed drug addict, a person who was in cardiac distress and had no idea he or she were infected, or a person who knew but would not admit that they might be a host to the AIDS virus. It could have been a needle stick; he could have come in contact with the blood, vomit, feces or other bodily fluid of an infected individual.

We'll never really know.

Mike didn't ever realize the danger he faced in those days before we knew what the AIDS virus could do, or that it even existed. In the heat of a life or death situation, he had no time to care. He and his team just did their jobs delivering the necessary and appropriate care to each and every person encountered on each and every dispatch.

Mike's team is still doing that. Mike is no longer there and his team misses him a lot.

While on vacation in 1992, Mike came down with pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. This was a different and very scary type of pneumonia. The only way to get this type of pneumonia is to have AIDS.

Mike was married and had two sons at the time he was diagnosed. Mike and his wife, Sue, had come together, confronting each other as well as their certain reality. Mike was going to die and Sue was to become a widow. During that time, Mike told me that he had found God, and that he was not afraid.

Among the realities Mike and Sue had to confront was a trial at the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board. At his trial, I was proud of Mike's bravery and the respect that he was able to command from the judge, who always addressed him by his rank of "Captain." The job of the County's attorney was to try to show that Mike contracted AIDS outside of his job as a fire fighter/paramedic. Nothing personal, they're all good people, but they have a job to do, which I do not envy.

My job, and one of the most challenging and difficult jobs I have faced in my entire career, was to prove that Mike contracted AIDS in the course of his work. The law requires that an employee and his attorney prove that any injury that is claimed to be industrial was sustained at work. When a window breaks on the job and someone is cut, there's no problem in proving how, when and where the injury occurred. When we are talking about exposure to toxic substances, there is no problem in proving how and where, but sometimes a problem in proving when. In Mike's case, we knew how the disease was contracted, but we could not show when, and we could not show where. Nevertheless, we were able to convince the judge that Mike's AIDS was industrially-caused. The County's appeal was denied and the case of John Doe (aka Mike Gilberg vs. County of Los Angeles) became final.

Even though the case was won, Mike wanted to keep on working as long as he was able, because he loved his job, the people he worked with, and cared deeply about those lives that could be saved if he continued to do his job. He would have done so longer if he could. He could have retired on an industrial disability retirement, but Mike chose to refuse to think of himself as being disabled until he no longer had a choice. That is why the court records referred only to "John Doe" until shortly before Mike's death.

That came on May 1, 1997. Mike was a silent hero. His deeds did not set him apart. They are a part of what the silent heroes accept as what they expect of themselves.

No big deal, just part of the job. I can hear him saying that. None of us who knew him will deny that Mike will live on in our memories.