Editor's Note: This article has been updated to remove a photograph and background information that incorrectly conflated the subject of this story with another individual of the same name.
Robert Ascolillo spent nine months driving a fuel tanker through Lower Manhattan after the September 11 attacks, keeping generators running and refueling a morgue trailer while much of the neighborhood sat without electricity. Today he is in hospice care, battling kidney failure and a skin cancer diagnosis he believes trace directly back to those months breathing the air at Ground Zero.
Ascolillo drove a tanker through the wreckage zone, fueling construction equipment with diesel and keeping the generators that powered rescue and recovery operations alive, according to Spectrum News NY1. He lived out of his truck for three months, the outlet reports, and paid $30 a day just to use a shower and bathroom since a hotel room nearby ran $250 a night. Electricity was out across much of Lower Manhattan at the time, and generators were essential to keeping rescue and recovery work moving forward.
Ascolillo told the outlet he believed the air in Lower Manhattan was unsafe even as he worked, and he now says he believes his illnesses came from breathing toxic material after the attacks. He takes 25 pills a day and is battling kidney failure alongside his skin cancer diagnosis. Despite everything, per the same account, he has no regrets about his post-9/11 work and said he would return to do it again even knowing the outcome. He measured his recovery in milestones, telling the outlet one goal was to make it to Father's Day, the next to make the Fourth of July, and the next goal after that will be the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
A Death Toll That Surpassed the Attacks Themselves
Federal justice estimates put the toll of exposure-related illness among 9/11 responders and survivors at more than 4,000 deaths in the decades since 2001, a figure that now exceeds the 2,977 people killed in the attacks themselves. The scale of ongoing compensation reflects that surge: the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund's 2025 Annual Report shows the program paid nearly $1.84 billion to roughly 9,800 claimants in 2025 alone, pushing total payouts past $16.8 billion to more than 71,000 claimants since October 2011, according to The Broadsheet. New claim submissions climbed to an average of 900 per month in 2025, up from 700 per month the year before, as more late-emerging toxic conditions surface nearly 25 years after the attacks.
That slow accumulation of ailments mirrors a pattern federal health officials have tracked across a much larger population. More than 136,000 responders and survivors are now enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program, with over 81,000 certified for at least one 9/11-related physical or mental health condition, according to program statistics published by the CDC / World Trade Center Health Program. A May 2026 study of patients at the World Trade Center Environmental Health Center found a 2.5-fold increase in certified cancer cases compared to 2020, with solid tumors — led by breast, prostate, lung, thyroid, and melanoma — accounting for 87% of diagnoses, per findings published in MDPI.
Lifetime Funding Locked In by Federal Law
The financial and medical backstop for responders like Ascolillo is written into federal law. President Donald Trump signed the Never Forget the Heroes Act in July 2019, fully funding the VCF and extending the deadline for filing injury and wrongful-death claims through October 1, 2090, according to the fund's own account at VCF.gov. The World Trade Center Health Program itself was authorized to provide medical monitoring and treatment through 2090 under the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Reauthorization Act, signed by President Barack Obama in December 2015.
That funding commitment came under renewed threat in recent years before Congress acted again. In February, lawmakers passed the 9/11 Responder and Survivor Health Funding Correction Act, updating the program's annual funding formula to eliminate projected budget shortfalls and protect lifetime care, as Congress Secures Long-Term Care detailed at the time. It followed years of uncertainty, including a December 2024 funding fight that left roughly 130,000 program participants in limbo.
For Ascolillo, the numbers and the legislation are secondary to the daily reality of hospice care and a body worn down by illnesses he links to nine months spent keeping Ground Zero's generators and morgue trailer running. He has said he has no regrets, and that knowing everything he knows now, he would go back and do it again.
