The long death toll: how 9/11 is still claiming its first responders

He had no regrets, none. First responders are trained to run toward danger, danger that's known and danger that's unknown. And on September 11th, 2001, that's exactly what first responders did when two planes smashed into the Twin Towers, an orchestrated terror attack that killed nearly 3,000 people from lower Manhattan to the Pentagon to a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people killed in one day. But the numbers that would come in the years that followed are just as staggering. The dust was burning stuff and the terrible smell. I was hacking up black soot in front of my doorstep. Hundreds of thousands of people exposed to toxic air around the World Trade Center site. Thousands of people hit with life-altering illnesses like cancer, and people are still dying. My dad was my hero, and seeing him lose his life was horrific to me. The question now, when will the death toll stop ticking up? Whoever we didn't lose that day, we're losing now, and it's not right. So I was nervous. I was scared for him, but he didn't show any signs of being nervous or scared. Valerie Socorro remembers getting the call from her husband, New York State Trooper Jeff Socorro. And he's like, I think it's been a terrorist attack, so we're being sent down. I'm like, are you okay? Are you going to be okay? And he's like, I'm going to be fine. This is what I do, and this is where I'm heading, and I'll get in touch with you when I can. He spent six months working on the pile, the massive mound of rubble and remains that made up the ruins of the World Trade Center. What started as a search and rescue mission quickly turned to cleanup and recovery. It was unbelievable. You couldn't believe the pictures once you saw them of the devastation. And Sergeant Socorro saved everything from that time, newspapers, photos. He collected these while he was down there in 9-11, and it just shows some of the articles and the pictures of the tragedy. After the pile, Valerie said he stayed in New York City with his canine to help with security. Then he came home to upstate New York. He and Valerie had their son, Jack, and for many years, their family lived a big life. Oh, you want this one? Until one day in early 2016 when Sergeant Socorro was diagnosed with cancer. Cancer linked back to his response at Ground Zero. He had no regrets, none. Sergeant Socorro died from the cancer in 2019. Even when he passed, there was no regret about what he did. He did not regret being down there, knowing that the cancer was from his exposure down there. I feel proud that he was my husband. We wanted to know how many people were like Sergeant Socorro, people who initially survived being at Ground Zero, only to die years later from an illness linked back to that response. But first, we needed to understand how we got here. We know now that on the day of the attack and throughout the recovery, there were toxins in the air around the World Trade Center site. The CDC estimates that nearly 400,000 people were exposed to these toxins, from people who lived and worked by Ground Zero to the responders helping with cleanup. The dust was burning stuff and the terrible smell and all of that. Dr. Michael Crane is the medical director for the World Trade Center Health Program at Mount Sinai. But in September 2001, he was at Ground Zero working with a New York City utility company. Part of his job was to equip crews with respirators. And when they went to the pile and they started moving through that dust, particularly in the early days, the filters would all clog up in 20 minutes. Most of them, when they ran out, just threw the damn thing down and kept on working. They were so dedicated and devoted to rescuing who was ever there and doing whatever they could to help the city recover. They just didn't stop. At the time, air quality messages were mixed. Some city officials and the EPA said the air was safe, while others sounded the alarm. The inspector general later revealed that although the EPA declared the air, quote, safe to breathe a week after the attack, it was before the agency had full data on several toxins and under White House pressure to reassure rather than caution. It's still a controversy to this day. This week, New York City launched a portal opening never-before-released records on post-9-11 air quality and health risks. As we mark 25 years, it is time for this painful chapter to end. A major win for advocates who have fought for transparency for years. There's no way that air was clear. I remember going home the first night. By the time I got home, I walked up the stairs. I was hacking up black soot in front of my doorstep. There's no way that that was clean. As a paramedic with the FDNY, the fire department of New York City, Lieutenant Conrad Matos spent months working on the pile. For years, I couldn't watch the TV on the 9-11 anniversary. Couldn't do it. He doesn't just carry the mental scars. In 2021 is when my first diagnosis was. They found a 10-centimeter golf-ball-sized tumor in my head. Cancer linked back to his response at ground zero. He said he was eventually forced to retire from the FDNY after 27 years. I was devastated. Because to be honest with you, I don't know if I would have ran in the way I ran in back on 9-11. I might have thought things a little differently. Because we went in, we didn't have enough equipment. We didn't have masks, respirators, nothing. I kept going back down there to help out because I always felt like there was hope. And there had to be somebody still left to find. And there was nobody. All we kept finding was body parts. After brain surgery and chemo, he thought he beat the cancer. But this year, it came back. His wife, Gail, who's a nurse, has to help him with nearly everything. His 20-something years in the fire department, he saved so many lives. He deserves to be saved. The CDC tracks 9-11-related illnesses through the World Trade Center Health Program. To qualify for a certified 9-11 illness, a person has to have had a certain amount of exposure time and certain symptoms or diagnoses, which include many cancers, respiratory issues, and other ailments. The program currently has about 150,000 people enrolled for treatment and monitoring. About two-thirds are responders, and the rest are survivors, like people who lived and worked in the area. None of that is counting people who have already died. We need to stop losing our people. Whoever we didn't lose that day, we're losing now. And this is not right. As for tracking 9-11-related deaths, Reuters found that no one is keeping a master list. The 9-11 Memorial Museum estimates it's in the thousands. The CDC said more than 9,000 people enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program are now deceased. But they couldn't confirm that all those deaths were caused by a 9-11-related illness. The bleak reality, it's believed more people have died from 9-11-related illnesses than died on the day of the attacks themselves. It's not going to be a short-lived thing. This is not 25 years and then done. Even though there's no master list, many agencies keep track of their own people. Reuters analyzed data from four agencies with major Ground Zero presence — the FDNY, NYPD, New York State Police, and Port Authority Police. Looked at individually, the trends diverge. Over 25 years, FDNY responder deaths have only climbed. But the NYPD, with no recorded deaths yet in 2026, has trended down over the past five years. Combine all four agencies, and that big spike reappears, though with a slight five-year downward drift as 2026 winds down. When you lose a patient, you kind of lose part of your soul. Even though people are still dying, Dr. Crane said he's starting to see a shift at Mount Sinai, that it feels like interventions are helping. But we hope, because of the monitoring we're doing, to keep a step ahead — or not a step ahead, just to be there at the same time, so we have a good fighting chance of pushing back those adverse outcomes. New data this month from the FDNY also supports this — that members in their health program are reporting reduced symptoms and generally living longer. This program has made a huge difference. You also have to consider other factors like aging, whether death is just inevitable. We think we can at least fight it to a draw, so we have better-than-even chances of having our responders come out on the other side. Lieutenant Matos hopes to be one of the responders who does come out on the other side. There's times I don't think I get to do this without her. But all the data and research doesn't take into account the extended ripple effect on families, friends, caretakers. My kids will still be affected by this because they've had to watch their father suffer two times over because of this. New York State Police Sergeant Jeff Sikora's son Jack wasn't even born yet when he responded to Ground Zero. My dad was my hero, and seeing him lose his life was horrific to me. I didn't quite understand the magnitude of 9-11 when I was a kid. I didn't understand how it could affect me. All these years later, Jack can still see what his father saw at Ground Zero through all the pictures Sergeant Sikora saved. It takes your breath away, honestly. And it tells my dad's story, too. And I think it's important to tell his story because we don't want to forget what happened. And I definitely don't want his story to be forgotten.