Teresa Quibell

Decent people who feel forgotten

Reports on the aftermath of September 11, 2001 seldom focus on the group of people I spent Wednesday morning with.

They're the first responders - about 300 fire fighters, police, ambulance crews and volunteers of every description who helped on the day the towers came down in Lower Manhattan and then stayed in the ruins for months.

They're angry.

It's taken eight years for Congress to get round to discussing legislation to provide federal help for emergency workers who fell ill after 9/11.

Many are slowly dying from illnesses their doctors say were contracted at Ground Zero.

Teresa Quibell's fiance, Gregory, was among the rescuers in 2001. Five years later his body began producing Benzene, the result of inhaling too much jet fuel, according to doctors.

Teresa told me: "When we first diagnosed him with a leukaemia he had no red blood cells in his bone marrow whatsoever."