Paul tokarski biography

When Thomas Phelan and Keith Young died within a day of each other last week, it was as a result of cancer, from which both had been suffering.

But the underlying cause of the firefighters' deaths was the event which they both witnessed up close 17 years earlier: the 11 September attack on New York.

Phelan and Young's names will not be added to the official tally of 2,977 people killed in the attacks, which also targeted the Pentagon and a plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Their deaths were, however, a result of what happened at the World Trade Center that September morning.

According to records maintained by the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York (UFANYC) union, theirs were the 172nd and 173rd deaths of firefighters to have occurred because of 9/11-related illnesses, and the sixth and seventh so far this year.

Another former New York firefi