Tim Brown: 100 Friends Were Murdered on 9/11 (Pt 2)

9/11 firefighter Tim Brown helped save lives that fateful day, but he also lost 100 friends who chose to save others knowing it would likely be the last act of their lives. His mission is to honor this Army of Normal Folks and make sure that America never forgets them.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue now with part two of our conversation
with Tim Brown. Right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors. You see mister kissy cigar guy go up

(00:29):
with Chris, and then you see some other folks.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah. I saw Captain Terry hatt and my best friend
in the lobby of the North Tower, and I ran
to him, and he was six or four. So when
I wrapped my arms around him, I wrapped my arms
around his chest and then he comes down on top
of me like this huge eagle or something like just
I totally got lost in his hug and he just

(00:57):
squeezed me to his chest and he kissed me on
the right cheek and he said in my ear, I
love you, brother, I may never see you again. And
I blew him off. But I didn't know what he knew.
You know, he had come down the West Side Highway.
He saw there were eight or ten floors of fire,
jet fueled fire, eight or ten floors each floor is

(01:18):
an acre. That's eight acres of jet fueled fire, ninety
stories up. And there's no way he knew. There's no
way we can get enough water up there. It's impossible.
There's no way we can fight these fires. And a
lot of the chiefs knew that, and Terry had that advantage,
which I didn't because I was underneath it looking straight up.

(01:40):
So when he said that to me, I blew him
off a little bit because we had done a lot
of things together. We had done a lot of really crazy,
dangerous things to save people, and we always we were
very good at what we did. We were very good.
And so I thought I would see him again, but
he knew better, and I didn't see him again, And

(02:01):
so a plane hit the South Tower. Chief Donald Burns
Assistant Chief Donald Burns, forty one years in the New
York City Fire Department, probably the most respected fire chief
at the fire that day. If you looked up Irish
fire chief in the dictionary, it would be his mug
with red, rosy cheeks and steely blue eyes and lines

(02:24):
of experience permanently etched in his face. And he was
my friend, you know, I had mad respect for him,
and we ran to the South Tower together after it
was hit. We were assigned to open that command post up. Yeah,
because now you've got to split forces. Yeah, exactly right,
exactly right. So we're running together from the North Tower

(02:47):
to the South Tower, and I said, Chief, what do
you need me to do? He said, in his New
York accident to me, there's not much you and I
can do. He only talked out of this side of
his mouth, like this, not much you and I can do.
I've ordered a fifth alarm for our building, but the
first five alarms are going to that building. Do your
best and be careful. He also said, we're at war.

(03:08):
He did say that those words to me. Yeah, we're
at war. He said, you know we're at war? I said, yes, sir.
We all knew when the second plane hit that we
were under terrorist attack. We didn't know if it was
al Kaeda or if it was China, Russia or someone else.
We didn't know, but we knew these planes were coming
for us. And as one of our chaplains said that

(03:32):
the fireman went to war with only tools of rescue, right,
not knowing that we were going into war. And so
Chief Burns and I were running the South tower. A
woman comes running in, running toward us, screaming that there
were people trapped in an elevator. So I went with
her and Chief Burns went to the command post, and

(03:55):
that's why I encountered people in an elevator. It's horrific.
They were the hoistway doors were opened so you could
see into the shaft, but the elevator car was stuck
and so at the top, so you could just see
like six inches into the elevator car at the top.
Feet you saw feet exactly. And the people were panicking
and screaming, and I remember seeing the men's dress shirts

(04:18):
and jackets as they were trying to pull that car
down a few more inches so that they could slip out.
And two things had happened to these poor people, which
I the first one I didn't know until later, but
that elevator car had free fallen seventy floors because the
flight one seventy five snapped the cable when it came in.
So they had taken this horrific ride, I think seventy

(04:41):
four stories free falling seventy probably seventy eight to seventy
somewhere in there. How were they not exactly Well, that's
what they expected to be killed on impact, But the
emergency brakes kicked in and worked the way they were
supposed to and stopped it before it hit the concrete pit.
But those breaks. Now we're on and no human strength

