HOUSTON – A Houston firefighter who helped Ground Zero after Sept. 11, 2001 died after a long battle with cancer.
Captain Anthony Tortorice fought the disease for four years.
Tortorice was a leader in the Houston Fire Department and with Texas Task Force One, the elite federal search and rescue team.
It was that job that took him to Ground Zero and Tortorice spent two weeks in New York.
More than 2,000 firefighters and others who were there now suffer from some kind of lung disorder or cancer. Tortorice learned about his carcinoma after a routine firefighters physical.
It will never be proven, but if 9/11 caused his cancer Tortorice had always said he would go back without hesitation.
"We just do the job because that is what we were hired to do, what we love to do,” said HFD Cpt. Dennis Levasseur. “That is what we are going to do. We are going to risk our lives to save others."
Tortorice was a 34-year veteran of HFD.
"He was a strong man. If I could just be half of him I would be well off,” said Levasseur.
His memorial service is Saturday at the Champion Life Center on FM 2920 in Spring. It starts at 11 a.m.
