September 5, 2023 • 48 mins
When the World Trade Center was struck on 9/11, Sonia promised her husband, an NYPD officer who responded to the attack, that she wouldn’t go to the site to help. But she couldn’t keep that promise and volunteered as a recovery worker at Ground Zero on overnight shifts. In addition to grieving their losses, the Agrons soon began to deal with various illnesses brought on by exposure to Ground Zero’s toxic environment. In spite of this, Sonia has continued volunteering by leading tours at the 9/11 Tribute Museum and 9/11 Memorial.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Joe came home and he sees me dressed and goes,
it's ten and I go, yeah, I gotta go to
Brooklyn sign in, get my paperwork done. Four. I'm been
assigned to ground zero. No you haven't, Yes, I haven't. Don't.
(00:25):
We usually discuss things. I says, yeah, but you've been
too busy. And he looked at me and he goes, I
don't want you to go, and I said, well, where
would you be. We got into the car and he
would not speak to me. We got to Brooklyn and
he opened the door and he said you sure. I
can't convince you. I said, will you stop going? And
he got back in the carn and said, I'll see
(00:46):
you tomorrow. I said, good. I said, We're not winning
any fight here. It's just something I need to do.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney,
normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, and an entrepreneur.
And I'm a football coach in Inner City Memphis. And
the last part unintentionally led to an oscar for the
film about our team, it's called Undefeated. I believe our
country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of
fancy people and nice suits using big words that nobody
(01:19):
understands on CNN and Box, but rather by an army
of normal folks US just you and me saying hey,
I can help. That's what Sonya Agron, the voice we
just heard, has done. After the nine to eleven terrorist attacks,
Sonya volunteered at the toxic rubble of Ground zero to
help support the recovery and clean up of her and
(01:41):
this duty she felt that her husband Joe could not
stop tragically resulted in a steep personal price that you'll
soon hear about. And yet despite that, Sonya would do
it all over again, and she's still volunteering through a
world of pain. I can't wait for you to meet Sonya.
Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, Sonia,
(02:22):
how are you?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
And I am doing just fine.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It is wonderful to meet you. I've been looking forward
to talking with you. I've got so many questions for you.
But this is an army of normal folks and I'm
just looking at this bubbly lady sitting across from me,
and to be thinking that I'm speaking to you in
(02:47):
the shadow of Freedom Tower right now is even more
surreal for me and We'll get into why that's important
in a minute, but first come from what'd you grow up?
Who is who is Sonya? The little girl?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Sonya was born and raised in the South Bronx.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
In South Bronx.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yes, South.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Is there a difference in I'm from Memphis. Yes, it
is the difference in North and South Bronx.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, okay, of course North Bronx is on the other
side and South Bronx is on the I was saying
in the beginning, when you get off the highway, there
you are in the South Bronx.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Well back when you grew up there is there a
difference in the in the nationalities of people.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Oh no, no, no. When I grew up, dear lord,
we had Italians, Irish, Blacks, Latinos. It's just a real
melting augish board of people. And you know, for us,
it was like, let's learn how to do this, let's
learn how to do that. It was amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So it was a microcosm of New York really, absolutely,
it was just so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
And it's gone, is it? It is gone.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
It's lost that identity now.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So a lot of places, I would say, except maybe
little Italy has lost that culturism that we all were
a part of. No, we didn't see racism, we didn't
have people talk down to us. It was just it
was just one big it was a village.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It was a village. And so that's that's and that's
where you grew up in. Did you go to school?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
And yes, I all my life, I went to Saint
Pias Elementary School and Pius fifth let's not forget the
fish and sat Pious to fifth high school.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Got it. And when you graduated high school, what did
sonya want to do?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well? Experience at that time taught me I didn't want
to be in a Catholic school anymore, and so I
turned down college applications and decided to just go work.
I wanted to be free from all of that guilt
that they were putting in you. And I'm like, I
can't take four more years of this, which is a regret.
(05:02):
It is a regret.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
But so you went to work.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I went to work for an insurance company, and then
my mom didn't like that, so she pulled me out
and put me in a multi service company that services
the entire area for services that the city or the
government won't provide.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So you grow up in the bronx. Do you have siblings?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
How, well, I'm the baby, so there's four more.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
For me, four more before years five?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, just a good old Catholic family having kids.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
What was your what was your mother and father? What
they did?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well, my father was a shoe cop that he may choose.
This was right after he got out of the Korean War,
and he stayed doing that for several years. My mother
worked with him, and then sadly, my dad got sick
and mom had to stay home and take care of
him and us at the same time.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh my goodness. Yeah, but you know, it was just
didn't know any difference.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
It was. It was normal.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, big tight Catholic family.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Imagine dinner was pretty good, dog.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Okay. What was your mom's best dish?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Oh, my gosh, her chicken and rice.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Okay, but rice doesn't sound Italian to me, you're starting to.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It's not Italian, it's Puerto Rican. Because we would go
to the live chicken store and they would, you know,
turn the neck of the chicken in the chicken it's
called No, we didn't know the butcher did, and then
they would defeather him and then we would have homemade
chicken soup with the leftover of whatever we put in
(06:43):
the rice and the beans.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Well, because you said Italian and Irish and everything, well no,
I was thinking Italian foods. But so your heritage Puerto Rican, Yes,
I got it. So it wasn't just Italian and Irish Porto.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I always say Latinos wise he covers everybody.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, yeah, wow, what a way to grow up.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
You ended up getting married to this guy, yeah, which
was odd.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I have known him. He was a family friend and
I knew him and he had been married, and he
would always talk to me. He just Joe, Joe Agron
and he always.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
As the Bronx. Yes, isn't everybody from the Bronx name Joe.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
No. There are some places elsewhere there Italian amblehoods. You
have a lot of giuseppees there. He was the family friend.
And there were times when I would it was a
party girl. I would come home and see you.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yes I was, but you're a Catholic school girl.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
This was way after you know, I found my wings
and my only thing was that I love to dance
and I love to go out to different restaurants. That's
just what the girls wanted to do, and we hated
doing that with guys because they would just My husband
on midnights would see me leave and then he'd see
me come back and he would start lecturing me like
a dad. And I used to tell him, my dad's gone,
(08:10):
you don't have to be places. And then one day,
actually he told my sister that he was interested in me.
But I kept turning him away because I didn't want
any baggage, you know, married, well, divorce and a child
like you know. Plus he wasn't cop. Yeah, he wants
(08:33):
and he was so serious all the time. You know.
He served during the Vietnam War. His father was a VET.
And then his mother pulled the Sullivan Act called the Congressman.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Is that I don't want my boy to go he
wants to date that guy?
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Well I did. I didn't because I just felt too
much luggage, you know, I don't want that. And then
one day my sister said, he has something to tell you,
and it came to the apartment and I said, well
he's a friend. By now he says, well, there's somebody
I like that, you know, and I want to know
how should I go about asking her? And I said
(09:11):
to you. Yes, So I said, I know this person.
Now I'm feeling really mad because I really really did
like him, and now he likes somebody that I like,
and I'm like oh. And then I said, just tell
her you like her and you want to take her out.
You want to see how fa this goes? And he
repeated and I said, yeah, great, you got it. Yeah,
I want to I like you and I want to
take you. I want to see how fa this goes?
(09:33):
Yeah great, second time's great. You don't have to do
it again. Yes, I do. I like you and I
want to take you out and see where it goes.
And I just started to mumble, like me, really me,
and he had a call. He went back. I went
up to me. It's his sister and she said, he
does really like you, but you just keep turning him away.
(09:54):
And I go, well, what do I do? Now? He's
a family friend who dates they're friends. And well, here
we are, thirty eight years later.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
What howld were you?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I was twenty two to his twenty nine.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Got it? Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:12):
He robbed the cradle, he surely did, and I always.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Robbed the cradle at a party girl, Yeah, cradle.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Well that stopped. I got it all out of my system.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
You know, yeah, we all did, right.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
He was just a great addition to a life that
I wanted to have because I was getting tied of
the party.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
You know what, that story, The whole thing is awesome
because this is an army of normal folks and I'm
not spending time interviewing fancy smart politicians that used big
words that I look, if it's more than three syllables,
I have a problem with it anyway, because so and
(10:51):
you know, you are a bronx girl one of five,
grew up going to Catholic school and didn't go to college,
went to work and ended up marrying a.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Cop and divorced with a child.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Divorced with a child. But you know, I mean, just
a just a normal gal trying to forge a life
in our country. Absolutely, it's who you are. So half
of your marriage is a cop and the other half
ends up getting into emergency medical services.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
I was always working administry. I was working in mcgro hell,
different different companies, and one day there on my lunchtime,
a woman just collapsed on the street. Remember we didn't
have cell phones any of that, and people just walked
by her and are you seriously. Oh yeah, that's.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I've heard those stories. But when you say walk by,
you mean acted like they didn't even see the person.