(05:03):
is going to move that car. Right. This was steel
on steel saying you're not moving.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
If the plane hit the cable and they're in the
elevator shaft, they're far something coming down exactly.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
The jet fuel also had cascaded down that elevator shaft
and now was pooling in concrete pit below them, and
it was on fire, so they were getting burned above it.
So they had taken a seventy story free fall. They
were trapped in the elevator and now they were getting burned.
And I'm the first first responder on the scene. But

(05:36):
what they needed was a fireman, not a mayor's office
guy with a green hat, with a green with a
stupid green hat. Fair, fair, And they were no. Never.
I can't say that in my horror at seeing this scene,
in my frustration and wanting to help them, You've got
no tools. I have nothing else, right, I don't have gloves,
I don't have protective gear. I have nothing. And so

(05:59):
I turned to my right and I started yelling to
the people, start bringing me fire extinguishers, because if you
can put a fire out your problems go away, and
you have time to rescue them. And so I was
screaming at people and a fireman, a bumblebee came up
behind me, and I looked over and I looked up
at his face, and it was firefighter Michael Lynch, who

(06:21):
I knew from Ladder four back in the early nineties,
and I knew him well. And he put his hand
on my shoulder and he squeezed my shoulder and he said, Timmy,
I got it. He was reassuring me, the senior guy,
that he was going to take care of it, because
he was a fireman, and he had all his equipment,
and he had all his tools, and he brought a
whole fire truck worth a full of tools with him,

(06:44):
and he was already formulating in his mind how he
was going to get those people out of the elevator,
put the fire out, save those people's lives. He was
already when I later talked to his widow, Denise, who
I hadn't known before, and she had one baby in
her lap and the two year old boy crawling around
on the rug in their living room. I wanted her

(07:06):
to hear the story of her heroic husband from me
because I was the last one to see him. And
we know in the end, we can prove that he
saved three women out of that elevator because they identify
him by photograph, and so we know he saved at
least three before the building came down. So I told

(07:27):
his widow in that living room, when he said to me,
to me, I got it, he may as well have
had wings coming out of his back, because he was
the angel sent to save the lives of those poor people,
and he did save some of them. We don't know
for sure how many, but at least three out of
that elevator.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
I've heard you describe the term I got it means
so much more than I got it.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, tell us, Oh, it's just it's he had the training,
the experience, the knowledge, the the tools and equipment, because
he brought a whole fire truck of tools with him
and he knew how he knew how to use them.
All Right, it's a lot of work, it's a lot
of training, it's a lot of experience, it's a lot

(08:11):
of dedication, it's a lot of courage and bravery. And
he said, with all confidence in the world, I got it,
And I knew when he said that to me that
there was no one better to take care of those
people than firefighter and Michael Lynch, So you leave it
with them. I got word over my OEM radio because

(08:32):
we had three of radios, and NYPDA radio and FDNY
radio and OEM radio, and so over my OEM radio, urgent, urgent,
urgent confirmed by the FBI. Third plane incoming, It's confirmed,
it's ours impact imminent, getting the stairwells get protected. So
that's why I left Mike the Angel at the elevator

(08:54):
scene to save those people, because I was representing the mayor,
and I went to the command post. I found a
landline that worked. I dialed the operator. She picked up
right away and I said, I'm with Mayor Giuliani in
the World Trade Center. I need to talk to the
White House immediately. She tried to get through, she couldn't.
I said, then the Pentagon, and she said, the Pentagon's

(09:14):
under attack.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
And that's the first we knew of it. At that point,
you have to be like the whole world's coming.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
In, yeah, and we're under it, and we're under it.
And I talked with the New York State Emergency Management
Office and they assured me that the fighter jets were
coming for us as fast as possible. We couldn't do
our job and help people and save people if planes
kept crashing into us, so we needed air cover. Maybe
for the first time in the history of the city

(09:40):
of New York. We couldn't handle it. You know, our
army of cops and firefighters couldn't handle it. I've heard
you say, that's fifty thousand, oh yeah, easily fifty, probably
a little more. That's fifty thousand uniformed. Fifty thousand uniformed.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, you guys had to have felt like an army
that could handle anything thrown at you.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Very rarely asked for help, almost never, And on September eleventh,
we needed our heroes in the US military to come
help us, and so they assured me that the fighter
jets were coming to protect us, and I just kind
of checked that box and went on with my business.
The lobby of the South Tower, now where I am,

