18: 9-11: Casualties

Casualties of the September 11 attacks

During the September 11 attacks of 2001, 2,977 people were killed (excluding the 19 hijackers) and more than 6,000 others injured. The immediate deaths included 265 on the four planes (including the terrorists), 2,606 in the World Trade Center and in the surrounding area, and 125 at the Pentagon. The attacks were the deadliest terrorist act in world history, and the most devastating foreign attack on United States soil since the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Most of those who perished were civilians except for 343 firefighters and 71 law enforcement officers who died in the World Trade Center and on the ground in New York City, and another law enforcement officer who died when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, 55 military personnel who died at the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and the 19 terrorists who died on board the four aircraft. Overall, 2,605 U.S. citizens, including 2,135 civilians, died in the attacks, while an additional 372 non-U.S. citizens (excluding the 19 perpetrators) also perished, which represented about 12% of the total.  More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks,  including the United Kingdom (67 deaths), the Dominican Republic (47 deaths), and India (41 deaths).

2,974 victims were confirmed to have died in the initial attacks. In 2007, the New York City medical examiner's office began to add people who died of illnesses caused by exposure to dust from the site to the official death toll. The first such victim was a woman, a civil rights lawyer, who had died from a chronic lung condition in February 2002. In September 2009, the office added a man who died in October 2008, and in 2011, a male accountant who had died in December 2010. This raises the number of victims at the World Trade Center site to 2,753, and the overall 9/11 death toll to 2,996.

As of August 2013, medical authorities concluded that 1,140 people who worked, lived, or studied in Lower Manhattan at the time of the attack have been diagnosed with cancer as a result of "exposure to toxins at Ground Zero".  It has been reported that over 1,400 9/11 rescue workers who responded to the scene in the days and months after the attacks have since died.[15] At least 11 pregnancies were lost as a result of 9/11. Neither the FBI or New York City officially recorded the casualties of the 9/11 attacks in their crime statistics for 2001, with the FBI stating in a disclaimer that "the number of deaths is so great that combining it with the traditional crime statistics will have an outlier effect that falsely skews all types of measurements in the program's analyses."

Surrounding area:

Once both towers had been struck, the order to evacuate the North Tower quickly spread to encompass not only the entire World Trade Center complex, but most high rise buildings in Lower Manhattan and surrounding areas as well. The evacuation of employees from the North and South towers continued past the plaza and through the concourse. Evacuees from the North Tower were directed across the full length of the concourse to 5 World Trade Center, from where they exited the complex onto Church Street. Evacuees from the South Tower were provided with a separate route in order to deter congestion, with theirs leading them to 4 World Trade Center and exiting onto Liberty Street. To relieve congestion within the city and clear the evacuees and civilians, boats and ferries were used to further evacuate Lower Manhattan. Some of the boats were a part of the Coast Guard, others were civilian, company or state owned, that acted independently or after seeking the permission of the Coast Guard, who initially instructed vessels to stand by and then issued a request for all available boats to participate.

Survivors:

No one survived in or above the impact area in the North Tower. There is a report of at least one survivor who had reached the 22nd floor when the tower began to collapse, and reportedly fell 15 floors and later rescued, although some find the account unreliable. Only 14 people escaped from the impact zone of the South Tower (floors 77 to 85) after it was struck by United Airlines Flight 175, and only four people escaped from the floors above it.  Individuals escaped from the South Tower as high up as the 84th floor using stairwell A in the northwest corner, the only stairwell left intact after the impact. Investigators believe that stairwell A remained passable until the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 am. Because of communication difficulties between 911 operators and FDNY and NYPD responders, most of them were unaware that stairwell A was passable and instructed survivors above the impact zone to wait for assistance by rescue personnel.

After collapses:

After the towers collapsed, only 23 individuals in or below the towers escaped from the debris, including 15 rescue workers. The last survivor removed from the WTC collapse debris was found in the ruins of the North Tower 27 hours after its collapse. An unknown number of other people survived the initial collapse, but were buried in air pockets deep beneath the rubble and could not be rescued in time. Some were able to rescue themselves and others from the rubble by climbing through the rubble or digging and listening for sounds of life in order to safely remove the victims from the rubble.

Survivor advocacy:

As of September 28, 2008, a total of over 33,000 police officers, firefighters, responders, and community members have been treated for injuries and sickness related to the 9/11 attacks in New York City, including respiratory conditions, mental health problems like PTSD and depression, gastrointestinal conditions, and at least 4,166 cases of cancer; according to one advocacy group "more cops have died of illness linked to the attack than had perished in it".  Talk show host Jon Stewart and others succeeded in pushing for a law passed by Congress in 2015 that permanently extends health care benefits for the responders and adds five years to the victims' compensation program. Stewart's advocacy on the issue continued into 2019, in June 2019 he testified in front of Congress on behalf of 9/11 first responders who did not have proper health care benefits from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. During the testimony he was critical that "Sick and dying, they [first responders] brought themselves down here to speak to no one" and that it was "Shameful" and "...an embarrassment to the county and it is a stain on this institution."