And I see that that makes me crazy.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
That was to me disgraceful because it has just been mother,
and she was could have been anybody I knew, even
someone well I didn't know, and she was she must
have had a fainting spell, but she was confused. She
was sitting on the sidewalk, and you know, I called
there was a steak shop and I screamed out and
I said, can you call nine one one please? And
(12:19):
I asked a question.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So did you go neil by her?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I stood by her and I asked her to give
me numbers to see if there was anyone I could call.
And all she did was hold my hand. She was trembling,
and she said, I just got a little think. They said,
are you sick? I asked her all these questions and.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Of course you have no training.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
This is what you're supposed to do a kind you know.
I was just sad for her that I didn't know
if she had family not. But what if she didn't,
how would she get home? How would anyone help her?
And so they called the ambulance and I stayed with
her and I just jotted down on a napkin everything
(12:59):
she had told me, and this was a number in
case she passes out. And I wasn't allowed to go
on the bus at the time.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
That was but that was kindness. But did that spark oh?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Oh? Oh? Immediately I started looking up medical jobs and
at that time, you had to take a training for
e KG. Then you had to take a training for
being a phlebotomist. Then you had to take a training
for this. And I had all my certificates and I
still wasn't happy. And so my husband, he would become
my husband. Then he would say, well, why don't you try,
(13:32):
you know, EMS or the police department. And I tried
the police department, went through everything, and I guess my
husband didn't think I would manage, and he said, oh, no,
there's only room in this family for one. You make
me nervous. I would always worry about who are you
going to go after? And I said, so I'm going
to go EMT school. It's it's what I wanted.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
May not have wanted his wife to have a gun
at the house.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
He didn't, Yeah, no, he didn't. I mean when he
was The decision was made by me when he took
me to the rain and I had to shoot, and
I said, yeah, no, there's no way I'm ever going
to do that. I'm not comfortable with that. No, you know,
I can't run fastes. But it led to it led
to me going to EMS, and when I graduated, it
(14:15):
was one of the most proudest days of my life
because now I'm accomplishing something, not just working for money
and put a roof over my head, and it was
if I was able to go back, I would go
back in a heartbeat. I love that job.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
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(14:54):
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If not, just keep listening. We'll be right back. So
(16:05):
here we go. And then at some point, you guys
have a daughter.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
I think we had a daughter in Gee you make
me go too far back on nineteen eighty five. Okay,
So she's in the thirties now.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Okay, So what we have is we've got Joe and
Sonya married with a daughter. One's a cop, one's an
e MS person, and you guys are just doing the
doing the life right for us. That was it. Well,
that's a great life. Everything's normal, and your cruising down
(16:41):
normal Americana Street. Absolutely, live in the dream. Absolutely, And
nine eleven comes.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Well. I was retired by then, but because of an accident,
and I just became a perpetual volunteer. Anyway they needed help,
that's where I was. So nine to eleven was my
husband's fifty first birthday, and that morning his only job
I assigned him jobs was to take our daugh to
the school, come home, turn on the TV, and relax
until I got back. I was in Manhattan. We were
(17:12):
going to celebrate his day, and I was in the
NBC building and we were told to evacuate. Nobody was
telling us why. I'm thinking gas leak. I'm in New York.
I know how this works. And then wall to wall
people fighter jets, and I knew something was wrong.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Oh you saw the fighter jet was gass This is
in midtown.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And suddenly my cell phone rang up. And the only
odd thing about that in our family, we didn't we
didn't want everyone to have a cell phone. So whoever
went out that day got the cell phone got it.
So I got it, and he called me and he said, listen,
to me, carefully, we're at war, we're under attack. You
(17:52):
need to take the next bus out and stay away
from the trains. But we got it cut off.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Was he worried that the trains were going to train
traces should be bob He said that because this is fresh,
it's just happened.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Well, he had, he had done a lot of training
for disorder control and that include biohazard things, and he
was he didn't change.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Was he on the job on the first failed attempt?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yea, and yes he was. So when he came home
that day, that the day after, and I don't think
I'll ever forget the look on his face. He said,
they're not done. They'll be back, and we better be
prepared because they're going to do more damage than they
did that.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
So when it really happened, his call to you was
he knew, And I guess I guess you had to
have known.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I know at first I thought ghastly, but when I
saw I couldn't even turn around. There were so many
people right, and I saw the fire fighter jets, and
I thought we were in deep trouble. But I never
thought it was the World Trade Censer because they hit
it once.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So I said this, and so when he when he
called you and said don't take the or listen to
me carefully and it got cut off, did you know
then it was the World Trades and you still didn't know.
All you knew was all hell was breaking loose somewhere,
and your husband, who had a drugt line being a
cop to what was going on, was telling you to
go home, and that was all you knew then. Yeah,
(19:19):
and then which says to me, I mean, how many
not the exact number, but how many people on a
given day or run around Manhattan?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Oh, thousands, millions, not more than that.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, okay, So I'm thinking of you standing there with
a group of people of sirns going off. There are
literally millions of people who at this point, unless you're
at the World Trade Center on this island, you really
don't know what's going on. It's a lot of confusion.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
We thought of bombs.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
We thought what kind of bombs, like somebody dropped a
bomb or somebody bombs.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
We're thinking of nineteen ninety three, somebody put a bomb
in a building. There are going to be several buildings.
That's why they evacuate us. Because we wanted the tallest building.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
And I'm imagining this. If you're standing in this group
of people all pushed out, there's fighter planes up there.
People are probably all getting calls from someone who's closer
to it, so you probably are all talking to each
other about you know, what is this? What is this?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
We're hearing? I'm hearing it. But my goal was no,
I don't do everything my husband tells me to do,
but when he tells me get out or duck, that's
what I do. And I ran to the bus stop
and it was like a ghost town. Buses kept driving.
There was nobody in there. They were not allowed to
pick up anybody because the city had.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Shut down, so the buses weren't nothing, which which leads
me to the images of all the people. I remember. Look,
I'm from Memphis, okay, and I believe rarely, but sometimes
there are things that happen that affect our national consciousness.
(21:02):
And a guy from Memphis and a gal from the
Bronx are rarely brought together and become kindred spirits as Americans.
But that day did. And I remember where I was
on that day, and and but my reality is from
images that the news. Like most Americans, we weren't here.
(21:26):
But I do remember the picture of all these people
walking across the bridge, and I always thought, why are
they walking? And of course they can't catch cab or
maybe they can't get to the car. But now just
now understand one, you're afraid to go on the subways
and the trains because I guess as New York as
your train, that's a pact.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
We didn't have a choice. The mayor had shut down,
the shut down the trains, everything.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So you couldn't even get on a bus. So the
only way to get the hell out of here was walk.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Walker jump into the Hudson.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
River, which is probably advise.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Tom hak No. Tom Hank has a beautiful story that
he does on YouTube where it's called the Unsung Heroes,
where many people bought their pleasure boats. Even they across
across and people were jumping in, they didn't realize when
they got out of the buildings that if they went upwards,
that was the end of Manhattan. People were able to
(22:19):
get through all the bridges and tunnels, but if you
got out and ran to your left, you were stock.
That's the end of Manhattan. So many friends of mine
actually tell me the story of how they jumped in
the water. They they just kept seeing all these images
and they needed to get out. They didn't care how,
And that's desperation, that's fear.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So Joe calls and says, listen to me where or
don't get in the trains and find a way to
get home, basically, and you do, but you don't hear
from them.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I don't find a way to get home until maybe four.
I'm stuck, and I guess my training kicked in. Where
would I find accurate information because too many people were
saying too many things and that wasn't accurate. And I decide,
I'm going to go to a hotel. I'm gonna they
have to have TVs and I'm going to be able
(23:19):
to hear clearly. And when I sat down at that point,
I don't even remember their time, but I'm going to
assume it was the South Tower that went down. And
then I'm just sitting there and shot, is it a
replay or what? And it must have been a replay
because now we're hearing about Shanks fit well, we're hearing
about the Pentagon, and then the North tower go, uh no,
(23:43):
then the South tower does, so then it was a
North tower. You see how hard that is for me
to figure out. That's one thing that bothers me. Sometimes
My memory is I write things down and when I
saw all this happen automatically, it clicks when he says
we're at war, because I didn't understand when he said
it to me, and I said, well, where is he
(24:05):
calling me from? That he knew so much information, And
at that moment, I thought he's gone, and I realized
he was down there. I didn't think anything about my daughter.
