More than 22 years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of New York City Fire Department members past and present still suffer from cancer and other serious 9/11-related illnesses, and deaths from the largest terror attack on U.S. soil continue to mount.

This week, New York City's bravest reached a grim marker.

FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh on Wednesday announced the deaths of two additional firefighters as a result of illnesses related to their response to the World Trade Center following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The latest deaths bring the total number to 343, the same number of firefighters lost on 9/11.

“Twenty-two years later, 9/11 is still killing,” said John Feal, a 9/11 victims' advocate. “That doesn’t count all those retirees who came back and worked on the pile with their brothers and sisters.”

Feal is familiar with the firefighters and their stories, having responded to Ground Zero himself as a demolition supervisor.

“Unfortunately, on September 17, about a half-hour before the end of my shift, roughly 8,000 pounds of steel crushed my left foot,” he said. “I spent 11 weeks in the hospital with sepsis and gangrene."

It forever altered his life, but he said the injury humbled him.

“I can block out what I saw,” he said. “The carnage, the devastation and the destruction. But I can’t block out the smell.”

It's what inspires Feal every day to advocate for emergency personnel by way of his FealGood Foundation.

“I’m always going to put myself last,” he said. “My physical injuries pale in comparison to those who are deadly ill with stage 3, stage 4 cancer, COPD and pulmonary fibrosis.”

Lawmakers recently secured about $700 million to assist 9/11-related health care programs due to inflation impacting costs.

“We needed additional money to ensure the resources are there,” U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said. “We’re going to keep fighting for more resources.”


Feal hopes the funding continues to evolve with the 9/11 community for years to come.

“We’re a finite number,” he said. “We’re getting smaller, and I’m tired of going to funerals.”