(10:21):
is filling up with the people who were badly injured, burned, bloody, broken.
Chief Burns ordered me to go find the paramedics and
bring them into the lobby of the South Tower to
start getting these people out.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
So you once described that as obvious something you said
to me, not to me, something you've said that I've read.
It dawned on me how right you were. These are
people that went to work that day and they're in
suits and flat shoes, they're not in any kind of gear,
and they have descended through smoke seventy floors finish it.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
So the stairwells were narrow. There was only room for
single file down in a single file up.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Do you think that big building? But yeah, it's small. Yeah, well,
thousands of people escape.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Stairwells were very small, and it's something that's now corrected
in new construction. But so imagine going down the stairs
to escape this disaster, and you were single file, so
you could only go as fast as the people in
front of you. And some of those people might be disabled,
some might be injured, some might be elderly. So it

(11:37):
is a slow, slow descent, And it was dark and
wet from the water, and smoky and sooty, and and
those folks who did make it out describe being so

(11:57):
encouraged when they saw the fire and the policeman going up.
It helped them think that they were going to be okay.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
But after descending through all that crap and you open
a door and you end up in a big lobby
where you see light and fresh air and firemen everywhere
you collapse. Yeah, and so you saw a lobby of
collapse people.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's right, And it was affecting our evacuation of the building.
So that's why I left the South Tower. I went
out the door onto Liberty Street, which was the south
boundary of the World Traits and the complex. And the
first thing I saw, I remember it clearly in sear
it into my photographic memory, is there was a dead

(12:41):
fireman in the middle of the street who had been
crushed by a woman who had jumped or fallen and
she landed on him and killed him. And it happened
right before I went out the door. It happened right before.
Can I ask you a question? I hesitate to even
ask the question, but I want everybody that hears us
to know this, and the depths of them to never forget.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
So there's imagery. I can't help but get past where
there was there a lot of that.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Did you so did that sound like what was? I mean?

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Anybody's paid attention to seeing the images of the people
hanging out of the building with smoke rolling behind them,
and you think, oh, they can't breathe. I don't think
what people get is that smoke is seven hundred degrees.
They're literally getting their flesh burned off. And the people
who jumped, they died on their terms. But you see

(13:40):
a few pictures and a few videos and they're absolutely
gunt riching. But what we don't know is what's going
on on the ground, you know.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
So in some of the videos you can hear the
bodies crashing. I would call it like a muffled explosion.
Each time some of them hit the glass overhangs, so
it was like a muffled explosion with glass. This happened
over and over and over and over for these poor

(14:12):
people who had no choice. I saw this fireman in
the middle of Liberty Street, and I saw his buddies.
We call it a company. They belonged together, and you know,
they were pulling at what was just one second ago
their brother, their brother, and trying to save him. And

(14:36):
they tried to do CPR and stuff, and he was gone.
But I had had I was very mission focused. I
had a job to do and I had to leave
them to do that. And I found the paramedics, myself
in three paramedics went running back with the stretcher and
all their equipment to go back into the lobby of

(14:56):
the South Tower. We were running along the south wall
of three World Trade Center. We were on the sidewalk,
and when we got to the adjoining two World Trade Center,
which was the South Tower, it was set back in
the sidewalk a little deeper, so we kind of came
around the corner. And when we came around the corner,

(15:16):
the first steel snapped. How far are you from the door?
Twenty feet from the door of going back in? You're
twenty feet that's yeah, I mean it's right there, yeah, yeah,
the door of the tower. We were we were there,
I mean we were going in, and you hear this
first piece of steel snap all the way up, all

(15:40):
the way up. But it must have been loud. It
was so loud that it echoed through the canyons of
Lower Manhattan. It was like a major explosion. And none
of us, as I remember it, none of us even
looked at each other because we all knew what it was.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
We all knew it was coming down, at least part
of it. But you're twenty feet from the door.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah, well, al one hundred and fifteen acres of steel.
This is time to try to save your life. And
we know from experience and from our training that you
can never outrun a building collapse. It will always catch
you and kill you. It happens too fast. We, unfortunately
in the New York City Fire Department, as in other

(16:22):
fire departments, deal with burning building collapse often, so we
have a lot of experience. So I know that you're
not going to be able to like run back across
the street and get away from it. It's going to
kill you. So you have to try and get something
over your head to protect you, some kind of structure
over your head at least to give yourself a chance.

