The now-toxic shirt that a Miami-Dade man wore for hours while helping with rescue efforts during the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan was stolen from the back seat of his SUV last week.

Yehuda Kaploun lived in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001 and volunteered at Ground Zero for hours. He threw the shirt he was wearing in a closet, never washed it, then kept it as a memento, hermetically sealed in a plastic bag.

"The shirt is covered in toxins, the asbestos, the lead, the zinc, whatever was in the air at that time when the buildings came down, the construction material," he said.

Kaploun put the shirt in a box and loaded it into his SUV parked outside his house in northeast Miami-Dade on Wednesday. By Thursday morning, the box was gone.

"If that person who had that shirt, or touched that shirt, he'd be very smart in seeking immediate medical attention," Kaploun said. "I would have to call it the world's stupidest criminal because he really is putting his life in danger, and if he's opened up the bag he definitely exposed himself to tremendous toxins."

In 2006, the New York Post included the shirt in a report about medical benefits for 9/11 first responders. The debate reignited in Congress last week, and Kaploun was about to mail the shirt to a reporter who planned to use it in a story.

Kaploun contacted the police but doubts he'll ever see the shirt again. He had intended to give it to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City.

"Thanks to a stupid criminal the American public does not get a chance to be able to have that piece of history," he said.