Wednesday marks eighteen years since the 9/11 terror attacks claimed as many as 3,000 lives in the United States. Now, a cancer patient is trying to get compensation from September 11th Victim Compensation Fund claiming he was exposed to toxins at Ground Zero in the wake of the attacks.

The 37-year-old Richard Fahrer is among tens of thousands who according to the World Trade Center Health Programme had been diagnosed with aggressive forms of cancers at a young age seemingly as a result of being exposed to the carcinogenic substances that were released following the attacks.

The young father believes the officials could have warned residents to stay away from Ground Zero latent with dioxins and asbestos. The officials could have protected them.

"They blatantly told us that it was safe to be down here," says Fahrer who used to work as a land surveyor between 2001 and 2003 in south Manhattan, where the Twin Towers had come crashing down.

"Go back to your day jobs. Go back to work. Do live life like you normally would. So, for work, for pleasure, for recreation, I carried out my normal daily life activities and here I am 18 years later fighting for my life."

Fahrer is represented by Matthew J. Baione, a lawyer from the firm Pitta & Baione.

"I think the government failed to protect the victims by doing quite the opposite of protecting them," says Baione who adds even long after the attacks the air remained toxic.

"The chemicals burnt for 99 days emitting into the air horrible cancer-causing toxins."

Fahrer's wife asks him whether he believes the terrorists who flew the passenger planes into the World Trade Centre buildings on September 11, 2001 had a hand in causing his colon cancer.

"I don't think I will ever know the truth of that," he says but adds, "I do know though that I am suffering unexpectedly and I had also been exposed for a significant period of time following 9/11."