By Donovan Slack
The Boston Globe
BOSTON — A lawyer for Boston Firefighter Albert Arroyo says Arroyo’s muscular physique and participation in a professional bodybuilding contest, just weeks after he reported a career-ending injury, does not mean his disability claim was false.
“Nothing in his specialized training regiment [sic] for the competition contradicts his neurologist’s documentation of his injuries,” Neil Osborne, a Boston lawyer, wrote in a letter yesterday to Boston Fire Department officials, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe.
Osborne also said that Arroyo, 46, a Boston firefighter since 1986, would not be returning to work as a fire inspector until his doctor clears him.
Fire Commissioner Roderick J. Fraser ordered Arroyo back to work Monday after watching a video posted on the Globe website that showed Arroyo competing in the professional bodybuilding contest just two weeks after his doctor - Dr. John F. Mahoney, a Dorchester neurologist - said he was permanently disabled and deserving of a disability pension.
“At this time, Mr. Arroyo intends to remain out of work until such time as his personal physician evaluates him and concludes that he can withstand the daily demands of the job with no risk of further injury,” Osborne wrote.
Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald would not say last night how the department intends to respond.
But according to two city officials briefed on the department’s planned response, fire officials are writing a letter back to Osborne, reiterating the commissioner’s position that Arroyo appears fit enough to conduct fire code inspections and repeating the order that he return to work immediately. If he does not come to work for two weeks, the department will initiate termination proceedings, the city officials said.
A message left at Osborne’s office last night was not returned.
Mahoney, meanwhile, retained Boston lawyer Paul Cirel, who issued a statement yesterday saying that Mahoney’s diagnosis of Arroyo was “entirely appropriate.”
Arroyo was treated by Mahoney after he reported slipping on a staircase and injuring his back March 21 in the Jamaica Plain firehouse in an accident nobody witnessed at a station where he wasn’t assigned to work. Mahoney wrote in April that he believed Arroyo was “totally and permanently disabled.” Arroyo placed eighth in the May 3 bodybuilding contest.
“Rest assured, if any of Dr. Mahoney’s medical records are reviewed by those authorized to do so, those records will show that Dr. Mahoney’s treatment and recommendations were entirely appropriate,” Cirel said in the statement.
Cirel also said that Mahoney could not discuss his patient’s case because of privacy laws and that Arroyo’s disability retirement claim had also been approved by a Fire Department doctor. In an interview last week, Mahoney told the Globe that he had no idea that Arroyo was a bodybuilder and that he worried about the impact the story would have on his practice.
Cirel said doctors cannot be held responsible when patients mislead them or lie to them about their medical history.
“The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ruled that neither the standards of medical practice, nor the laws of the Commonwealth, require a physician to ‘corroborate independently’ a patient’s history of reported injury,” the statement said.
A federal grand jury is investigating questionable injury claims by Boston firefighters. The investigation was prompted by a Globe report in January that 74 percent of Boston firefighter retirements between 2005 and 2007 were based on accidental disability claims.
Copyright 2008, The Boston Globe