(16:43):
And I knew that we had just run by the
door into the adjoining three World Trade Center, which was
the Marriott Hotel, and that door was particularly the door
into the restaurant of the lobby of the hotel called
the Tall Ships Restaurant. I knew we had just run
by it, so I was like, that's where I'm going,

(17:04):
and I yelled at the paramedics follow me, and we
ran and ducked into that door very quickly. And so
now I'm in the restaurant in the lobby of the
Marriott Hotel. It's as clear as this room here, and
snap of the fingers, it's pitch black. The south towers
collapsing onto the Marriott Hotel. The Marriott Hotel is now

(17:27):
starting to collapse around us. I hit the floor on
all fours and I'm crawling. Everything that wasn't nailed down
was blowing in my face and pummeling me. And you
couldn't see because the dust got so thick, it got
pitch black. You couldn't see, You couldn't breathe. It was

(17:47):
kicking in your mouth and your nose, and your eyes
and your ears. And I was trying to stick my
nose in my mouth in my t shirt as I
was crawling trying to get away from it, turned my
back so that it was my back getting pummeled, not
my face. I compare the sound to sitting on the
tarmac at JFK Airport, surrounded by seven forty sevens that

(18:11):
are full blasts, and every time you thought it was
the loudest thing you ever heard in your life, it
would increase by ten, and then ten and then ten.
As the collapse was getting closer, I knew I was
in big, big, big trouble and that this was probably
the end of it. But I knew that my best chance,
my only chance, was to find a vertical column. And

(18:33):
I was crawling as fast as I could, trying to
get away from it. And I found a very big
vertical column, which is a vertical column of steel. I
also know from our experience that that's when we where
we find people alive in building collapses, because it forms
a tent and there's there's a space of life, livable

(18:56):
space in there. It's like a tent. And sometimes it's
where we search a building collapse first for people because
we know we can maybe get them alive. And so
I'm trying to find this. I find a vertical column.
I wrapped my arms around it, and I'm not just
holding onto it. I'm trying to become a part of it.
I'm squeezing so hard I'm trying to get into the steel.
I'm trying to live. The helmet blows off my head.

(19:19):
The wind was so strong. My pager breaks off my belt.
And now all I need is a little brick to
hit me in the head because I have no helmet.
I have no stupid green helmet to protect me. I
guess it got mad at me. But and the wind
was so powerful as the building collapsed, it was pushing

(19:41):
all that air out, and I was in the pathway
of where all that air was going. So the wind
actually lifted me up off the ground like a flag.
And so now I'm horizontal and I'm trying to hold
onto this column. That was my moment. That was my
moment when I thought it was over. And so I prayed,

(20:10):
and I said, God, I'm not afraid to come to you.
In fact, I look forward to it one day. I
look forward to sitting at your side one day. But
please not now, because I want to hold my family
one more time and tell them I love them. And
then I will come to you and I will sit

(20:30):
by your side. And that's okay. And within fifteen seconds,
the collapse subsided, the wind stopped. Couldn't see, couldn't breathe,
but I was alive.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
And before we go to what happens next where you
save many lives off a ledge which I still can't
even picture to give everybody conception of the wind. Afterwards,
when they inspected this area, there were shards of glass
embedded in the steel, and scientists looked at it, and

(21:10):
it proved that the wind at the collapse of the
towers was equal to that of a hurricane. It was
one hundred and eighty five mile an hour winds, a fire, debris, glass, steel,
and bodyboards.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
That's the collapset. The only way I was able to
hold onto that column was with God's strength, because there's
no human strength that can hold on to something like
that in that kind of wind. And so he decided
to leave me here on the earth. I think to
do this, I think, to tell the stories. We'll be

(21:49):
right back some sods. It's still dark. You're on your
hands and knees. I'm bouncing around in there. I desperately
want to want to live. They could call it, what

