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Illnesses linked to the September 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center have now killed more members of the New York City Fire Department than were killed on the day of the attack itself. "Those insurmountable losses did not end at the World Trade Center site," Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker said Monday. "Instead, we have seen our members become sick because of time they spent working in the rescue and recovery." There were 343 members of the FDNY that died on 9/11. In the 23 years since, more than 370 have died of World Trade Center-related illnesses, the department said. (9/10)

Survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are once again pressuring lawmakers to fully fund their health care. Congress intended to resolve the recurring issue back 2019, but the number of people registered with the 9/11 health care fund has ballooned, as has the cost of new state-of-the-art cancer drugs, and inflation is not helping things. A stopgap funding measure was passed last year. (Rosoff, 9/9)

In the weeks that followed Sept. 11, 2001, when David Skiba came home from lengthy search-and-rescue shifts at ground zero, his wife would take his shoes and place them outside. “That’s people’s ashes,” Matt Skiba, their son, remembers his mother saying as she carefully handled the dust-covered boots. David Skiba, a 37-year-old New York state trooper, was working in internal affairs in Albany at the time of the attacks, but he was quickly reassigned to the site of the World Trade Center. There, immersed in thick clouds of toxic dust, he helped supervise rescue and recovery efforts, according to affidavits signed by his colleagues. ... Three years later, he started feeling sick. In January 2005, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. On Feb. 19, 2008, at the age of 43, he died. (Fahy, 9/11)

The first U.S. troops to deploy after the Sept. 11 attacks are suffering from radiation exposure that the government has yet to officially recognize 23 years later. ... Thousands of "K2" veterans have reported cancers, kidney problems and other medical conditions, some of which are known to be connected to radiation exposure. But exposure from K2 is not covered under a major veterans aid bill known as the PACT Act that President Joe Biden signed in 2022. (Copp, 9/10)

After the Twin Towers collapsed, Tom Frey was assigned to Ground Zero where he set up DNA testing sites for families to bring personal items of loved ones to be tested; Frey also worked alongside a bucket brigade for rescue and recovery. When the debris was transferred to a landfill on Staten Island, Frey spent eight months painstakingly sifting through the dust and rubble, looking for human remains. ... In February 2016, Frey says everything “hit the fan.” (Babakhan, 9/10)

Though not physically at the World Trade Center on the day of the terrorist attacks, Dr. Iris Udasin in a sense, is still at Ground Zero. Since 2003, the East Brunswick resident has cared for thousands of first responders whose lives changed when they ran to help. On Sept. 11, 2024, Udasin — the medical director of the World Trade Center Health Program at Rutgers’ Environmental Occupational Health Sciences Institute’s Clinical Center since its inception in 2003 — will receive the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Foundation’s "Service Above Self" award on behalf of law enforcement officers nationwide, presented at the National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington, D.C. "Dr. Udasin has been selected for this prestigious award in recognition of her tireless efforts in support of first responders," said Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Foundation. (Makin, 9/6)