I was just trying to absorb the fact that my
husband was gone on his birthday. And I continued to
watch and watch, no phone calls, nothing, And at the
bottom of the TV the mayor put out a message
(24:27):
that he was opening up the city for about an
hour or two and I ran, got a cab, got home,
and now I'm thinking, I don't have my car, How
do I get to my daughter? Where is my daughter's phone?
Aren't phones aren't working? Now what? But when I got home,
she was there, and I realized at that moment he
must have picked her up. When he heard the very
(24:48):
first account it hadn't been It was alleged that plane
had hit the building. We didn't have any other news.
He picked up his keys because he knew, this is it,
this is what we've been waiting for for eight and
a half years. And he picked our daughter up, dropped
her off, and she was sitting there and she watched everything,
and when mom didn't come home.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
She's she's wondering if she's lost her family.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, she thought I went to respond because even though
I was retired, once a first responder, always a first responder.
We don't give that up.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
So when you walk.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
In, she thought I was a ghost.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah, she was like she was being shocked. But what's
interesting then, now you and your daughter are there. Now
the two of you are wondering about Joe.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And that actually didn't last until maybe five because he
did call, but his voice was different. I've answered jobs
with my husband and I know his voice. And he's saying, baby,
it's bad. It's dark and I'm looking out my window.
Where are you that it's so dark? And he says
it's a war zone. I can't see my hand in.
(25:59):
His voice is so different than anything I've ever heard,
and I can hear the background radio and he says, listen,
it's it's really bad. I sometimes I don't even know
where I am and I have to collect my thoughts.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Did he say I'm at this tower that?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
No, he said I am. He said, I'm getting a
break at ten and I will call you. Then I
am near Tower seven setting up for the National Guard.
Got it and the tower seven collapsed, Yes, collapsed, he
calls you.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Tower seven is still standing and he's setting up for
the National Guard. And all you know is it's bad,
and you know your strong cop husband.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
But I'm good because daddy's okay.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
But you hear in his voice and I'm serious.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Of the site, you know, I know Tower seven's across
the street. And at one point after that, the phone
rings again. There's no service, but he got because of
next hell the walkie talkie phones. And the next thing,
I get another call and I'm like, okay, he needs
to talk again, which we were so happy to hear.
And it was a friend from out of town. And
(27:11):
now she's talking. I realized, wait a minute, she got through,
and I'm giving her everybody's number at home. Call them.
I can't get through. You can watch TV. Everything is
now live. He's near how A seven, and that's when
I was informed how I seven went down and I
don't remember how we hung up. I just remember grabbing
(27:34):
my daughter because she was saying, how horrible is this
that we were allowed to say I love you and
happy birthday and he's gone. And it was that moment
that I needed her to realize. I couldn't be anybody
but a mom at that time, and I needed her
to understand that there were thousands of people that were
never going to get that basketbye. And we did. And
(27:54):
I said, we're going to hold on to that because
if he called, and he said he's calling, it ten
and he's gonna call. So we sit, we pray, and
we do whatever we can so spiritually we can bring
people back home. And we did that.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
He called, and so we thought he was you know,
you've lost your husband, and your daughter knows she's lost
her father.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
I didn't tell her, I am well, she knew. What
I kept telling him was come on, you know, he's busy.
This tower just went down. He's running.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
You're trying to reassure her, which is a bunch of
bs because inside your heart and head.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I had to be a mom, I get it. I
couldn't see her. What good was it that all both
of us were freaking out. And then I just remembered
thinking I didn't wanted daylight to come because that meant
I was adow and I would be a single mom.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
But there's a twist of the story, which.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Is he came home. He came home. I didn't recognize him.
He was covered in that grace, so he just managed
to watch his face and my husband came home, but
his heart and soul was back there. He couldn't talk.
It was just totally he was not the man I
kissed goodbye the day before, and he wouldn't speak much
(29:11):
except to say that he was injured and I had
to fix him up.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
What was his injury?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
He had fallen down about four flight The floor was
actually very weak. He had fallen down about four flights
of stairs, and it looked like, oh.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Whoa, whoa, wha, wha. Let me get this and let
me just say this now and to our listeners and
to you, and I think, now it's a good good
time for me to get on my soapbox for a minute.
Nine of them. For people probably thirty five years and older,
(29:49):
we remember where we were, and it's kind of like
all my grandparents always talked about. They remembered where they
were during Pearl Harbor and then the next generations along,
and certainly they know historically what happened at Pearl Harbor,
but they didn't feel it, not like my grandparents did.
And I still, before we sat down for our chat today,
(30:15):
I walked around the corner and I looked up at
the building, and I just I don't want to sensationalize
the story for the purposes of trying to make a
podcast that is interesting, and so that's not what my
next questions and thoughts are going to be about. But
(30:36):
in the same respect, I feel like everybody in their
young thirties, mid thirties, to my children, they see every
year in the anniversary of nine to eleven the images
on TV, and they know two buildings were hit by
planes and they burned down, but they don't feel what
I felt. And they sure as hell don't feel what
(30:56):
you felt being here. And I feel like if we
lose that collective consciousness as a nation, we risk a lot.
And so I'm going to ask you some questions. But again,
it's not to sensatialize it. It's because I want our
listeners to try to feel this. And he came home
(31:22):
with soot all over him. And you say he fell
down four flights of stairs, but how do you fall
down four flights of stairs?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Floors were very weak. I still don't know the building
he was in or.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
If it was just it had to have been near seven.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, well I don't even know when he fell. I
don't know where he felt. Because my husband hasn't spoken well.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Something had to have collapsed for him. Yeah, so he
was in a collapsing building.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Somewhere, but he can never get there to tell me.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Okay, but I saw still to the stay. I can't speak.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
It's a lot he won't talk about.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
I understand, but I did find TSD right.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
We didn't even know we had it. I understand, we
didn't know we had it.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
But so he fell and he came. When he came home,
it was not a joyful reunion, and he's blank from
what he's witnessed. But he wants you to fix him up.
Why didn't he just go to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, he couldn't because they would have reported it back
to NPD and then n MYPD would not have allowed
him to go back to the set.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
So he came to his wife, who has this emergency
medical training. It says, fix me so I can go back,
because if I go to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
They wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
I can't go back and serve and hohole.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Goal was to save somebody, and he didn't. And that's
always what he did.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
What was wrong with him? What was his He?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
When I cut his pants off, he had a very
deep gash on the side of his knee and it
looked like his knee had moved and it was It
looked horrible. And I told him that's above my pay grade.
And he says, who you don't have to fix it,
but I'm going back. And I just took out my
kit and did butterfly stitches and taped him up, and
(33:08):
I said, you have to go to the dock.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Did you have novocaine or anything?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Nothing? Nothing.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
You stitched him up butterfly stitches.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
They're not actually a needle and thread, they're just butterfly stitches.
I held the skin together and crossed them over. I
put a ton of mactration and I covered him as
best as I could, and I said, you need to
go because this is going to get infected. You're going
to get infected in that side.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
So did he get did he what did he do? Shower,
get a bite.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
To eat them, leave, took a shower, didn't heat, sat
on the sofa, and he goes, Okay, this is my schedule.
I'm going We were speechless, like, why are you going back?
Didn't you fulfill your This is how we're thinking, and
he's saying, Oh, this is not going to happen. We're
not going to fix this up in twenty four hours. Honey,
(33:58):
I don't even know if we're going to back from this.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
We'll be right back. So Alex Arstein, producer does really
good work on prepping stuff, and in that prep I
(34:26):
read that he did say, very briefly, it's bad. The
stench is horrible. Soot is everywhere and body parts. Is
that am I paraphrase?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
No, No, you're not. He I should avoid it. I'm sorry.
There's a picture of him standing in front of Brooks
Brothers with his sergeant and that's a clothing store and
he had to bring his team in through seven several
areas that the police department had cleared, and he was
kicking a couple of things that he thought were mannequins
(35:01):
and they won't and his heart breaks because he said,
I didn't get to bring anyone home. That one thing
I kicked could have been closure for a family member,
and it was all over the place, and he just
to this day he even wonders about his partners. Were
they in pieces? And it's hard not to think about that,
because that's something people don't know.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
No, and see, that's just gut wrenching. But I feel
like it's something I've heard so many interviews and read
so much about. But we don't talk about this enough,
in my opinion, because as hard as this is to
think about and hear, if you don't understand this, you
don't understand the depth of this attack.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
No they don't.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Why were their body parts on the ground.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
When the buildings went down? They went down hurricane win forces.
So we have one hundred and ten floors. We were
losing ten floors per second. So those towers went down
in twelve seconds, and so if you were in the way,
you were pularized. And this was mostly from the top.
