US recounts people’s fates 25 years after the September 11 attacks
In the United States, 25 years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the families of those killed, rescue workers and aviation employees continue to feel the consequences of the tragedy. Planes hijacked by Al-Qaeda militants crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, while another plane crashed in Pennsylvania. About 3,000 people were killed in the attacks.
As Cyprus Mail reports, Scott Larsen, the son of a firefighter who was killed, continued his father’s service in the New York City Fire Department. Larsen was four years old when his father, 35-year-old firefighter Scott Larsen, died during the collapse of the World Trade Center. He was one of 343 department firefighters who died that day.
Service at his father’s firehouse
Now 29, Larsen secured an assignment to the same firehouse in Woodside, a neighborhood in Queens, where his father served. The firehouse keeps his photographs, his name is engraved on a memorial plaque and displayed on a fire truck.
According to the International Association of Fire Fighters, 58 children of New York City Fire Department firefighters killed in the attacks chose their parents’ profession. Larsen’s younger brother, who was born two days after September 11, passed the entrance exam and hopes to join the department next year.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
Consequences for rescue workers
Dr. Michael Crane, who is now the medical director of the World Trade Center Health Program at Mount Sinai Hospital, was responsible in 2001 for protecting workers involved in rescue and cleanup operations. They worked amid dust, and respirators quickly became clogged with it, causing many people to remove them.
The US government-funded program provides medical care to more than 150,000 rescue and recovery workers, as well as people who lived, worked or studied in the disaster area. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of June 30, program participants had received about 85,000 certifications for World Trade Center-related health conditions. About half concerned inhaling or swallowing toxic dust, while about 30% concerned cancer. More than 9,000 people tracked by the program have died since the attacks, but officials say it is difficult to determine the role of September 11 in each death.
Questions of an airline employee
Former passenger service agent Michael Tuohey at Portland Airport in Maine checked in two hijackers, Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari, for their flights. Their journey, which began in Portland, ended with the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Tuohey checked the men’s paper tickets: they had been purchased several weeks before the flight using credit cards, and the seats were in first class. After the attacks, the United States created the Department of Homeland Security and revised airport security procedures.
