Thomas del Pino spent 18 years as a firefighter with Ladder Co. 85 in Staten Island, riding into the smoke on Sept. 11, 2001, aboard a truck carrying a 95-foot ladder that was among the first sent to the World Trade Center. He survived the collapse of the second tower, searched the pile for survivors and remains, and lived another 24 years. On Sept. 14, 2025, he died at 66 in Milford, Pennsylvania, after a rare brain cancer tied to his time at Ground Zero spread through his body and shut down his liver.
Del Pino was diagnosed with a diffuse midbrain glioblastoma in July 2025, according to the New York Post, which first reported his story. The tumor is a rare and aggressive malignancy more commonly detected in children, and the disease put him among more than 57,044 first responders diagnosed with a Sept. 11-linked cancer, per the same report. He underwent radiation five days a week for six weeks, and about a month after treatment ended, he developed liver failure.
His son, NYPD Detective Daniel del Pino, 38, told the Post his father carried survivor's guilt for years after making it out of the towers alive. The elder del Pino had served as a liaison to a family whose firefighter father died in the attacks, and it fell to him to tell that family's children their dad was not coming home. He was grateful simply to have survived Sept. 11, according to the account his son gave the paper, even as that day never fully let go of him.
A Final Sept. 11 Before the Coma
Three days before his death, Del Pino attended two Sept. 11 memorials near his home in Milford, using a wheelchair to get there. He wanted people to remember that day, the Post reported, and two days after those ceremonies, he slipped into a coma. He died on Sept. 14, 2025.
Del Pino had worked as the chauffeur for Ladder Co. 85, a company based out of 3067 Richmond Road in the New Dorp neighborhood of Staten Island, sharing a firehouse with Engine Co. 165 in a pairing that has stood since 1960, according to New York City's agency records. His own father had served 22 years as an NYPD officer, and Del Pino would go on to listen to a police scanner just to monitor the radio calls of his son, Daniel, who followed him into public service.
A Detective Following His Father's Path
Daniel del Pino was promoted to detective in 2025 and is assigned to the NYPD's 77th Precinct, which patrols northern Crown Heights and Prospect Heights out of its Utica Avenue stationhouse. The precinct's territory has drawn its own share of Hoodline coverage this year, including a fatal shootout near a Crown Heights nightlife spot in August. For Daniel, the badge carries a family thread: an FDNY father who ran into the towers, and now a son who patrols Brooklyn streets in his memory.
Del Pino's death adds to a toll that has become one of the defining afterstories of Sept. 11. The FDNY lost 343 members on the day of the attacks in 2001, but post-9/11 illness deaths have long since surpassed that number. On Sept. 2, 2026, the FDNY formally added 36 names to its World Trade Center Memorial Wall at 9 MetroTech Center in Brooklyn, honoring members who died from Ground Zero-related illnesses, according to a municipal press release. Del Pino's name is among those honored in this year's induction.
A Death Toll That Keeps Climbing
The scale of the ongoing crisis is staggering a quarter-century later. The FDNY's own 25-Year Health Impact Report, released in September 2026, found that more than 600 FDNY members have died from illnesses linked to their rescue and recovery work at Ground Zero — nearly double the number killed on the day of the attacks, according to Fire & Safety Journal Americas. Of nearly 16,000 exposed FDNY personnel tracked in that report, more than 12,000 are certified with at least one 9/11-related health condition, and over 3,000 have been diagnosed with a 9/11-linked cancer. Beyond the department, 5,892 people exposed to toxic dust from the attacks have died of 9/11-related disease overall. According to House Report 116-152, published through GovInfo, about 75,000 first responders and 20,000 other survivors are enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program.
The federal government has continued paying out claims tied to that exposure. As of Aug. 31, 2026, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund had received more than 112,000 claims and awarded over $18.56 billion to more than 77,000 eligible first responders and survivors since the fund reopened in 2011, VCF Special Master Allison Turkel said in remarks reported by the U.S. Department of Justice. The Never Forget the Heroes Act of 2019 permanently authorized that fund and extended the World Trade Center Health Program through October 1, 2090, guaranteeing lifetime medical monitoring for exposed responders, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers have also documented elevated cancer risk among firefighters more broadly. A NIOSH occupational health study reviewed by the CDC found that U.S. firefighters face a 9% higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer and a 14% higher risk of dying from it compared to the general population — a backdrop that underscores just how much toxic exposure at Ground Zero compounded an already dangerous job. Diffuse midline gliomas, the class of tumor that killed Del Pino, are classified as high-grade central nervous system malignancies with a 42.2% five-year relative survival rate in adults, according to National Cancer Institute registry data. A 2021 study hosted by the National Institutes of Health's PubMed Central found that World Trade Center-exposed male firefighters had 13% higher all-cancer rates than comparison groups. A 2025 cohort study hosted by the National Institutes of Health's PubMed Central found that lung cancer incidence among World Trade Center responders was higher among those with greater exposure severity.
A Life of Service That Didn't End at Retirement
After retiring from the FDNY, Del Pino kept serving, joining the Dingman Township Volunteer Fire Department in Pennsylvania and volunteering with the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, according to his obituary published by the Staten Island Advance. Hoodline previously covered the FDNY's 2025 memorial wall ceremony, which added 39 names the year before, and reported last month that illness deaths had topped 400 firefighters as the FDNY marked the toll with new commemorative films.
For Daniel del Pino, his father's death arrived within days of a ceremony meant to honor exactly the kind of sacrifice his father made — a firefighter who ran toward the towers, survived, and spent the rest of his life quietly carrying what that day cost him.
