9/11 Hero Dies: Was 9/11 the Cause?

NEW YORK CITY

Tim Keller, an emergency medical technician (EMT) with the city's fire department, hurried to the World Trade Center after the planes struck on 9/11. As he and a partner left their ambulance to search for the injured, the South Tower collapsed, burying them under debris. Keller survived — until last June.

On the 23rd of that month, Keller — a member of EMT Local 2507 (DC 37) — was laid to rest at age 41. His autopsy report cited congestive heart failure, chronic asthmatic bronchitis and pulmonary emphysema. But the Rev. John McCartney, addressing mourners at the funeral, offered a more concise cause of death: "Tim is a casualty of Sept. 11."

What's beyond doubt is that Keller suffered terribly for his heroism. As chronicled by Alfredo Alvarado in the council's newspaper, Public Employee Press, Keller "sifted through the burning wreckage and mangled steel beams in a futile search for lives to save," breathing "a noxious mixture of smoke and asbestos-laden dust." Days later, he "began experiencing respiratory problems, coughing up chunks of the material he breathed in at the disaster site."

Keller nonetheless kept working until November 2004. Now his death raises the specter of other first responders sharing his fate. Writes Alvarado: "The number of illnesses reported by union members who worked at the site continues to rise."