The number of police officers who died from illnesses related to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 has exceeded the number of those who died the day of the attacks, the Associated Press reported.
A total of 60 police officers died the day the World Trade Center towers were struck by hijacked airplanes and collapsed. But at least 71 officers are now dead from illnesses including cancer that developed later on as a result of rescue and recovery efforts at ground zero in downtown Manhattan.
"I live near the World Trade Center. I inhaled the toxic smoke that permeated every square inch of lower Manhattan," New York state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said Tuesday in Albany at the annual ceremony remembering officers who died from job-related causes, the AP reported. "I know how nobly and heroically the NYPD carried out their duties on that tragic September day and the terrible days that followed."
The ceremony took place at the New York State Police Officer's Memorial, where 20 names of officers who died from 9/11 illnesses were added. Thirteen officers, 12 from the NYPD and one from Peekskill, died recently from cancers brought on by recovery efforts after the attacks.
The Peekskill officer, Charles J. Wassil, died on May 1, 2013 at the age of 52, the Peekskill Daily Voice reported. In 2008, he was diagnosed with a condition that caused the cells in his spine to inflame, leaving him paralyzed.
Before he died he campaigned for better healthcare for first responders. He said other first responders may not be so willing to put their lives on the line if the government won't take care of them if they get sick.
"If you're looking at guys who are 30 or 40 years old who spent so many hours at Ground Zero and are coming down with cancer, it doesn't take a scientist to see that something was wrong down there," Wassil said in 2011, the Daily Voice reported. "Federal studies say a lot of things. They tell you a vitamin is good for you and they two years later they'll say you shouldn't have taken it."
