Twenty-Five Years Later, FDNY's 9/11 Death Toll Still Rising
Twenty-five years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the number of New York City firefighters who have died as a result of that day continues to climb, with newly released documents and union figures revealing that more firefighters have now died from 9/11-related illnesses than were killed in the attacks themselves.
At least 453 members of the New York City Fire Department have died from World Trade Center-related illnesses, according to FDNY unions, surpassing the 343 firefighters who died in the line of duty on September 11, 2001. The figures were highlighted this week as the city marked the 25th anniversary of the attacks and as a massive tranche of never-before-released documents shed new light on what city officials knew about the toxic hazards at Ground Zero.
The milestone underscores a grim reality that has unfolded slowly over the past two and a half decades: for the FDNY, the deadliest day in its history was not the end of the losses, but the beginning of a long, attritional second wave.
New Documents Reveal City Knew of Toxins, Unions Say
The release of more than 170,000 pages of records by Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration has reignited anger among firefighter unions, who say the documents confirm long-held suspicions that New York City officials were aware of the dangers of asbestos and other toxins in the air around the World Trade Center but repeatedly assured the public that the air was safe to breathe.
The documents, released to resolve years of litigation from 9/11 Health Watch, include internal memos suggesting city officials anticipated thousands of potential lawsuits and sought to limit the city's legal liability. Only a fraction of the air quality reports taken at Ground Zero are contained in the tranche.
"We were dying with every breath," Lt. James Brosi, president of the FDNY Uniformed Fire Officers Association and a Ground Zero responder, told reporters Wednesday. "The city knew it. It is appalling that they did this to us … It was an utter lie, and yet they never stopped making public safety announcements over the airwaves."
Brosi said he was not seeking restitution from those who lied, but wanted the world to know they made a conscious choice. "They made an economic decision not to tell us," he said.
The FDNY World Trade Center Health Program report found that more than 12,000 union members have been diagnosed with at least one 9/11-related illness. More than 9,400 people overall have died from 9/11-related illnesses, according to recent estimates, out of an estimated 400,000 people exposed to toxic dust, smoke and debris, risk of physical injury, and physically and emotionally stressful conditions from 9/11 and its aftermath, according to the World Trade Center Health Program.
At least 69 cancers -- including breast, prostate, skin and head and neck -- have been certified as linked to 9/11, as have airway and digestive disorders, musculoskeletal disorders and mental health conditions.
A Second Wave of Losses
The human cost of those exposures is visible in the stories of individual firefighters. Michael O'Connell, who was sworn into the FDNY as a probationary firefighter just four months before the attacks, was deployed to lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001. For several weeks, he said, he didn't go home, moving back and forth between his firehouse and Ground Zero, extinguishing fires amid the rubble and engaging in search-and-rescue operations.
O'Connell started hearing about fellow firefighters being diagnosed with asthma or cancer, but didn't experience health problems himself until New Year's Day 2007, when he woke up in severe pain. "My body inflamed two times the size of what it was," he said. "I didn't know what was going on ... and I had like bruises and blisters all over my body."
He was eventually diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a multi-system inflammatory disease that typically affects the lungs, skin and lymph nodes, which his doctors believe is linked to his exposure to toxins at Ground Zero.
The Day Itself: 343 Lost in Hours
The 343 firefighters who died on September 11, 2001, were killed in a matter of hours as the twin towers collapsed. Among them were the six-man crew of FDNY Ladder 118, who raced across the Brooklyn Bridge toward the burning towers in the bright, clear morning.
John Sorrentino, a Ladder 118 veteran who was off duty that day but raced to Ground Zero when he realized what was happening, recalled the eerie silence that fell over lower Manhattan and the sound that haunts him to this day: the PASS alarms.
The Personal Alert Safety System devices are automatically triggered when firefighters stop moving for more than a minute while using their oxygen tanks. "All we heard was hundreds of PASS alarms going off underneath us, and we knew what that sound was," Sorrentino told The Independent. "And there was nothing we could do about it, you know ... how many tons of steel were these guys buried under?"
Over the next hour or two, the batteries in those alarms began to fade, and one by one, they died out. "The one thing that really sticks in my mind about 9/11," Sorrentino said.
A Firehouse's Enduring Tribute
Twenty-five years later, a group of New York City firefighters who were stationed together on the Upper East Side continue to honor the memories of nine colleagues lost in the attacks through the preservation of historic firehouse riding lists.
The firefighters began their careers at a firehouse on East 85th Street and were assigned there on 9/11. Now among a shrinking number of firefighters still serving from that era, they recently returned to the firehouse where their careers began. There are about 840 firefighters left on the job today who were working on 9/11.
Following the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, nine firefighters from the firehouse were unaccounted for. Their names remained on the chalkboard riding list. "These are our people," Captain Douglas Mitchell said. "Nobody wanted to touch anything about them. Looking at that board made us have some hope."
Concerned that the chalk-written names would not survive, the firefighters were eventually helped by conservators at the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Art, who used special pins and glue to repair the boards and preserved the riding list behind temperature-controlled glass.
"I'm blessed I'm still here," said Stephen Saucedo, one of the firefighters who returned. "There aren't a lot of us left, obviously."
What It Means: A Legacy Still Unfolding
The 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks has brought renewed attention to the ongoing health crisis among first responders, even as the political discourse around 9/11 remains fraught. The new documents released by the Mamdani administration have added a fresh layer of accountability questions, and firefighter unions say they will continue to press for support from Washington, D.C., while caring for thousands of sick members and planning funerals for hundreds of others who died from 9/11-related illnesses.
For the FDNY, the numbers tell a story that is still being written. The 343 firefighters who died on September 11, 2001, are memorialized in ceremonies and at Ground Zero. But the 453 who have died since from related illnesses represent a toll that continues to grow, a reminder that the consequences of that day are not confined to its immediate horrors.
As the city pauses to remember, the families of those lost on 9/11 and in the years since are left with a dual legacy: the heroism of that day, and the long, painful reckoning with the toxins that lingered in the air and in the bodies of those who responded.
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