9/11 FDNY first responders killed by Ground Zero toxins rises to 370 — surpassing total that died on day of terror attack

The number of 9/11 FDNY first responders killed from exposure to toxins at Ground Zero has risen to 370 – surpassing the amount of department members who died on the day of the terror attacks, officials confirmed Monday.

In the past year alone, 28 more members of the FDNY have died from 9/11-related illness and officials expect the number to increase — as federal funding is on the verge of drying out by 2028

During a news conference, Lt. Jim Brosi, FDNY Uniformed Fire Officers Association president, said he is pushing for support of the 9/11 Responder and Survivor Health Funding Correction Act of 2024 – which would fund the World Trade Center Health Program through 2033 – before people forget 9/11.

The FDNY is expecting to shortly hire recruits who were born after the 2001 terrorist attacks, he said.

“The risk we run with not having additional funding now, permanent funding, is the further we get away from this tragedy, the less likely people will be sympathetic to the need,” Brosi said.

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The most recent victim was buried last Saturday, a firefighter who was diagnosed with terminal cancer less than a year ago, he noted.

“Less than a year ago he was on full duty riding on a fire truck and within a 12-month period he was buried,” Brosi said. “A young person: early 50s, active, healthy, vibrant … and in less than 12 months was taken. That’s the part you won’t see in a statistic.”

Another recently deceased lost his voice over the last years of his life due to thyroid and esophageal cancer, Brosi said. Another member, under the age of 50, just had a permanent colostomy bag attached.

“These are significant ailments. People are suffering and they’re not visible in the data,” Brosi said.

On 9/11, 343 FDNY members died when the Twin Towers fell.

The World Trade Center Health Program monitors and treats more than 132,000 first responders and survivors from the NYC, Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, sites suffering from long-term health effects related to 9/11 – though lawmakers “habitually seem to underestimate” the number of people who join the program even years later, FDNY Uniformed Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro said.

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“Every time they go to Washington to get a funding bill, it never gets fully funded. It’s always a piece and they leave a piece on the table,” Ansbro said.

The original bills also weren’t necessarily “passed with inflationary costs,” Brosi added.

“Plus, with the dramatic improvement in cancer research, every time a new drug comes out, it’s usually much more costly than the drugs that exist currently in the market,” he said.

An analysis of the dust and other hazards at all three sites showed “numerous toxic substances” that could cause short- and long-term health conditions – including contaminants that lingered for months in Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, according to the CDC.

If passed, the federal legislation would set out a new formula to determine funding through 2090, as well as increase funding for research on 9/11-related conditions.

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Without additional funding, the program will have to start turning away new applicants as soon as 2028, according to a one-sheet from co-sponsor US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s office.

“We know our members keep getting sick. It’s not stopping. Every month we’re burying 3 or 4 new FDNY employees that have passed,” Ansbro said.

Ansbro confirmed the latest names were added to the Memorial Wall for Deaths Related to World Trade Center Illnesses at FDNY Headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn. He said there are currently 363 names on the wall, which is half blank – but he expects to fill the space.

“I counted up the blank spaces on that wall and that wall can hold 960 names. At the rate we’re going, someday, we will reach that, we believe,” he said.

“Although we pray that 9/11 has claimed its last victims, we sadly know this isn’t the end.”

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