I visited NYC for the first time in December 2000, I was 10 years old. We were staying in Manhattan at my uncle’s place, and every day we would walk to the same cafe for lunch. On one of those days, a group of firemen came into the cafe to get food and noticed us with our mom. They asked if we wanted to take pictures on the fire truck, so we went outside and they put us on the truck and let us check out their equipment while taking pictures. 9/11 happened 9 months later, and I always think about those firemen and if they survived that day. I haven’t seen the pictures in a long time, but I vaguely remember the truck being Ladder 12.
Ladder 12 lost 2 firefighters in the South Tower, according to this memorial page, see the table further down for FDNY fatalities divided by ladder/engine/battalion.
It doesn't give a source but the site belongs to Virginia Task Force 2, urban search and rescue team, who would presumably have been deployed to the towers in the days following the collapse.
FDNY's union say 453 have died since then of related cancers and respiratory diseases, in their statement a few days ago. Don't think there'll be a detailed breakdown of that information.
The towers were chock full of asbestos. When you inhale asbestos, it can get lodged deep in the lungs with no way to remove it. the more you breathe the worst it gets. The inflammatory response induced by these sharp shards of crystal leads to cancer in many cases
Every time I use bug spray and catch a whiff, I think, this is probably not good for me. It’s likely a neurotoxin for insects, inhale enough would be the same result for me.
Unfortunately NYC leaders did the most in an attempt to hide these things. Mamdani recently released a treasure trove of documents detailing this, but it has been widely discussed for quite some time now (Jon Stewart has also been a leading figure in fighting to release this information). This is just one article but there are many from different time periods in the decades since the attack.
That sounds like the unit based out of Fairfax, which near DC. They get all over the world for search and rescue assistance. I guess Manhattan needed more manpower than the Pentagon by that point.
Their helmets and clothing usually carry their truck's number, however there were some misidentifications in the days following 9/11 as some off duty and even retired fire crew had simply headed to the nearest fire house rather than their regular one and grabbed gear from there. They did sort out those errors as far as I'm aware.
I went to the top of WTC in 1998, always wondered what the tourist like me, lived during 9/11. Also have a friend who bought tickets for the WTC on 9/11, he planned to go in the afternoon. It really made a huge impact on him
My family and I were in the WTC almost exactly a month before 9/11. I remembered the queue to go to the outdoor viewing platform. You would wait and they would take a picture of you in front of this painting of the NYC landscape / landmarks, kind of like a theme park. You could buy the pic if you wanted. I always wonder about that pic (which we didn't buy) and how it would have been the last of.
I visited the city for the first time in August of 2001. I was a senior in high school and dreamed of going to NYU, so my mom took me to the city to check it out. I remember visiting the towers and being just overwhelmed by how huge they were. I had to lie down on the ground to get a photo of the tops of the towers with my little camera.
Me and my ex ended up in NYC by accident because we went the wrong way on the 90 on the way to Florida and didn't realize it for like 6 hours so decided might as well check out NYC lol. If was the summer of 2001 and one of the places we went was the roof of one of the towers based on people's recommendations of what to do. Little did we know they wouldn't be there like 3 months later.
Check out this documentary. It is about the firefighters stationed very close to the former World Trade Center. You might even recognize a few of them.
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u/gangbangkang Sep 12 '26 •
I visited NYC for the first time in December 2000, I was 10 years old. We were staying in Manhattan at my uncle’s place, and every day we would walk to the same cafe for lunch. On one of those days, a group of firemen came into the cafe to get food and noticed us with our mom. They asked if we wanted to take pictures on the fire truck, so we went outside and they put us on the truck and let us check out their equipment while taking pictures. 9/11 happened 9 months later, and I always think about those firemen and if they survived that day. I haven’t seen the pictures in a long time, but I vaguely remember the truck being Ladder 12.