'I breathed in toxic 9/11 dust - now I'm in World Trade Center health programme with incurable heart disease'

I walked down to the Ground Zero memorial last week to pay my respects to those killed on 9/11. When I’m in New York, I always take a few minutes to see the names of victims I’ve reported on: among them firefighter Gary Geidel, father-to-be Daniel Lee, and fire chaplain Mychal Judge. But this time it felt very different. For the first time I was visiting with a rare incurable heart condition that doctors believe was brought on by the toxic dust I breathed in while walking on these very streets back in September 2001. I’m now registered as a ‘responder’ in the official World Trade Center Health Programme. The morning after the Twin Towers collapsed, I wrote in the Daily Mirror: “Ash lay so thick on the pavements that city workers were shovelling it like snow. “I could still taste the bitter acrid smoke in my mouth. It was like a volcano had erupted in the centre of Manhattan.” It was emotional to stand and listen to the huge waterfalls gently cascading down next to the 2,983 names on the memorial and realise that I could eventually end up being an al-Qaeda victim so many years later. At 7.55am on September 12th, I was photographed in midtown Manhattan by John Chapple, before we walked down towards Ground Zero with the huge cloud of dust spiralling above us. I particularly remembered that poisonous white cloud when the WTC health letter arrived, after the US authorities had reviewed all my medical documents since my diagnosis of cardiac sarcoidosis. It was blunt, and said simply: “You have been enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Programme as a Responder.” It allocated me an official registration number - which starts with the digits 911 - and informed me about what medical tests and treatment I would be entitled to. Another letter from 9/11 victims Mount Sinai hospital chief Michael Crane read: “Many 9/11 responders may experience a wide range of emotions as we mark this milestone - grief anxiety and uncertainly to name a few. No matter what emotions come up for you, just know that you do not have to carry them alone.” After I read it, I sat down and recalled my memories of 9/11. That night, I wrote in my diary: “Day the World Changed.” I certainly got that right. At 8.40am on September 11 2001, I was dropping our two daughters, then aged six and seven, at school. I was the Daily Mirror’s US Editor at the time, and we had been living in America for four years. As I drove back home that sunny morning, I could never have predicted the unimaginable horror unfolding in the skies above. Six minutes later, American Airlines Flight 11 smashed into the North Tower. At 6.45am on the 12th, I arrived at Grand Central Station. Before I got off the train I watched two complete strangers shake hands and wish each other "good luck". There were already signs on the concourse offering crisis counselling. I walked down to Ground Zero. I found a passenger's boarding pass from the Boston to Los Angeles flight and a badly singed bank statement from a company based in the World Trade Center. There shoes lying in the gutter. I remember there was an uncanny silence and the streets were empty. I was even offered a lift in a fire engine with blown out windows. The crew insisted on dropping me, and photographer Charlie Varley, off at our next interview. They put the sirens on as we drove through the deserted streets. I remember an elderly man standing on the pavement applauding as we went past. It was a surreal few minutes. In our own home town of Stamford, Connecticut, 10 people were killed. Our neighbour’s car remained in the local train station car park until November - he’d gone to work in the WTC but never returned. One of my daughter’s school friend’s dads, covered in dust, walked 28 miles home. He was so shocked. His wife had no idea whether he was dead or alive until he put a key in the front door. Unfortunately their marriage didn’t survive the trauma. Another friend who worked in Manhattan returned home after seeing several jumpers plunge to their death - she was pregnant at the time and came home distraught and frightened about bringing a baby into such a terrifying world. Her daughter is now 24. Our next door neighbour stood in his back garden waving his fists and shouting encouragement to US fighter jets roaring overhead, protecting the New York airspace, to go and “kill the enemy”. His son joined the army because of the attacks and saw service in Afghanistan. This all happened in one street, in one small suburb, of one American town. Fast forward 23 years, I first fell ill, with shortness of breath, in March 2024 and was taken by 999 ambulance to the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex. In A&E, they said my condition was so serious they told my wife Lois they needed to “stop his heart” and use a defibrillator to restart it. A hospital staff member held her hand and said: “He might not make it.” The next day I had to be de-fibbed for a second time, and I was then immediately taken by another ambulance down the M11 to Bart’s, where I had a implantable cardioverter defibrillator inserted into my chest. Doctors then discovered I had developed a rare incurable heart condition called cardiac sarcoidosis. Once the doctors realised I was a Daily Mirror reporter, I was questioned about my previous assignments and what I had been exposed to which could have triggered the disease. Cardiac sarcoidosis can be undetected for years, and can lie dormant in your body. After my diagnosis, I was enrolled in a special cardiac sarcoidosis programme based at Bart’s hospital run by Juan Carlos Quijano-Campos. There are 120 of us being monitored and helping research the impact of the disease. It's been a fantastic help to me. The doctors have been amazing. Unfortunately my condition is incurable. But, at the moment, it is being managed, and I’ve been allowed to go back to work - all thanks to the brilliant NHS. Michael Barasch, who runs a charitable foundation and is leading the fight for justice, told me: “The government lied to you. They lied to us. “They said the air was safe to breathe. It wasn’t.” He has skin and prostate cancer, and said: “You breathed in that air. I breathed in that air.” 9/11’s most prominent activist John Feal was so angry at the huge numbers of people dying from dust-related illnesses that he organised for a memorial wall for responders to be built. “Don’t worry when you go - we’ll get your name on that!” he smiled.