>> hello, i'm dr. sanjay gupta. few of us can forget what unfolded behind me ten years the shocking spectacle of the world trade center towers crumbling into dust against that new york city skyline and the what disappeared along with it. ten years later, the obvious signs of the dust are gone. yet in some waysit still looms over new york city. it still haunts the over new york city. thousands of responders who became sick after breathing it in. in washington, there is a large fire. >> move it! >> get out! >> the world trade center. >> back, back. >> what's going on? get out of here! >> let's go. >> and the president who is in florida today, >> within moments after the first tower disintegrated, an eerie silence fell over lower manhattan. >> there should be a sound when one of the largest skyscrapers in the world collapses. and we know that there must have been a sound. very few people, including myself, remember a sound. >> dr. david prizant, a pulmonologist and top doctor with the new york city fire department, rushed to ground zero to help. he was there when the first tower fell. >> they were talking about mid morning, 10:00 or so. it was a very sunny day that morning. and it was like it was a little bit darker than dusk. couldn't sire hand in front of your face. >> we were suffocating on large particles that were stuck in the back of your throat and your nose. >> and then there was this fine dust that you were constantly choking on. >> and as we walked a block or two away, we were still in that same dust. very short as you remember from the blast. >> 30 minutes later, the second tower turned to dust. >> what's happening? >> and there you could see the second tower, the front tower, the top portion of which was collapsing. good lord! >> do we know what is that dust? >> 40 years of life and work in those buildings, meaning all the furnishings, all of the computers, all of the personal notes on the desks, all of the extra pairs of sneakers that the women brought in so that they could run out at lunch time. 110 floors, each one of them the size of a football field, made of super hard concrete several inches thick turned into dust. >> most people will never forget those images of that dust. but if you walk around new york city today, there are very few reminders of it. so it may surprise you to know that so much of the dust was in fact collected. it's been studied and stored for the last ten years by dr. paul leoiy and for the first time ever, he's given us a look inside the cold room. leoiy is one of the leading experts on environmental toxins, a professor at robert wood johnson medical school. his cold room is a near freezing controlled environment where he has stored ground zero dust for almost a decade. >> here it is. this is the cold room. >> this is the cold room where we store it. >> is this it in this bin here? >> these, two yeah. >> each one has a manifest on it saying when it was sampled, who it was collected by, who analyzed it, where it was stored, what the initial weight was. >> there aren't a lot of reminders when you walk around the city of new york, thankfully. i mean, these are a few of the reminders that are left. >> sure. >> you see how high it went up. >> he watched from home as the plume of dust and smoke rose over manhattan. >> had you ever seen anything like this? >> no. >> had you ever read about anything like this? >> no. >> after his initial shock wore off, he began to wonder, what's in that dust? >> if i asked you to name how many different particles and what they were in the dust, could you do it? >> not without a sheet because we found so much stuff. you got fire retardants, combustion products, plastics and other parts of the periodic table. >> gold and mercury from tens of thousands of fluorescent light bulbs, lead from thousands of computer monitors, titanium from paint on the trade center walls, asbestos that coated lower beams of the trade center buildings. there was cement, glass, carpet fibers, ceiling tiles, even human hairs. in all, 1.5 million tons of the stuff. >> you had burning aircraft, you had burning furniture, you had burning buildings. that burning material included the jet fuel. we don't know what the gasses were in this initial complex mixture. that was inhaled by everyone. because no one could measure it. that's the great unknown for us. >> is it always going to be unknowable? >> yes. >> there will always be mysteries about the dust? >> yes. >> but over the next hour, you will learn shocking things about this dust. facts uncovered now for the first time. what is not a mystery is that for thousands of first responders breathing it in, the health effects were immediate. >> the dust was incredibly irritating. when you look at this dust under a microscope, the edges are incredibly rough. they're not smooth edges. and this was burning their nose, their tongue, the back of their throat, and their airways. every breath was a burning sensation. >> what did it do to the body? what did it look like? >> immense redness. normally the membranes of our airways from our nose all the way down into our lungs are almost white. they're not bright red. they're not looking like they've been all scratched. that's what these airways look when you put a scope down and you see it. >> so it was like sand paper literally in this case in the lung tissue? >> right. >> you'd expect it to have gotten better once they stopped getting exposed. >> right. >> but in a lot of people it never did. >> never did. >> it's been ten years, and marty fullum, one of thousands of firefighters who responded, never did get better. on september 11th, while most people were running from ground zero, he was an indisputable hero, running toward the fires, the tragedy, and all that dust. >> what is it like right now for you? >> to walk? >> yeah. just walking down the hall? >> i mean, i feel okay. like i feel i'm getting a little winded but i'm okay. >> if you didn't have the oxygen? >> wouldn't be able to do it. i'd be back in bed now. >> four years after working at ground zero, fullum became gravely ill. >> you got sick. >> yes. >> and now at least some doctors have said this could have been due to inhaling those particles? down at ground zero? >> at first i thought how could this be 9/11? it's four years later. but the doctors said pretty much yeah, that's what it is. >> they told you that? >> they said this is 9/11. >> you believe what happened to you is because of the attack at ground zero? >> i believe so, yes. because just the number of us who got sick with stuff like this. >> does it make you angry? >> yeah, it does. i have some dark moments where i think about things, i'm alone, and it's not a good time of your life. believe me. naturals from purina cat chow. delicious, real ingredients with no artificial flavors or preservatives. naturals from purina cat chow. share a better life. just having some tender chicken and some tasty noodles. let's see...south western vegetables...60 calories. ya' know those jeans look nice. they do? 