(36:15):
Maybe as the towers kept going down, it just took
people win them. Some whole bodies were found, but not
until months later. And you were I hate to save
you lucky, but if you were in the higher floors,
there was a chance they would find a good portion
of your body if you won the lower floors, there
was no chance.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
What if you were just outside the buildings. If it
was her case, for the sheer power and energy created
by the falling building, even if you were one hundred
feet or two hundred feet away from the actual rube,
you would have built in a way the wind would
rep people who.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Were on the cars. At one point, when my husband
called earlier that I kept hearing him do a spitting sound,
which you know, like what are you doing? And he says,
I'm just pulling concrete stuff that came in my mouth
when the second tower went So now I know he
(37:13):
was there for the second tower going down, and he
won't talk about anymore. I know that I heard him
tell one of his friends, which I had made a
point to bring a lot of his friends back into
his life, where he says, you know, what could I
do but run? This cloud was chasing us and that's
(37:37):
what he was talking about the darkness. And he kept
saying I never seen anything like this before.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
And do they feel some kind of weird guilt because
they had to run?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, my husband does, how are they going to do? Well?
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Just stand there and die.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
That's what I told him, and he said it was
coming after us. And as I'm running, I'm trying to
get people around with me. But he would feel guilty.
He would start feeling guilt about two or three weeks
later when the mayor finally said it was no longer
rescue and recovery was just recovery. And that's when he
(38:13):
had to accept his friend was gone, his partner, He
trained with him, did a lot of things with him.
And he goes, I can't accept that he's gone, and
I'm not. And as a wife, I wanted to tell
him that's kind of a blessing you live to talk
about it, and he goes, I'm not talking about this.
No one would ever believe it because we're cops. This
(38:35):
is our job.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
So the firefighters, the police, the port authority, all the
first responders there that day. Again not to sensationalize it,
but I mean, before the buildings fell, there were people
on the top of these towers that had a choice
(38:58):
to make, which is is die by my flesh melting.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Jump and they did.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
And I remember reading something that said that one of
the most terrific sounds of the day was the thud
of bodies hitting the ground.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
And they are where you hear that. With the five
there are videos where you hear that the firefighters are
looking up and you can hear the thud. And we
had one of those videos at the nine to eleven
Tribute Museum and we turned the sound off because family
members would come to visit the museum and we didn't
want them to think, was that my son, my mother,
(39:36):
my daughter, So we had to thud. Yeah, we didn't
want to do that. And then we also had an
airplane window and we didn't identify what plane it was
because we didn't want any family member to come in
and wonder if their loved one was sitting next to
that window.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
And so these first responders, the ones that survived.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
The day, they're not surviving.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
They survived that day, I.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Will tell you. They started dying on nine to eleven.
So we didn't know. And you know, first the PTSD
gets you. Then you have the we call the World
Trade Center mark. It's a cough we all have when
we wake up in the morning or soon after that.
We were pulling things out of our nose that were
(40:22):
dark and slimy. We just didn't understand and then we
had our own government tell us the air quality was safe,
and that's because Wall Street had to open, so you know,
they needed the money, but money was more important in lives.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
We're going to get to that in a second, because
that's part of the beauty of what you've done with this.
But again, not to overdo it, but the bottom line
is if you survived the day and your first responder,
now what you're doing is you're literally stepping over not
(41:00):
just you're not just cleaning up debris and rubble. You're
cleaning up pieces of human beings. You're cleaning up horrific
things that we are that caring, loving human beings just
can't ever unsee or unfeel.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Can unring a bell, right, I just can't.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Okay. So for those of you who are listening and
think nine to eleven was just about two planes flying
into two buildings because some terrorists decided to attack us,
that's true. But the other truth is that more people
(41:41):
have died as a result of the cleanup, and since
the day of nine eleven, the actually died on the
day of not just true. So the truth is the
attack is not quit killing. Even these twenty something years later, nine.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
To eleven didn't end for us. Nine to eleven didn't
end for us.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
It's still continuous, continuing to stop, and.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
We are told, especially some lives. I have two stories.
My husband is sick and I was recovery worker. I'm sick.
But when people don't know that, and they know that
Joe was there, they go, what are you crying about?
He came home, and then they make.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
You probably reliving it every single well.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
They don't know that. They just feel I'm ungrateful that
he came home. Look at all the other women that
don't have husbands, and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Does.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Not just for his his police officer friends, but for people?
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Do you have survivors cope?
Speaker 1 (42:43):
No, I don't know. I just feel that I could
have done more. I should have gone before. I should
have I was so close. I could have just walked
over and helped. My thought process was get home to
your daughter. You know, That's always been his job, you know.
(43:04):
But after that, what went wrong with me? I was
in a respite center with the Red Cross.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Well hang on now, let me let me explain that.
So as a normal person from the BRONX who grows
up and marries this guy and has this love affair
and starts off this normal American life and just a
(43:32):
normal person living a life. You know this nine eleven
interrupts and changes the rest of your lives forever. So
Joe keeps coming home night after night with this filthy
and blank stare on his face. And you have this
(43:55):
EMS training and you decide you're going to volunteer with
the Red Cross and work in these centers. What was
Joe's response to that?
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Well, he was very angry. He's angry, super angry.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Was he angry because he was trying to protect you?
He just didn't doubt you to.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Be No, that was it. That was it. It wasn't
that I was going because he has never told me
I couldn't go anywhere, okay, But he asked me why,
and I said, because I lied to our daughter for
days after nine to eleven. I would take her to
school and she didn't want to go to school. And
I gave her this big patriot to talk about terrorism
(44:40):
and we can't let them win. And if she didn't
go to school.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
To mom, I was tough, loving mom.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
But I didn't believe one word I said. I just
needed her to go to school and be sixteen so
I would after she went to school, I would drive
underneath some trees and sit there until it was time
for how to get out. And every day I lied,
I was, I had a great day, and I did this,
and I did that until one day she came out
of school and said, Mom, we're going to be okay.
But you know, I can see you out the window.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
She saw you part.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Of her friends.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
I thought it was so were you in the car crying?
Speaker 1 (45:14):
I was crying. I was listening to music.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
So you So your daughter is in school looking out
at your mom sitting in.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
The car after I'm telling her she shouldn't do this. Yeah,
And so I felt I sent her the wrong message.
And I just called a few people and before I know,
you're going to Brooklyn and I mean.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Back then, that's not a funny show. No, I laugh
about all the time.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
And then one day Joe came home and he and
he sees me dressed and goes it's ten and I go, yeah,
ten pm, ten.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Pm, and you're dressed up radio. Did he think maybe
you're reverting back to your party girl times?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Sure, I wouldn't want to do that. I was kidding,
But he just came in and goes, we're going somewhere,
and I said, no, you're not. But I got to
go to brook Brooklyn sign in, get my paperwork done
for I'm been assigned to ground zero. No you haven't, Yes,
I haven't. Don't. We usually discuss things. I says, yeah,
(46:14):
but you've been too busy. I always try to get
out of these things. And I said, well, I'm going,
and he looked at me and he goes, I don't
want you to go, And I said, well, where would
you be? And he drove me.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
He didn't want you to go. He was afraid, because
he's afraid of everything. You're going to even.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Actually, well what I do with her? My daughter? And
I go, she's sixteen. She knows how to put herself
to sleep, but what if you're not here in the morning.
She knows how to get herself to school. And he goes,
but I go, no more, but honey, I'm going because
you were there. I want to be there too. I
want to help. We got into the car and he
would not speak to me. We got to Brooklyn and
he opened the door and he said, you sure. I
(46:53):
can't convince you. I said, will you stop going? And
he got back in the car and said I'll see
you to me, I said good. I said, we're not
winning any fight here. It's just something I need to do.
And once you understand that, you won't to have a
problem with me going down and he didn't after that.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
That concludes Part one of our conversations with Sonya Agron,
and I really hope you'll listen to part two that's
now available as her Heroism. It's just getting started, but
if you don't, make sure you join the Army of
Normal Folks at Normal Folks, start us and sign up
to become a member of the movement. It only takes
(47:36):
committing to doing one new thing this year to help others,
and there will be a ton of awesome ideas on
this podcast. When the folks were featuring, some of them
may resonate with you deeply and others may not at all,
and that's okay because we're called to do different things.
By signing up, you'll also receive a weekly email with
short episode some reason in case you happen to miss
(47:57):
an episode or you prefer reading about our on credit Well,
gus together we can change the country, but it starts
with you. I'll see in Part two
Joe came home and he sees me dressed and goes,
it's ten and I go, yeah, I gotta go to
Brooklyn sign in, get my paperwork done. Four. I'm been
assigned to ground zero. No you haven't, Yes, I haven't. Don't.
