A 9/11 hero firefighter made one final, heartbreaking tribute to his fallen brothers before losing his own battle with cancer just three days later.
Thomas Del Pino, a 66-year-old retired FDNY firefighter, died on September 14, 2025, after a brutal fight with a rare brain tumor linked to the toxic dust at Ground Zero. According to his son, NYPD Detective Daniel Del Pino, his father had attended two memorial services on the 24th anniversary of the attacks, wearing his uniform and sitting in a wheelchair.
“He felt like he owed it to the guys who died to pay tribute to them one more time,” his son recalled.
Del Pino was a chauffeur for Ladder Co. 85 out of Staten Island when the planes hit. His truck carried a 95-foot ladder, but it was useless against fires 1,500 feet up.
When the second tower collapsed, he and another firefighter dove under a firetruck to survive.
He spent days searching the rubble for survivors and remains. The FDNY lost 343 members that day. Del Pino carried deep survivor’s guilt, his son said.
That guilt drove him to become a liaison for a family whose firefighter father was never found.
“My dad had to be the one to tell the kids that their dad wasn’t coming home,” Daniel said.
Del Pino was diagnosed with diffuse midbrain glioblastoma in July 2025 after a biopsy. He underwent six weeks of radiation, but his liver began failing shortly after. His son said his father knew the end was coming.
“He knew it wasn’t if it was going to get him, but when,” Daniel said.
Del Pino is among more than 57,000 first responders diagnosed with 9/11-related cancer, and one of nearly 5,900 who have died from the disease. His son, now a detective, says his father was proud of his NYPD career and would listen to a police scanner to track his calls.
The father’s final act of remembrance came on September 11, 2025, when he pushed through his pain to honor those who never made it home. He slipped into a coma two days later.
What would drive a man to stand in uniform one last time, knowing his own clock was running out?
