9/11 attacks are still claiming lives of people who weren't in the towers that day

Almost three decades on, and the September 11, 2001, attacks are sadly still claiming lives.

Interestingly, however, these latest victims weren't involved in 9/11 directly.

They weren't inside the two World Trade Centre Twin Tower buildings in lower Manhattan that were struck by the two al-Qaeda hijacked planes - nor were they travelling inside the commercial jets themselves.

No, these victims are the responding officers to the devastating double collision.

Though vast numbers of firefighters and medics were killed in the wreck when the towers eventually collapsed, a number only arrived at Ground Zero afterwards in a bid to help dig out survivors.

Little did these initial survivors know, however, that they'd inhaled toxic chemicals that would see them diagnosed with potentially fatal health conditions years later.

A number of 9/11 responders were later diagnosed with deadly diseases (Anthony Correia/Getty Images)

One of these individuals is Elizabeth Cascio, a former New York Fire Department (FDNY) emergency medical technician and one of the first responders to attend the site. She remained on the site for two months and was tasked with digging for human remains.

There, she inhaled dangerous dust, smoke and debris on a daily basis, which in some areas of Manhattan was as thick as four inches deep.

Despite rain washing much of these toxins away in the days that followed, the air quality of the area had been tainted for several weeks.

In the years that followed, she developed a severe cough that she couldn't shake, followed shortly by sinus issues and headaches.

"We all knew the air quality was not safe – it was very toxic in terms of how it felt," she previously told the BBC. "Initially, when I came off the bus and arrived at the Trade Center, you felt like you had to hold your breath.

"But there's only so long you can hold your breath. I could feel the particles coming into my nose and mouth and thought: 'This can't be good'."

In 2019, she was forced to undergo treatment for invasive cervical cancer, which medics attributed to her time at Ground Zero.

Thick dust lined several areas of Lower Manhattan (Matt Moyer/Corbis via Getty Images)

Cascio has since joined the US government's World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program, which aims to provide medical monitoring and treatment to those directly affected by the 9/11 attacks.

"It's a duty to speak about 9/11 because of the EMS workers who are underrepresented, and the women who are underrepresented," she said.

The program tragically has as many as 127,567 members, as per the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), all of whom have been affected by the terror attack in some way.

Many have been diagnosed with the likes of cancer, autoimmune diseases, asthma, respiratory illnesses and lingering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some - firefighters in particular - also suffer from sarcoidosis, which describes lumps formed by inflammatory cells.

Like Cascio, over 82,000 of these were responding officers and volunteers who rushed to the site to help uncover both potential survivors and the bodies of the deceased.

By December 2023, 6,781 of these people had died from an illness or cancer, which doctors insisted had been in relation to their time on site. That's twice the number of people who died on September 11 2001.

Survivors were later diagnosed with the likes of cancer, respiratory illnesses and autoimmune diseases (MICHAEL RIEGER/FEMA/AFP via Getty Images)

And just last year, it was announced that a further 360 firefighters, medics and department members had died from 9/11-related illnesses.

Demolition expert and fellow first responder to Ground Zero, Josh Feal also told the BBC: "Some people got sick in two years, some people got sick in eight years, some people got sick in 12 years.

"There are people who worked there for the entire eight-month cleanup and never got sick. But we were all exposed to a toxic soup no one has ever seen before."

A total of four planes were hijacked on September 11 - two were crashed into the World Trade Center towers, one crashed into the Pentagon in Virginia, and the other crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after originally targeting the White House in Washington, D.C.

A total of 2,977 were tragically killed on that fateful day.

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