(00:25):
We usually discuss things. I says, yeah, but you've been
too busy. And he looked at me and he goes, I
don't want you to go, and I said, well, where
would you be. We got into the car and he
would not speak to me. We got to Brooklyn and
he opened the door and he said you sure. I
can't convince you. I said, will you stop going? And
he got back in the carn and said, I'll see
(00:46):
you tomorrow. I said, good. I said, We're not winning
any fight here. It's just something I need to do.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney,
normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, and an entrepreneur.
And I'm a football coach in Inner City Memphis. And
the last part unintentionally led to an oscar for the
film about our team, it's called Undefeated. I believe our
country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of
fancy people and nice suits using big words that nobody
(01:19):
understands on CNN and Box, but rather by an army
of normal folks US just you and me saying hey,
I can help. That's what Sonya Agron, the voice we
just heard, has done. After the nine to eleven terrorist attacks,
Sonya volunteered at the toxic rubble of Ground zero to
help support the recovery and clean up of her and
(01:41):
this duty she felt that her husband Joe could not
stop tragically resulted in a steep personal price that you'll
soon hear about. And yet despite that, Sonya would do
it all over again, and she's still volunteering through a
world of pain. I can't wait for you to meet Sonya.
Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, Sonia,
(02:22):
how are you?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
And I am doing just fine.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It is wonderful to meet you. I've been looking forward
to talking with you. I've got so many questions for you.
But this is an army of normal folks and I'm
just looking at this bubbly lady sitting across from me,
and to be thinking that I'm speaking to you in
(02:47):
the shadow of Freedom Tower right now is even more
surreal for me and We'll get into why that's important
in a minute, but first come from what'd you grow up?
Who is who is Sonya? The little girl?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Sonya was born and raised in the South Bronx.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
In South Bronx.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yes, South.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Is there a difference in I'm from Memphis. Yes, it
is the difference in North and South Bronx.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, okay, of course North Bronx is on the other
side and South Bronx is on the I was saying
in the beginning, when you get off the highway, there
you are in the South Bronx.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Well back when you grew up there is there a
difference in the in the nationalities of people.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Oh no, no, no. When I grew up, dear lord,
we had Italians, Irish, Blacks, Latinos. It's just a real
melting augish board of people. And you know, for us,
it was like, let's learn how to do this, let's
learn how to do that. It was amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So it was a microcosm of New York really, absolutely,
it was just so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
And it's gone, is it? It is gone.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
It's lost that identity now.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So a lot of places, I would say, except maybe
little Italy has lost that culturism that we all were
a part of. No, we didn't see racism, we didn't
have people talk down to us. It was just it
was just one big it was a village.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It was a village. And so that's that's and that's
where you grew up in. Did you go to school?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
And yes, I all my life, I went to Saint
Pias Elementary School and Pius fifth let's not forget the
fish and sat Pious to fifth high school.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Got it. And when you graduated high school, what did
sonya want to do?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well? Experience at that time taught me I didn't want
to be in a Catholic school anymore, and so I
turned down college applications and decided to just go work.
I wanted to be free from all of that guilt
that they were putting in you. And I'm like, I
can't take four more years of this, which is a regret.
(05:02):
It is a regret.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
But so you went to work.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
I went to work for an insurance company, and then
my mom didn't like that, so she pulled me out
and put me in a multi service company that services
the entire area for services that the city or the
government won't provide.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So you grow up in the bronx. Do you have siblings?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
How, well, I'm the baby, so there's four more.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
For me, four more before years five?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, just a good old Catholic family having kids.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
What was your what was your mother and father? What
they did?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well, my father was a shoe cop that he may choose.
This was right after he got out of the Korean War,
and he stayed doing that for several years. My mother
worked with him, and then sadly, my dad got sick
and mom had to stay home and take care of
him and us at the same time.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh my goodness. Yeah, but you know, it was just
didn't know any difference.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
It was. It was normal.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, big tight Catholic family.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Imagine dinner was pretty good, dog.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Okay. What was your mom's best dish?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Oh, my gosh, her chicken and rice.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Okay, but rice doesn't sound Italian to me, you're starting to.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It's not Italian, it's Puerto Rican. Because we would go
to the live chicken store and they would, you know,
turn the neck of the chicken in the chicken it's
called No, we didn't know the butcher did, and then
they would defeather him and then we would have homemade
chicken soup with the leftover of whatever we put in
(06:43):
the rice and the beans.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Well, because you said Italian and Irish and everything, well no,
I was thinking Italian foods. But so your heritage Puerto Rican, Yes,
I got it. So it wasn't just Italian and Irish Porto.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I always say Latinos wise he covers everybody.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, yeah, wow, what a way to grow up.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
You ended up getting married to this guy, yeah, which
was odd.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I have known him. He was a family friend and
I knew him and he had been married, and he
would always talk to me. He just Joe, Joe Agron
and he always.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
As the Bronx. Yes, isn't everybody from the Bronx name Joe.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
No. There are some places elsewhere there Italian amblehoods. You
have a lot of giuseppees there. He was the family friend.
And there were times when I would it was a
party girl. I would come home and see you.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yes I was, but you're a Catholic school girl.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
This was way after you know, I found my wings
and my only thing was that I love to dance
and I love to go out to different restaurants. That's
just what the girls wanted to do, and we hated
doing that with guys because they would just My husband
on midnights would see me leave and then he'd see
me come back and he would start lecturing me like
a dad. And I used to tell him, my dad's gone,
(08:10):
you don't have to be places. And then one day,
actually he told my sister that he was interested in me.
But I kept turning him away because I didn't want
any baggage, you know, married, well, divorce and a child
like you know. Plus he wasn't cop. Yeah, he wants
(08:33):
and he was so serious all the time. You know.
He served during the Vietnam War. His father was a VET.
And then his mother pulled the Sullivan Act called the Congressman.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Is that I don't want my boy to go he
wants to date that guy?
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Well I did. I didn't because I just felt too
much luggage, you know, I don't want that. And then
one day my sister said, he has something to tell you,
and it came to the apartment and I said, well
he's a friend. By now he says, well, there's somebody
I like that, you know, and I want to know
how should I go about asking her? And I said
(09:11):
to you. Yes, So I said, I know this person.
Now I'm feeling really mad because I really really did
like him, and now he likes somebody that I like,
and I'm like oh. And then I said, just tell
her you like her and you want to take her out.
You want to see how fa this goes? And he
repeated and I said, yeah, great, you got it. Yeah,
I want to I like you and I want to
take you. I want to see how fa this goes?
(09:33):
Yeah great, second time's great. You don't have to do
it again. Yes, I do. I like you and I
want to take you out and see where it goes.
And I just started to mumble, like me, really me,
and he had a call. He went back. I went
up to me. It's his sister and she said, he
does really like you, but you just keep turning him away.
(09:54):
And I go, well, what do I do? Now? He's
a family friend who dates they're friends. And well, here
we are, thirty eight years later.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
What howld were you?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I was twenty two to his twenty nine.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Got it? Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:12):
He robbed the cradle, he surely did, and I always.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Robbed the cradle at a party girl, Yeah, cradle.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Well that stopped. I got it all out of my system.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
You know, yeah, we all did, right.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
He was just a great addition to a life that
I wanted to have because I was getting tied of
the party.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
You know what, that story, The whole thing is awesome
because this is an army of normal folks and I'm
not spending time interviewing fancy smart politicians that used big
words that I look, if it's more than three syllables,
I have a problem with it anyway, because so and
(10:51):
you know, you are a bronx girl one of five,
grew up going to Catholic school and didn't go to college,
went to work and ended up marrying a.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Cop and divorced with a child.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Divorced with a child. But you know, I mean, just
a just a normal gal trying to forge a life
in our country. Absolutely, it's who you are. So half
of your marriage is a cop and the other half
ends up getting into emergency medical services.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
I was always working administry. I was working in mcgro hell,
different different companies, and one day there on my lunchtime,
a woman just collapsed on the street. Remember we didn't
have cell phones any of that, and people just walked
by her and are you seriously. Oh yeah, that's.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I've heard those stories. But when you say walk by,
you mean acted like they didn't even see the person.
And I see that that makes me crazy.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
That was to me disgraceful because it has just been mother,
and she was could have been anybody I knew, even
someone well I didn't know, and she was she must
have had a fainting spell, but she was confused. She
was sitting on the sidewalk, and you know, I called
there was a steak shop and I screamed out and
I said, can you call nine one one please? And
(12:19):
I asked a question.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So did you go neil by her?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I stood by her and I asked her to give
me numbers to see if there was anyone I could call.
And all she did was hold my hand. She was trembling,
and she said, I just got a little think. They said,
are you sick? I asked her all these questions and.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Of course you have no training.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
This is what you're supposed to do a kind you know.
