Buffalo firefighters and police officers were among the Western New York first responders who went to New York following the 9/11 attacks. Some were deployed; others volunteered to go. Many had little idea what they were walking into.
Those on the front lines remember the sights, sounds and smells of Ground Zero vividly.
“By the end of the day, we were white as ghosts, literally from the powder in the air,” said Patrick Lalley, chief of fire prevention for the Buffalo Fire Department.
Lalley was only about two years into his career when the World Trade Center was attacked. He and fellow firefighter Tommy O’Leary volunteered to help with rescue and recovery efforts in New York, arriving Sept. 12.
Lalley remembers the smoke, piles of rubble and nearby high-rises still burning. But it was what he didn’t see that eventually helped him grasp just how thoroughly the towers and everything inside them had been destroyed.
“Think about it, two huge office buildings had collapsed; there wasn't a computer or a keyboard or a screen,” he said. “Literally everything was dust. No office chairs. It was just dust.”
Capt. Anthony Liberatore was a BFD lieutenant and fitness coordinator when he traveled to New York with a group of Buffalo firefighters on Sept. 14. As the work shifted from rescue to recovery, he recalled spending hours digging by hand through twisted metal, wires and dust as human remains detection dogs searched the debris.
“They sent over the dogs again, and the dogs no longer were hitting on the area we were digging, but they hit on our gloves,” he said. “So we realized that we were extricating people that were basically dust.”
What the dust carried
That dust contained more than many responders realized at the time. Dr. Mary Reid of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center says pulverized building materials exposed responders to carcinogens that could enter the body through their lungs and skin.
“When you take concrete, when you take wallboard with all of its preservatives, when you take chemically treated wood, when you take metal and you crush it into small particles, that is carcinogenic," she said.
One year after the attacks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that health problems among Ground Zero first responders had been documented within days and weeks of 9/11. Evidence about longer-latency illnesses took years to develop. In 2011, a study published in The Lancet examined cancer rates among World Trade Center-exposed firefighters, marking one of the earliest major studies of cancer risk in that population.
With both time and impact of the attacks making rescue and recovery urgent, protective equipment was limited for some of the responders arriving from outside New York City, and the conditions made even basic masks difficult to use.
The Rev. Thomas Sember, now a volunteer pastor at Expressway Assembly of God, was a Buffalo fire lieutenant when he began working at Ground Zero a day after the attacks.
"Because we had come from the Buffalo Fire Department, we did not have our SCBAs, or self-contained breathing apparatuses. Many of us just wore masks which, since COVID, now we all know about N95 masks," he said.
Lalley also recalled the challenges of working for hours in disposable masks.
"When you're there working really, really hard for a really long time, they get soaking wet from sweat, and then they suck to your mouth, and then you can't breathe," he said. "So, you can imagine what firefighters do with those — throw them away."
The full scope of the contamination was not yet understood, but Sember remembers Buffalo officials taking their gear after they returned and never giving it back.
"We've heard rumors that it was burned just because there was the unknown of what was at Ground Zero as far as chemicals and different things like that," he said.
The lasting impact
For some responders, health problems followed them home.
Liberatore said he began experiencing significant breathing problems after his time at Ground Zero. He has dealt with asthma and COPD symptoms over the years, although he said he cannot say with certainty that the conditions were caused by his exposure there.
“I've been under a pulmonary doctor's care since then, and I ended up having some breathing issues, which were pretty bad shortly thereafter, and over time they've started to dissipate,” he said.
But monitoring first responders can come with another challenge: getting people whose careers are built around protecting others to prioritize their own health.
“Being a fireman, I take care of my wife, my family and those around me before I would take care of myself,” Sember said.
Reid said that mindset makes continued screening especially important. Even 25 years without a major diagnosis does not mean a responder is necessarily beyond the risk of illness.
“They're not in the clear,” Reid said. “They're just getting older, and they've got to be diligent.”
Roswell Park now provides screening and specialized care locally for eligible 9/11 responders through the federal World Trade Center Health Program, allowing Western New Yorkers to receive services closer to home.
All three firefighters interviewed by BTPM recalled colleagues who later experienced serious health problems or died, but none could establish how many illnesses or deaths were directly attributable to Ground Zero exposure.
Sember recalled respiratory problems developing among some of the firefighters in the years after they returned home.
“I know that there were a couple of guys later on in years that had got respiratory problems and different things like that,” he said. “One actually died from it.”
Lalley said some of the Buffalo firefighters who worked at Ground Zero later became ill and died.
“Including Buffalo Fire, we've had some of our guys that were down there that have since died of cancer, which probably was tied to that incident,” he said.
Liberatore also recalled the deaths of a civil defense responder and a Buffalo police officer who had worked at the World Trade Center site.
“One of the CDs came down, and he actually passed away from cancer, as well as one of the Buffalo policemen that came down with us that actually passed away from cancer,” he said. “That was shortly after being at the World Trade Center, so there it could have contributed.”
The invisible wounds
The toll on first responders has not been limited to physical illness.
Federal data show post-traumatic stress disorder remains one of the most commonly certified conditions among 9/11 responders. Through June 2026, the World Trade Center Health Program had recorded more than 12,000 PTSD certifications among responders, along with thousands of certifications for depression and anxiety.
Liberatore said the trauma of Ground Zero — layered onto the difficult scenes firefighters encounter throughout their careers — can leave lasting effects.
“Any fireman that deals with what we deal with on a day-to-day basis, if they don't think that it impacts their mental health and have to keep that in check would be lying,” he said. “What we deal with is very, very difficult, especially a situation like that.”
Liberatore said his strongest source of support has often been other firefighters who understand those experiences firsthand — conversations around the firehouse kitchen table, with professional help available when more support is needed.
For the Western New Yorkers who went to Ground Zero, the rescue and recovery effort ended long ago. Monitoring what that exposure may have left behind has not.
