EMS 9/11 responders

Thousands of emergency medical responders were deployed to Lower Manhattan on 9/11 and in the weeks and months that followed, to help people injured in the attack and participate in search-and-rescue and recovery operations. Yet even as these responders, members of FDNY EMS Local 2507 and DC 37 Local 3621, were saving lives, their own […]

Lt. Edith Torres was off-duty when the hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  The veteran FDNY EMS paramedic soon arrived at Ground Zero, where her partner from Battalion 49 in Astoria, paramedic Carlos Lillo, died searching the North Tower for his wife. Torres was promoted to lieutenant in 2005, […]

The legendary heroism of FDNY firefighters, Port Authority police and NYPD officers has cast a long shadow over the events of September 11th, 2001. At times, it seems as though emergency medical service workers have gotten lost in that shadow. Nevertheless, eight EMS workers were lost that day and many more continue to suffer physically […]

According to a study published in the journal, Occupational & Environmental Medicine, when tracked over 12 years following the attacks, EMS 9/11 responders were seven times more likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than EMS workers who didn’t work that day. And the risk of obstructive airway disease was more than doubled in EMS […]