I was just sad for her that I didn't know
if she had family not. But what if she didn't,
how would she get home? How would anyone help her?
And so they called the ambulance and I stayed with
her and I just jotted down on a napkin everything
(12:59):
she had told me, and this was a number in
case she passes out. And I wasn't allowed to go
on the bus at the time.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
That was but that was kindness. But did that spark oh?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Oh? Oh? Immediately I started looking up medical jobs and
at that time, you had to take a training for
e KG. Then you had to take a training for
being a phlebotomist. Then you had to take a training
for this. And I had all my certificates and I
still wasn't happy. And so my husband, he would become
my husband. Then he would say, well, why don't you try,
(13:32):
you know, EMS or the police department. And I tried
the police department, went through everything, and I guess my
husband didn't think I would manage, and he said, oh, no,
there's only room in this family for one. You make
me nervous. I would always worry about who are you
going to go after? And I said, so I'm going
to go EMT school. It's it's what I wanted.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
May not have wanted his wife to have a gun
at the house.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
He didn't, Yeah, no, he didn't. I mean when he
was The decision was made by me when he took
me to the rain and I had to shoot, and
I said, yeah, no, there's no way I'm ever going
to do that. I'm not comfortable with that. No, you know,
I can't run fastes. But it led to it led
to me going to EMS, and when I graduated, it
(14:15):
was one of the most proudest days of my life
because now I'm accomplishing something, not just working for money
and put a roof over my head, and it was
if I was able to go back, I would go
back in a heartbeat. I love that job.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
we're now offering premium memberships for the Army of Normal Folks.
For ten bucks a month. You receive special benefits such
as being invited to a private yearly call with other
premium members and me, access to monthly Ask Me Anything episodes,
(14:54):
and occasional bonus audio. If you're interested in this, I
hope you got to Normal Folks dot us and click
on Premium. But guys, that's really not what it's about.
You get all that cool stuff, and we're going to
provide all that stuff, But the truth is we're trying
to grow the Army of Normal Folks and have a
(15:14):
greater impact on the country, and with the premium memberships,
we can fuel our marketing efforts to grow it. This
podcast peaked at number ten on Apple's podcast chart and
all of the US, which is absolutely crazy, and it's
not about me, It's about the guests and it's about you.
So we've decided to set an exciting new goal of
(15:35):
trying to be on Apple's Top Shows chart for our
entire first year, which will mean more at tension, more listeners,
more Army members, and most importantly, more impact. But we
need you as always, so go to Normal Folks dot
us and click on premium if you're down to help.
If not, just keep listening. We'll be right back. So
(16:05):
here we go. And then at some point, you guys
have a daughter.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
I think we had a daughter in Gee you make
me go too far back on nineteen eighty five. Okay,
So she's in the thirties now.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Okay, So what we have is we've got Joe and
Sonya married with a daughter. One's a cop, one's an
e MS person, and you guys are just doing the
doing the life right for us. That was it. Well,
that's a great life. Everything's normal, and your cruising down
(16:41):
normal Americana Street. Absolutely, live in the dream. Absolutely, And
nine eleven comes.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Well. I was retired by then, but because of an accident,
and I just became a perpetual volunteer. Anyway they needed help,
that's where I was. So nine to eleven was my
husband's fifty first birthday, and that morning his only job
I assigned him jobs was to take our daugh to
the school, come home, turn on the TV, and relax
until I got back. I was in Manhattan. We were
(17:12):
going to celebrate his day, and I was in the
NBC building and we were told to evacuate. Nobody was
telling us why. I'm thinking gas leak. I'm in New York.
I know how this works. And then wall to wall
people fighter jets, and I knew something was wrong.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Oh you saw the fighter jet was gass This is
in midtown.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And suddenly my cell phone rang up. And the only
odd thing about that in our family, we didn't we
didn't want everyone to have a cell phone. So whoever
went out that day got the cell phone got it.
So I got it, and he called me and he said, listen,
to me, carefully, we're at war, we're under attack. You
(17:52):
need to take the next bus out and stay away
from the trains. But we got it cut off.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Was he worried that the trains were going to train
traces should be bob He said that because this is fresh,
it's just happened.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Well, he had, he had done a lot of training
for disorder control and that include biohazard things, and he
was he didn't change.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Was he on the job on the first failed attempt?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Yea, and yes he was. So when he came home
that day, that the day after, and I don't think
I'll ever forget the look on his face. He said,
they're not done. They'll be back, and we better be
prepared because they're going to do more damage than they
did that.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
So when it really happened, his call to you was
he knew, And I guess I guess you had to
have known.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I know at first I thought ghastly, but when I
saw I couldn't even turn around. There were so many
people right, and I saw the fire fighter jets, and
I thought we were in deep trouble. But I never
thought it was the World Trade Censer because they hit
it once.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
So I said this, and so when he when he
called you and said don't take the or listen to
me carefully and it got cut off, did you know
then it was the World Trades and you still didn't know.
All you knew was all hell was breaking loose somewhere,
and your husband, who had a drugt line being a
cop to what was going on, was telling you to
go home, and that was all you knew then. Yeah,
(19:19):
and then which says to me, I mean, how many
not the exact number, but how many people on a
given day or run around Manhattan?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Oh, thousands, millions, not more than that.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, okay, So I'm thinking of you standing there with
a group of people of sirns going off. There are
literally millions of people who at this point, unless you're
at the World Trade Center on this island, you really
don't know what's going on. It's a lot of confusion.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
We thought of bombs.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
We thought what kind of bombs, like somebody dropped a
bomb or somebody bombs.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
We're thinking of nineteen ninety three, somebody put a bomb
in a building. There are going to be several buildings.
That's why they evacuate us. Because we wanted the tallest building.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
And I'm imagining this. If you're standing in this group
of people all pushed out, there's fighter planes up there.
People are probably all getting calls from someone who's closer
to it, so you probably are all talking to each
other about you know, what is this? What is this?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
We're hearing? I'm hearing it. But my goal was no,
I don't do everything my husband tells me to do,
but when he tells me get out or duck, that's
what I do. And I ran to the bus stop
and it was like a ghost town. Buses kept driving.
There was nobody in there. They were not allowed to
pick up anybody because the city had.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Shut down, so the buses weren't nothing, which which leads
me to the images of all the people. I remember. Look,
I'm from Memphis, okay, and I believe rarely, but sometimes
there are things that happen that affect our national consciousness.
(21:02):
And a guy from Memphis and a gal from the
Bronx are rarely brought together and become kindred spirits as Americans.
But that day did. And I remember where I was
on that day, and and but my reality is from
images that the news. Like most Americans, we weren't here.
(21:26):
But I do remember the picture of all these people
walking across the bridge, and I always thought, why are
they walking? And of course they can't catch cab or
maybe they can't get to the car. But now just
now understand one, you're afraid to go on the subways
and the trains because I guess as New York as
your train, that's a pact.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
We didn't have a choice. The mayor had shut down,
the shut down the trains, everything.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So you couldn't even get on a bus. So the
only way to get the hell out of here was walk.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Walker jump into the Hudson.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
River, which is probably advise.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Tom hak No. Tom Hank has a beautiful story that
he does on YouTube where it's called the Unsung Heroes,
where many people bought their pleasure boats. Even they across
across and people were jumping in, they didn't realize when
they got out of the buildings that if they went upwards,
that was the end of Manhattan. People were able to
(22:19):
get through all the bridges and tunnels, but if you
got out and ran to your left, you were stock.
That's the end of Manhattan. So many friends of mine
actually tell me the story of how they jumped in
the water. They they just kept seeing all these images
and they needed to get out. They didn't care how,
And that's desperation, that's fear.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
So Joe calls and says, listen to me where or
don't get in the trains and find a way to
get home, basically, and you do, but you don't hear
from them.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I don't find a way to get home until maybe four.
I'm stuck, and I guess my training kicked in. Where
would I find accurate information because too many people were
saying too many things and that wasn't accurate. And I decide,
I'm going to go to a hotel. I'm gonna they
have to have TVs and I'm going to be able
(23:19):
to hear clearly. And when I sat down at that point,
I don't even remember their time, but I'm going to
assume it was the South Tower that went down. And
then I'm just sitting there and shot, is it a
replay or what? And it must have been a replay
because now we're hearing about Shanks fit well, we're hearing
about the Pentagon, and then the North tower go, uh no,
(23:43):
then the South tower does, so then it was a
North tower. You see how hard that is for me
to figure out. That's one thing that bothers me. Sometimes
My memory is I write things down and when I
saw all this happen automatically, it clicks when he says
we're at war, because I didn't understand when he said
it to me, and I said, well, where is he
(24:05):
calling me from? That he knew so much information, And
at that moment, I thought he's gone, and I realized
he was down there. I didn't think anything about my daughter.
