Lives changed by September 11th

Scott Larsen was four years old when his father, the New York City firefighter after whom he was named, died in the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

His father, then 35, had recently been temporarily assigned to Lower Manhattan from his home fire station in Woodside, Queens, when two planes hijacked by al-Qaeda Islamist militants crashed into the Twin Towers. He was one of 343 members of the New York City Fire Department who died in the attacks 25 years ago.

Those two planes, along with a third that hit the Pentagon and a fourth that crashed in Pennsylvania, claimed the lives of some 3.000 people in an unprecedented attack. Tens of thousands of spouses, parents, and children were left to mourn their loved ones as the world was stunned by the scale of the tragedy.

The events of September 11, which took place at the beginning of President George W. Bush's first term, fundamentally reshaped American national security policy and led to decades of wars that killed more than 900.000 people, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The attacks also changed the course of individual lives. Some of the victims' children were encouraged to follow in their parents' footsteps and choose emergency services, others were guided toward the military, medicine, or public service, while survivors, first responders, and millions of Americans still face the consequences of that day today.

The following are the stories of three of them.

“His memory lives on every day”

Larsen followed in his father's footsteps. He joined the New York City Fire Department and requested to be assigned to the very Woodside fire station where his father worked.

"It was just in me. I always wanted to come here," Larsen, now 29, told Reuters at the fire station.

He's not alone. According to the International Association of Firefighters, so did 58 children of New York City firefighters who died on September 11th.

At the station, Larsen is reminded of his father everywhere. His name is engraved on a plaque and written on a fire truck, while his photos hang in the kitchen and break room.

“Honestly, the memory of him is there every day,” he said. “There’s not a day that I come here without looking at him.”

Larsen is the third generation of firefighters in his family. His younger brother, born two days after 9/11, passed the entrance exam and hopes to join the New York City Fire Department next year.

“I hope that one day, when I have a son or daughter, they will continue the family tradition,” Larsen said.

“This was personal”

Doctor Michael Crane never stopped helping rescuers.

As terrible as the initial death toll was, the tragedy did not end there. Tens of thousands of police officers, firefighters, utility workers, and construction workers arrived at the site of the collapse in downtown New York.

The pile of rubble was about five stories high, and the search for survivors, and later remains, lasted for months under clouds of dust that lingered over the area for a long time.

As medical director of New York City's electric utility Con Edison, Crane was responsible for protecting rescue workers and workers clearing debris, including ensuring that each of them was provided with a respirator that fit properly.

The easiest part of the job turned out to be providing the teams with respirators. As soon as they started using them, they quickly became clogged with dust, so many simply took them off and threw them away.

In the early days of the cleanup effort, a young man came into Crane's office with a bad cough after working in the rubble at Ground Zero. When Crane told him to take a few days off and get treatment, the young man refused.

A member of his family was buried somewhere under the rubble, Crane recalled in an interview at Mount Sinai Hospital, where he now works as medical director of the World Trade Center Health Program.

“At that moment I realized this wasn’t just some national or state thing, this was personal,” said Crane, 74. “It was personal for a lot of those people who lost someone there.”

The World Trade Center Health Program, funded by the US government, provides health care for 9/11-related illnesses to more than 150.000 rescue workers and workers who participated in rescue and cleanup operations, as well as people who lived, worked or went to school in the area affected by the attacks, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collected through June 30.

By that date, about 85.000 certificates had been issued to program participants for health conditions related to the World Trade Center. About half of those cases were related to the effects of inhaling or swallowing toxic dust, while about 30 percent were related to cancer. More than 9.000 people tracked by the program have died since September 11, although officials say it is difficult to determine to what extent the effects of the attacks contributed to their deaths.

A quarter of a century after the attack, Crane is still deeply affected by the fates of the people who participated in the rescue and cleanup.

“These people are so endearing,” he said. “They’re incredible — resilient, funny, a little crazy. And despite everything they’ve been through, they’re incredibly mentally strong and proud of what they’ve done.”

"I didn't listen to my instinct"

Like many whose lives were marked by September 11, Michael Tuohy lives with unanswered questions.

As an airline employee, Tuohy helped two hijackers check in for a flight at Portland International Airport, Maine. It was the beginning of a journey that ended with American Airlines Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Mohamed Ata and Abdul Aziz al Omari arrived just half an hour before takeoff.

Tuohi examined their paper tickets to see if they had been purchased just before the trip or paid for in cash, which would have raised suspicions even before 9/11. However, the tickets had been purchased weeks earlier, paid for by credit card, and were for first class.

“I had a feeling that this older, shorter man didn’t like being there,” Tuohi said, referring to Ata. “And then I thought: It’s half past five in the morning. Nobody likes to get up at half past five.”

Later, after the attacks, there was widespread analysis of how American intelligence agencies failed to uncover the al-Qaeda plot. The Department of Homeland Security was established, airport security procedures were changed, and a whole series of new security laws were introduced.

But as the first rays of sunlight lit up the skies over Portland on that chilly autumn morning, Tuohi could not have imagined the horrors that day would bring.

“My gut feeling was right, but there were laws, there were laws against profiling people,” said Tuohi, now 80 and retired. “I didn’t listen to my gut. And it turned out to be terrible. But it’s not that I was right. It’s just that if I had listened to my gut, maybe something would have changed. I’m not saying it would have, but it could have. Who knows?”