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what do you start doing? what do you do? >> it was all anyone could do. two brothers, both firefighters, both witnesses to the worst terrorist attack on u.s. soil, and all they could do was dig. >> we searched other surroundings buildings and the sidewalk to see if anybody was under anything. >> just looking for -- >> people. anybody who was stuck who was still alive. >> did you find anybody? >> no. nobody that was alive. we didn't find anybody that was alive. >> the situation was bleak and yet rescuers like the fullams, desperately raked the rubble, mindful of saving lives, mindless of the dust, the danger surrounding it. >> did you worry about your health? >> i knew it wasn't good for my health. but initially it was always a chance you were going to find somebody. and the risk seemed to outweigh the danger, you know? >> when's the first time you were offered a mask? >> probably three or four days after that. they had little paper ones they were giving out. that's what we used from then on. >> the paper masks would not have made a difference. they may have been worse than not wearing anything at all because you felt that you were protected and you weren't. >> the problem is there's no seal on these masks. so dust can enter from here, it can enter from here, even through the paper itself. a better option for marty and the other responders would have been a respirator like this. a lot of workers who did have access to these respirators say they were reluctant to use them because they were hot, they were uncomfortable. and responders worried they would hamper communication. >> were you ever offered a proper mask that can would have protected you? >> much later on. >> how long? >> probably at least a month and a half later they came down with these other masks. >> you guys were the frontline. >> yes. >> it took six weeks to get you a mask? >> yes. >> to protect yourself, give yourself the best chance at life? >> okay. >> that doesn't make sense to me. >> i wish i would have had it, you know? >> but here's where it gets complicated. for several days after 9/11, respirators for firefighters were located at a staging area offsite, nine miles from ground zero. marty's brother david got his respirator on his way in to ground zero. while marty, who lived on the other side of the city, went straight to the pile. >> well, if there's any good news out of all this, it's that everything we've tested for, which includes asbestos, lead, and vocs have been below any level of concern for the general public health. obviously, for those who are down here, these are very important. >> but that was part of the problem. respirators were not easily available, and no one was making sure workers wore them. also the testing required to make any statement about air quality had not been completed. so could anyone really say the air was truly safe? >> september 18th, the epa commissioner kind of waved the all clear sign. was that appropriate with what we know now? >> no, it was not. it definitely was not. she at that time did not have enough information to make that kind of statement. >> there was a great deal of responsibility. >> anthony depalma covered 9/11 for the "new york times." he's the author of of "city of dust." >> were people worried about the potential health impacts of this dust at that time, ten years ago? >> this was something that anyone who watched the videos from that day saw. they saw that thunder cloud of dust coming around the building like some sort of a science fiction monster. they knew that it was not safe. and yet the government was telling and continuing to tell them it was safe. they were desperate for some kind of answer. >> the former epa commissioner says that answers were given, that in the weeks following the attacks, epa officials repeatedly warned of the risks to workers at ground zero and noted the difference between the air quality at the site and the air in the rest of new york city. >> we shouldn't seek a scapegoat, she adds, other than those who were indeed to blame for the lives lost that day, the terrorists who attacked our nation. >> chronic cough. >> all of this may have been confusing to responders. but something was becoming very clear to dr. david prezant, the fire department pulmonologist. firefighters, thousands of them, were getting sick. they filled his clinic, all complaining about the same thing, "i'm coughing and i can't stop." >> every one of them said, this doesn't smell like a fire. it doesn't taste like a fire. it's more irritating. >> one of those guys was marty fullam. >> you went to enough fires and you knew that what was in the air was no good. >> he had the world trade center cough initially. >> initially. >> that is the term you coined? >> yes. >> people think cough and they think, how bad could a cough be? >> right. >> how bad was it? >> in retrospect, we shouldn't have called it world trade center cough. we should have called it world trade center lung disease because it has a greater definition to it. >> and because coughs, well, they typically go away. but for many firefighters, the cough persisted. in fact, it got worse. and what would take its place was an inability to breathe. dr. prezant watched the tragedy unfold. >> in the three years before 9/11, their lung function was declining 30 milliliters per year, which is an infinitesimally small amount, typical of what middle-aged men have just due to aging. in the first six months after 9/11, on average they dropped 370 milliliters, 12 times what they themselves were decreasing just due to aging. that is unheard of. >> and in marty? >> marty over 1200 milliliters. >> so 40 times. >> 40 times, yes. >> at that time, did you know for sure that it was due to the dust that he had been breathing in after 9/11? >> knew for sure that it was due to 9/11. >> come in. >> knew for sure that the dust was effecting marty's lungs. but there was something else. his immune system was turning on his body, attacking his muscles and also his lungs. >> i went in the hospital, i weighed 220 pounds. after three weeks, i weighed 155 pounds. >> 65 pound weight loss in three weeks? >> yeah. i walked into the hospital. three weeks later i couldn't walk and i couldn't breathe. >> were you just weak? >> i couldn't eat, i couldn't walk, i couldn't go to the bathroom, i couldn't do anything at that point. >> and this is where the story of the fullam brothers takes a tragic turn. marty wore virtually no protection for most of his time on the pile. while for most of his time at ground zero, david wore a respirator. >> you were both there. you got sick. he didn't. >> yes. >> did the respirator make a difference? or breakfast? um... try the number one! 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