I was just trying to absorb the fact that my
husband was gone on his birthday. And I continued to
watch and watch, no phone calls, nothing, And at the
bottom of the TV the mayor put out a message
(24:27):
that he was opening up the city for about an
hour or two and I ran, got a cab, got home,
and now I'm thinking, I don't have my car, How
do I get to my daughter? Where is my daughter's phone?
Aren't phones aren't working? Now what? But when I got home,
she was there, and I realized at that moment he
must have picked her up. When he heard the very
(24:48):
first account it hadn't been It was alleged that plane
had hit the building. We didn't have any other news.
He picked up his keys because he knew, this is it,
this is what we've been waiting for for eight and
a half years. And he picked our daughter up, dropped
her off, and she was sitting there and she watched everything,
and when mom didn't come home.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
She's she's wondering if she's lost her family.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, she thought I went to respond because even though
I was retired, once a first responder, always a first responder.
We don't give that up.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
So when you walk.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
In, she thought I was a ghost.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah, she was like she was being shocked. But what's
interesting then, now you and your daughter are there. Now
the two of you are wondering about Joe.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And that actually didn't last until maybe five because he
did call, but his voice was different. I've answered jobs
with my husband and I know his voice. And he's saying, baby,
it's bad. It's dark and I'm looking out my window.
Where are you that it's so dark? And he says
it's a war zone. I can't see my hand in.
(25:59):
His voice is so different than anything I've ever heard,
and I can hear the background radio and he says, listen,
it's it's really bad. I sometimes I don't even know
where I am and I have to collect my thoughts.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Did he say I'm at this tower that?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
No, he said I am. He said, I'm getting a
break at ten and I will call you. Then I
am near Tower seven setting up for the National Guard.
Got it and the tower seven collapsed, Yes, collapsed, he
calls you.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Tower seven is still standing and he's setting up for
the National Guard. And all you know is it's bad,
and you know your strong cop husband.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
But I'm good because daddy's okay.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
But you hear in his voice and I'm serious.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Of the site, you know, I know Tower seven's across
the street. And at one point after that, the phone
rings again. There's no service, but he got because of
next hell the walkie talkie phones. And the next thing,
I get another call and I'm like, okay, he needs
to talk again, which we were so happy to hear.
And it was a friend from out of town. And
(27:11):
now she's talking. I realized, wait a minute, she got through,
and I'm giving her everybody's number at home. Call them.
I can't get through. You can watch TV. Everything is
now live. He's near how A seven, and that's when
I was informed how I seven went down and I
don't remember how we hung up. I just remember grabbing
(27:34):
my daughter because she was saying, how horrible is this
that we were allowed to say I love you and
happy birthday and he's gone. And it was that moment
that I needed her to realize. I couldn't be anybody
but a mom at that time, and I needed her
to understand that there were thousands of people that were
never going to get that basketbye. And we did. And
(27:54):
I said, we're going to hold on to that because
if he called, and he said he's calling, it ten
and he's gonna call. So we sit, we pray, and
we do whatever we can so spiritually we can bring
people back home. And we did that.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
He called, and so we thought he was you know,
you've lost your husband, and your daughter knows she's lost
her father.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
I didn't tell her, I am well, she knew. What
I kept telling him was come on, you know, he's busy.
This tower just went down. He's running.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
You're trying to reassure her, which is a bunch of
bs because inside your heart and head.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I had to be a mom, I get it. I
couldn't see her. What good was it that all both
of us were freaking out. And then I just remembered
thinking I didn't wanted daylight to come because that meant
I was adow and I would be a single mom.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
But there's a twist of the story, which.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Is he came home. He came home. I didn't recognize him.
He was covered in that grace, so he just managed
to watch his face and my husband came home, but
his heart and soul was back there. He couldn't talk.
It was just totally he was not the man I
kissed goodbye the day before, and he wouldn't speak much
(29:11):
except to say that he was injured and I had
to fix him up.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
What was his injury?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
He had fallen down about four flight The floor was
actually very weak. He had fallen down about four flights
of stairs, and it looked like, oh.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Whoa, whoa, wha, wha. Let me get this and let
me just say this now and to our listeners and
to you, and I think, now it's a good good
time for me to get on my soapbox for a minute.
Nine of them. For people probably thirty five years and older,
(29:49):
we remember where we were, and it's kind of like
all my grandparents always talked about. They remembered where they
were during Pearl Harbor and then the next generations along,
and certainly they know historically what happened at Pearl Harbor,
but they didn't feel it, not like my grandparents did.
And I still, before we sat down for our chat today,
(30:15):
I walked around the corner and I looked up at
the building, and I just I don't want to sensationalize
the story for the purposes of trying to make a
podcast that is interesting, and so that's not what my
next questions and thoughts are going to be about. But
(30:36):
in the same respect, I feel like everybody in their
young thirties, mid thirties, to my children, they see every
year in the anniversary of nine to eleven the images
on TV, and they know two buildings were hit by
planes and they burned down, but they don't feel what
I felt. And they sure as hell don't feel what
(30:56):
you felt being here. And I feel like if we
lose that collective consciousness as a nation, we risk a lot.
And so I'm going to ask you some questions. But again,
it's not to sensatialize it. It's because I want our
listeners to try to feel this. And he came home
(31:22):
with soot all over him. And you say he fell
down four flights of stairs, but how do you fall
down four flights of stairs?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Floors were very weak. I still don't know the building
he was in or.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
If it was just it had to have been near seven.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, well I don't even know when he fell. I
don't know where he felt. Because my husband hasn't spoken well.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Something had to have collapsed for him. Yeah, so he
was in a collapsing building.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Somewhere, but he can never get there to tell me.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Okay, but I saw still to the stay. I can't speak.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
It's a lot he won't talk about.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
I understand, but I did find TSD right.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
We didn't even know we had it. I understand, we
didn't know we had it.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
But so he fell and he came. When he came home,
it was not a joyful reunion, and he's blank from
what he's witnessed. But he wants you to fix him up.
Why didn't he just go to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, he couldn't because they would have reported it back
to NPD and then n MYPD would not have allowed
him to go back to the set.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
So he came to his wife, who has this emergency
medical training. It says, fix me so I can go back,
because if I go to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
They wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
I can't go back and serve and hohole.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Goal was to save somebody, and he didn't. And that's
always what he did.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
What was wrong with him? What was his He?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
When I cut his pants off, he had a very
deep gash on the side of his knee and it
looked like his knee had moved and it was It
looked horrible. And I told him that's above my pay grade.
And he says, who you don't have to fix it,
but I'm going back. And I just took out my
kit and did butterfly stitches and taped him up, and
(33:08):
I said, you have to go to the dock.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Did you have novocaine or anything?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Nothing? Nothing.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
You stitched him up butterfly stitches.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
They're not actually a needle and thread, they're just butterfly stitches.
I held the skin together and crossed them over. I
put a ton of mactration and I covered him as
best as I could, and I said, you need to
go because this is going to get infected. You're going
to get infected in that side.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
So did he get did he what did he do? Shower,
get a bite.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
To eat them, leave, took a shower, didn't heat, sat
on the sofa, and he goes, Okay, this is my schedule.
I'm going We were speechless, like, why are you going back?
Didn't you fulfill your This is how we're thinking, and
he's saying, Oh, this is not going to happen. We're
not going to fix this up in twenty four hours. Honey,
(33:58):
I don't even know if we're going to back from this.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
We'll be right back. So Alex Arstein, producer does really
good work on prepping stuff, and in that prep I
(34:26):
read that he did say, very briefly, it's bad. The
stench is horrible. Soot is everywhere and body parts. Is
that am I paraphrase?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
No, No, you're not. He I should avoid it. I'm sorry.
There's a picture of him standing in front of Brooks
Brothers with his sergeant and that's a clothing store and
he had to bring his team in through seven several
areas that the police department had cleared, and he was
kicking a couple of things that he thought were mannequins
(35:01):
and they won't and his heart breaks because he said,
I didn't get to bring anyone home. That one thing
I kicked could have been closure for a family member,
and it was all over the place, and he just
to this day he even wonders about his partners. Were
they in pieces? And it's hard not to think about that,
because that's something people don't know.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
No, and see, that's just gut wrenching. But I feel
like it's something I've heard so many interviews and read
so much about. But we don't talk about this enough,
in my opinion, because as hard as this is to
think about and hear, if you don't understand this, you
don't understand the depth of this attack.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
No they don't.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Why were their body parts on the ground.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
When the buildings went down? They went down hurricane win forces.