Fatalities:

World Trade Center

An estimated 2,606 people who were in the World Trade Center and on the ground perished in the attacks on and the subsequent collapse of the towers.[3][54] This figure consisted of 2,192 civilians (including eight EMTs and paramedics from private hospital units); 343 members of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY); and 71 law enforcement officers including 23 members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), 37 members of the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD), five members of the New York State Office of Tax Enforcement (OTE), three officers of the New York State Office of Court Administration (OCA), one fire marshal of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) who had sworn law enforcement powers (and was also among the 343 FDNY members killed), one member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), one member of the New York Fire Patrol (FPNY), and one member of the United States Secret Service (USSS). This included a bomb-sniffing dog named Sirius, who was not included in the official death toll. The average age of the dead in New York City was 40. In the buildings, the youngest victim was 18 and the oldest was 79.

North Tower:

1,402 people died at or above the floors of impact in the North Tower. According to the Commission Report, hundreds were killed instantly by the impact while the remainder of the fatalities were trapped above the impact zone and died after the tower collapsed. Although a few people would subsequently be found alive in the rubble following the collapse of the towers, none of these individuals were from above the impact zone. John P. O'Neill was a former assistant director of the FBI who assisted in the capture of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and was the head of security at the World Trade Center when he was killed trying to rescue people from the North Tower.  An additional 24 people officially remain listed as missing. Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank on the 101st–105th floors of One World Trade Center, lost 658 employees, considerably more than any other employer. Marsh Inc., located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald on floors 93–100 (the location of Flight 11's impact), lost 295 employees and 63 consultants. Risk Waters, a business organization, was holding a conference in Windows on the World at the time, with 81 people in attendance.

South Tower:

614 people were killed at or above the floors of impact in the South Tower. Only 18 people are known to have managed to escape using staircase A before the South Tower collapsed; a further 11 people killed in the attacks are known to have been killed below the impact zone after United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower. The 9/11 Commission notes that this fact strongly indicates that evacuation below the impact zones was a success, allowing most to safely evacuate before the collapse of the World Trade Center.

World Trade Center Hotel:

There is no precise number of deaths that occurred within the hotel as many who sheltered in the hotel during and after the collapse of the South Tower were protected by the reinforced beams that had been installed by the Port Authority after the 1993 bombing.  At least two hotel employees are believed to have died during the collapse as they were outside of the safe zone.

Deaths by jumping or falling:

Before the Twin Towers collapsed, an estimated 200 people fell to their deaths from the burning towers, landing on the streets and rooftops of adjacent buildings hundreds of feet below at a speed of almost 150 miles per hour—sufficient to cause instantaneous death upon impact, but insufficient to cause unconsciousness throughout the actual fall. Most of those who fell from the World Trade Center had jumped from the North Tower. A secondary casualty was seen when a civilian landed on and killed a fireman near the intersection of West and Liberty streets, around 9:30 am.

To witnesses upon the ground, many of the people falling from the towers seemed to have deliberately jumped to their deaths, including the person whose photograph became known as the Falling Man. The NIST report officially describes the deaths of 104 jumpers but states that this figure likely understates the true number of those who died in this manner. The sight and sound of these individuals falling from the towers, then "smashing like eggs on the ground" horrified and traumatized many witnesses. The jumpers' death certificates state the cause of death as "blunt trauma" due to homicide.  Some of the occupants of each tower above its point of impact made their way upward toward the roof in hope of helicopter rescue, only to find the roof access doors locked. Port Authority officers attempted to unlock the doors but control systems would not let them; in any case, thick smoke and intense heat would have prevented rescue helicopters from landing.

List of the dead:

The following list details the number of deaths reported by companies in business premises at the World Trade Center. The list includes WTC tenants (all buildings), vendors, visitors, independent emergency responders, and some hijacked passenger-related firms.

Pentagon:

125 people working at the Pentagon were killed, most of whom worked for the United States Army or the United States Navy. Of those 125 deaths, 70 were civilians – 47 Army employees, six Army contractors, six Navy employees, three Navy contractors, seven Defense Intelligence Agency employees, and one Office of the Secretary of Defense contractor  – and 55 were members of the United States Armed Forces – 33 Navy sailors and 22 Army soldiers.  Lieutenant General Timothy Maude, an Army Deputy Chief of Staff, was the highest-ranking military official killed at the Pentagon. The terrorist attack at the Pentagon on 9/11 was the first deadliest foreign attack on Washington, D.C. since the burning of the U.S. capital by the British during the War of 1812.

Aboard the four planes:

265 fatalities aboard the 4 planes include 87 civilians (including 11 crew members) and the five hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11; 60 civilians (including 9 crew members) and the five hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 175; 59 passengers (including 6 crew members) and the five hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77; and 39 civilians (including 7 crew members), a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer, and the four hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93.[88][89] The dead included eight children: five on American Airlines Flight 77, aged 3 to 11, and three on United Airlines Flight 175, aged 2, 3, and 4. The youngest victim was a two-and-a-half-year-old child on Flight 175 and the oldest was an 85-year-old passenger on Flight 11. Among those killed were television producer David Angell, who co-created the sitcom Frasier,[93] and actress Berry Berenson,  both passengers on Flight 11. Barbara Olson, television political commentator and the wife of then-U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, was aboard Flight 77.

Foreign deaths:

 Excluding the 19 perpetrators, people from 77 different countries died, representing more than 12% of the total number of deaths in the attacks, almost half of whom were British, Dominican, Indian, or South Korean. The British Overseas Territory of Bermuda had the highest number of deaths per capita in the World Trade Center attack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks