Mike Lohrey led a team of 40 people from the Pacific Northwest to Manhattan just ten days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, tasked with bringing order to a disaster zone that had none. He died in March 2025 at age 76, from complications of a double lung transplant he needed because of the toxic dust he breathed while running that operation. The U.S. Forest Service has confirmed his death as a line-of-duty casualty.
Lohrey was a lifelong first responder and longtime incident commander in Oregon, and his team spent a month on the ground in Lower Manhattan helping the NYPD, the FDNY, the Port Authority, and emergency management agencies function amid the wreckage, according to KGW. His team set up networks for logistics, communications, and food — the basic infrastructure that a monthslong, multi-agency response demanded. Bill Otani, one of Lohrey's lifelong friends, said New York agencies needed that logistical support because they simply didn't have it themselves.
Lohrey's Pacific Northwest crew was one of four national Interagency Type 1 Incident Management Teams dispatched to Lower Manhattan, according to a 2015 account from Wildland Fire Leadership. Otani put the mission's purpose simply: the teams existed to make order out of chaos.
A Career Built Before Ground Zero
The obituary identifies Lohrey as born in 1948 and deceased in 2025, according to Legacy Remembers.
The dust that settled over Ground Zero was toxic, and it lingered in the air for months until rain finally cleared it, Teresa Bright said, according to the same KGW report. Responders were told at the time that it was safe to breathe. The collapse produced a dust cloud, and debris fires burned underground at Ground Zero.
Diagnosis, Transplant, and a Fight for Coverage
Lohrey was diagnosed with fibrosis in 2022 and needed a double lung transplant, which he received in 2024. He told KGW he would respond to Ground Zero again. But getting his transplant covered meant fighting federal benefits systems built for 9/11 first responders — a battle that consumed his final years.
That fight traces back to a 2022 administrative shift. In August of that year, the federal World Trade Center Health Program transitioned management of its Nationwide Provider Network, which serves out-of-state members, to contractor Managed Care Advisors-Sedgwick, according to 9/11 Health Watch. The vendor change brought complaints about long call wait times, reduced provider networks, and delayed medical authorizations. Concerns about the network's performance continued in 2024.
Funding and administrative issues affecting 9/11 responders remain part of the broader benefits debate. The article also raises concerns about the security of patient information.
A Team Marked by Loss
Lohrey's team paid a steep price beyond his own illness. Bright said about six other team members died from cancers, and two developed fibrosis in their lungs. Two more team members died by suicide, and some experienced the disintegration of personal relationships after returning home from the deployment.
Lohrey's death fits a larger, grim pattern. By late 2024, the Fire Department of New York reported that more than 360 FDNY personnel had died from 9/11-related toxic exposure illnesses, surpassing the 343 firefighters killed in the towers' collapse on September 11, 2001, as Hoodline has previously reported. The broader toll among responders and survivors extends beyond FDNY personnel. The CDC's World Trade Center Health Program continues to cover responders and survivors.
Bright and Otani said they hope people impacted by 9/11 will receive the help they need without unnecessary hurdles or delays. Bright said Lohrey would simply want people to be happy and healthy.
