Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, more people have died from illnesses linked to Ground Zero exposure than perished in the towers themselves — more than double the death toll. Among them: New York State Police Sgt. Jeffrey Cicora, who spent more than a year at Ground Zero and died of a rare soft tissue cancer in 2019.
This week, former Gov. George Pataki disclosed he, too, has been diagnosed with a 9/11-related lung condition, joining a growing list of New Yorkers whose bodies are still paying the price.
On Friday, for the first time in 25 years, New York City's memorial ceremony will add a moment of silence specifically for those who died from 9/11-related illnesses. Nearly 13,000 people have died from 9/11-related illnesses to date, according to the New York City Health Department, and that number continues to climb.
Jeff's wife, Valerie Cicora, was in a work car with her boss when her phone began lighting up on the morning of September 11, 2001.
"My phone kept ringing over and over again. And I saw that it was Jeff," she recalled.
Jeff was in Cooperstown, training with the K-9 unit. By the time she called back, the orders had already come down. There was no time to come home.
"He said that they were sending him down to New York City immediately," Valerie recounted. "And I'm like, wait, can't you come home and say goodbye or anything? And he said, no, they were heading out."
He drove straight to Ground Zero and stayed for more than a year, first working the pile alongside search dogs, then conducting bomb sweeps of planes, buildings and subways across the city.
Cicora grew up in Auburn and later settled with his family in Baldwinsville, spending 25 years with the New York State Police. His K-9, McGinn, helped locate David Renz in one of Central New York's most high-profile criminal cases. Valerie says Jeff never saw any of it as extraordinary. Serving others was his duty.
Fifteen years passed before a pain in his calf sent him to a doctor. Six months of appointments and MRIs later, he had a diagnosis: a soft tissue sarcoma so rare that doctors traced it directly to his work at Ground Zero.
She described what Jeff told her about those months at the site.
"He said it was devastating. The worst thing about it was the smell," she remembered. "You go down thinking you're going to find people and they weren't finding people."
Dr. Raja Flores, a thoracic surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital, has spent years delivering cancer diagnoses to 9/11 first responders. Flores said he wants the public to understand what that number actually means.
"It's easier to comprehend a catastrophe where about 3,000 people die," Flores said. "But over the past 25 years, 8,000 people have died from 9/11-related illnesses. That is one death at a time, one funeral at a time."
Doctors gave Jeff 12 to 18 months to live. His goal was to survive until his son Jack turned 16. He made it four years.
"It was an emotional roller coaster for that time, but we had him," Valerie reflected.
Jack was in seventh grade when doctors diagnosed his father. He admittedly was too young to fully understand what was happening, but cherishes the moments building their family's cottage together by Lake Ontario.
"I was like, he's my dad. He's my hero. I thought he would just beat it," Jack said. "Seeing him lose his life really made me understand the consequences of 9/11."
Even while fighting cancer himself, Jeff's selflessness would not let up. He organized a visit to the pediatric oncology unit at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, arriving with fellow troopers and bags of trooper teddy bears for children who, like him, were fighting for their lives.
"He was," Jack said, "always thinking about somebody else."
It was the same quality that first won Valerie over. The two met on what turned out to be an accidental blind date.
"It was love at first sight," she said, laughing softly. "He was just such a jokester. He loved seeing people laugh. He was always the life of the party."
Valerie said he carried no regret about any of his service at Ground Zero.
"He was a very proud man and he loved what he did. He really cared about the community and the people."
Six years after losing Jeff, Valerie and Jack are channeling that same will to serve through the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which pays off the mortgages of first responder families. The foundation paid off the Cicoras' own mortgage after Jeff's death — what Valerie calls "the gift of time." In honor of the 25th anniversary, the foundation will pay off 343 mortgages this year, one for each New York City Fire Department member killed on September 11.
Jack, now 23 and working in media relations for the foundation in Brooklyn, says carrying his father's legacy has become his purpose.
"I want to help keep these families' loved ones' legacies alive, just like how I want my dad's legacy to carry on," he said. "I think that's what I feel my purpose is, being able to share these people's stories and keep their legacies alive."
Valerie closed with a plea that has defined her life since losing Jeff.
"Never forget, this is still affecting people 25 years later," she urged. "It's so important that we honor the people that were killed on that day, but not to forget the ones that are still affected and those families that they're leaving behind."
She paused, then offered one last thought.
"I think I miss his smile."
Today, a piece of steel from the World Trade Center will arrive in Brooklyn, where Jack and the Tunnel to Towers Foundation will hold a public ceremony. The same steel has been carried across the country all summer, touching the hands of Americans who never got close enough to understand what those towers took with them when they fell.