So we have one hundred and ten floors. We were
losing ten floors per second. So those towers went down
in twelve seconds, and so if you were in the way,
you were pularized. And this was mostly from the top.
(36:15):
Maybe as the towers kept going down, it just took
people win them. Some whole bodies were found, but not
until months later. And you were I hate to save
you lucky, but if you were in the higher floors,
there was a chance they would find a good portion
of your body if you won the lower floors, there
was no chance.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
What if you were just outside the buildings. If it
was her case, for the sheer power and energy created
by the falling building, even if you were one hundred
feet or two hundred feet away from the actual rube,
you would have built in a way the wind would
rep people who.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Were on the cars. At one point, when my husband
called earlier that I kept hearing him do a spitting sound,
which you know, like what are you doing? And he says,
I'm just pulling concrete stuff that came in my mouth
when the second tower went So now I know he
(37:13):
was there for the second tower going down, and he
won't talk about anymore. I know that I heard him
tell one of his friends, which I had made a
point to bring a lot of his friends back into
his life, where he says, you know, what could I
do but run? This cloud was chasing us and that's
(37:37):
what he was talking about the darkness. And he kept
saying I never seen anything like this before.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
And do they feel some kind of weird guilt because
they had to run?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, my husband does, how are they going to do? Well?
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Just stand there and die.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
That's what I told him, and he said it was
coming after us. And as I'm running, I'm trying to
get people around with me. But he would feel guilty.
He would start feeling guilt about two or three weeks
later when the mayor finally said it was no longer
rescue and recovery was just recovery. And that's when he
(38:13):
had to accept his friend was gone, his partner, He
trained with him, did a lot of things with him.
And he goes, I can't accept that he's gone, and
I'm not. And as a wife, I wanted to tell
him that's kind of a blessing you live to talk
about it, and he goes, I'm not talking about this.
No one would ever believe it because we're cops. This
(38:35):
is our job.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
So the firefighters, the police, the port authority, all the
first responders there that day. Again not to sensationalize it,
but I mean, before the buildings fell, there were people
on the top of these towers that had a choice
(38:58):
to make, which is is die by my flesh melting.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Jump and they did.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
And I remember reading something that said that one of
the most terrific sounds of the day was the thud
of bodies hitting the ground.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
And they are where you hear that. With the five
there are videos where you hear that the firefighters are
looking up and you can hear the thud. And we
had one of those videos at the nine to eleven
Tribute Museum and we turned the sound off because family
members would come to visit the museum and we didn't
want them to think, was that my son, my mother,
(39:36):
my daughter, So we had to thud. Yeah, we didn't
want to do that. And then we also had an
airplane window and we didn't identify what plane it was
because we didn't want any family member to come in
and wonder if their loved one was sitting next to
that window.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
And so these first responders, the ones that survived.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
The day, they're not surviving.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
They survived that day, I.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Will tell you. They started dying on nine to eleven.
So we didn't know. And you know, first the PTSD
gets you. Then you have the we call the World
Trade Center mark. It's a cough we all have when
we wake up in the morning or soon after that.
We were pulling things out of our nose that were
(40:22):
dark and slimy. We just didn't understand and then we
had our own government tell us the air quality was safe,
and that's because Wall Street had to open, so you know,
they needed the money, but money was more important in lives.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
We're going to get to that in a second, because
that's part of the beauty of what you've done with this.
But again, not to overdo it, but the bottom line
is if you survived the day and your first responder,
now what you're doing is you're literally stepping over not
(41:00):
just you're not just cleaning up debris and rubble. You're
cleaning up pieces of human beings. You're cleaning up horrific
things that we are that caring, loving human beings just
can't ever unsee or unfeel.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Can unring a bell, right, I just can't.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Okay. So for those of you who are listening and
think nine to eleven was just about two planes flying
into two buildings because some terrorists decided to attack us,
that's true. But the other truth is that more people
(41:41):
have died as a result of the cleanup, and since
the day of nine eleven, the actually died on the
day of not just true. So the truth is the
attack is not quit killing. Even these twenty something years later, nine.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
To eleven didn't end for us. Nine to eleven didn't
end for us.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
It's still continuous, continuing to stop, and.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
We are told, especially some lives. I have two stories.
My husband is sick and I was recovery worker. I'm sick.
But when people don't know that, and they know that
Joe was there, they go, what are you crying about?
He came home, and then they make.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
You probably reliving it every single well.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
They don't know that. They just feel I'm ungrateful that
he came home. Look at all the other women that
don't have husbands, and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Does.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Not just for his his police officer friends, but for people?
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Do you have survivors cope?
Speaker 1 (42:43):
No, I don't know. I just feel that I could
have done more. I should have gone before. I should
have I was so close. I could have just walked
over and helped. My thought process was get home to
your daughter. You know, That's always been his job, you know.
(43:04):
But after that, what went wrong with me? I was
in a respite center with the Red Cross.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Well hang on now, let me let me explain that.
So as a normal person from the BRONX who grows
up and marries this guy and has this love affair
and starts off this normal American life and just a
(43:32):
normal person living a life. You know this nine eleven
interrupts and changes the rest of your lives forever. So
Joe keeps coming home night after night with this filthy
and blank stare on his face. And you have this
(43:55):
EMS training and you decide you're going to volunteer with
the Red Cross and work in these centers. What was
Joe's response to that?
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Well, he was very angry. He's angry, super angry.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Was he angry because he was trying to protect you?
He just didn't doubt you to.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Be No, that was it. That was it. It wasn't
that I was going because he has never told me
I couldn't go anywhere, okay, But he asked me why,
and I said, because I lied to our daughter for
days after nine to eleven. I would take her to
school and she didn't want to go to school. And
I gave her this big patriot to talk about terrorism
(44:40):
and we can't let them win. And if she didn't
go to school.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
To mom, I was tough, loving mom.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
But I didn't believe one word I said. I just
needed her to go to school and be sixteen so
I would after she went to school, I would drive
underneath some trees and sit there until it was time
for how to get out. And every day I lied,
I was, I had a great day, and I did this,
and I did that until one day she came out
of school and said, Mom, we're going to be okay.
But you know, I can see you out the window.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
She saw you part.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Of her friends.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
I thought it was so were you in the car crying?
Speaker 1 (45:14):
I was crying. I was listening to music.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
So you So your daughter is in school looking out
at your mom sitting in.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
The car after I'm telling her she shouldn't do this. Yeah,
And so I felt I sent her the wrong message.
And I just called a few people and before I know,
you're going to Brooklyn and I mean.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Back then, that's not a funny show. No, I laugh
about all the time.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
And then one day Joe came home and he and
he sees me dressed and goes it's ten and I go, yeah,
ten pm, ten.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Pm, and you're dressed up radio. Did he think maybe
you're reverting back to your party girl times?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Sure, I wouldn't want to do that. I was kidding,
But he just came in and goes, we're going somewhere,
and I said, no, you're not. But I got to
go to brook Brooklyn sign in, get my paperwork done
for I'm been assigned to ground zero. No you haven't, Yes,
I haven't. Don't. We usually discuss things. I says, yeah,
(46:14):
but you've been too busy. I always try to get
out of these things. And I said, well, I'm going,
and he looked at me and he goes, I don't
want you to go, And I said, well, where would
you be? And he drove me.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
He didn't want you to go. He was afraid, because
he's afraid of everything. You're going to even.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Actually, well what I do with her? My daughter? And
I go, she's sixteen. She knows how to put herself
to sleep, but what if you're not here in the morning.
She knows how to get herself to school. And he goes,
but I go, no more, but honey, I'm going because
you were there. I want to be there too. I
want to help. We got into the car and he
would not speak to me. We got to Brooklyn and
he opened the door and he said, you sure. I
(46:53):
can't convince you. I said, will you stop going? And
he got back in the car and said I'll see
you to me, I said good. I said, we're not
winning any fight here. It's just something I need to do.
And once you understand that, you won't to have a
problem with me going down and he didn't after that.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
That concludes Part one of our conversations with Sonya Agron,
and I really hope you'll listen to part two that's
now available as her Heroism. It's just getting started, but
if you don't, make sure you join the Army of
Normal Folks at Normal Folks, start us and sign up
to become a member of the movement. It only takes
(47:36):
committing to doing one new thing this year to help others,
and there will be a ton of awesome ideas on
this podcast. When the folks were featuring, some of them
may resonate with you deeply and others may not at all,
and that's okay because we're called to do different things.
By signing up, you'll also receive a weekly email with
short episode some reason in case you happen to miss
(47:57):
an episode or you prefer reading about our on credit Well,
gus together we can change the country, but it starts
with you. I'll see in Part two
Host
Bill Courtney
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