(22:09):
do they call it? A fight flight mode? And that's
where I was, and I wanted to get out of there,
and I wanted to live desperately. I wanted to get
back to my brother and tell him that I was alive,
because I knew he would think I was gone. And
I wanted my mom and dad to know that I
was alive. And and so I was a little bit

(22:31):
desperate in that moment to get out of there and
I bounced around in that restaurant because it was all
changed now it was all collapsed, and I wound up
at a metal roll down gate. Later on I find
out that it separated the lobby of the hotel from
the restaurant of the hotel, and at night they would

(22:53):
put it down. In the collapse, the roll down gate
came down and I got to this gate and I
put my fingers under it and to lift it up.
And when I lifted it up an inch or two,
all these fingers came from the other side of people
who were trapped on the other side of it, which
I didn't know. And together we lifted up this gate

(23:15):
and I said to them, there's a I thought there
was a truck bomb. I was like, there's a there's
a bomb back there, and we have to keep going
that way, and they said, no, there is no that way.
So what it was is a group of firefighters and
civilians who they were saving in the lobby of the
Marriott Hotel and the collapse came through right where they

(23:36):
were and killed half the firemen and civilians they were rescuing.
But this group, the collapse missed them by inches. All
the others were killed and behind them was they were
on a ledge that was seven stories down on that side.
It went down into the structure, into the sub sub
sub sub sub basements. It was literally there two foot

(23:58):
ledge yeah what used to be the ground yeah, which
was the floor of the lobby of the hotel. And
so we couldn't go that way. They were stuck. So
we turned around, we went back the way I had
just come from, and one of the ladies in the
group saw a fireman waving a very bright flashlight. He

(24:20):
must have seen us in the rubble, and he was
waving his flashlight light at us and screaming, come this way,
Come this way. So we went up and down over
the piles of steel and stuff toward him because we
knew that was safety. And as far as I know,
that group of people I was with all lived and

(24:41):
to this day, I believe that's the largest group of
survivors in the sixteen and a half acres was the
group I was with there. So Patty, Patty Brown legend
maybe the most well known firefighter in New York. I

(25:01):
think that's a very accurate statement. He was a hero
of the New York City Fire Department. He was a
captain He was the highest decorated New York City fireman.
Murdered on Sptember eleventh. Patty had a legendary life. He
was single, He lived in Manhattan. He was United States
Marine Corps sergeant in Vietnam. When he came back, he

(25:24):
got treated like crap, like the rest of them did.
He had a hard time with that. He realized that
he was an alcoholic, and he got on top of
it and he went to AA. He was a Golden
Gloves boxer. He was a second or third degree black
belt in karate. He was a marathon er, he was
a triathlete. He was a yogi. Yeah, I mean, come on.

(25:47):
He was on the cover of Men's Health magazine. He
was also for the Ladies here. He was very good looking,
and he was a very successful bachelor in New York.
I witnessed some of it. Patty was the guy you
always wanted around and he was he was Captain America.

(26:09):
Like he didn't say it, he just was. And if
somebody was doing something wrong, if he saw somebody getting
robbed or someone beating up a girl or something, God
help that person. Because Patty was all about doing the
right thing always, And what do you do on eleven.
So he went up in the North Tower with his firefighters,

(26:31):
one of which Jerry Dewan, was a good friend of mine.
And Jerry was from He was a Boston Irish guy,
and so he had a little he had a little problem,
and he got and he got jammed up a little
bit in his previous firehouse. So I purposely got him
detailed into Patty's command because I knew Patty would help

(26:54):
straighten him out and talk sense to him right. And
it was one of Jerry's first tours with Patty Brown
as his boss, and they went up together, and they
died together on September eleventh. I believe, I can't prove it,
but Captain Terry Hatt and Captain Patty Brown and myself
were three musketeers. We were best friends. We spent all
kinds of time together on and off duty, and they

(27:16):
would compete over who had the more beautiful girlfriend and stuff.
And I believe Terry and his men got trapped up
on the eighty third floor of the North Tower early
on in a localized collapse, and Terry was screaming for help.
May we call it may day, may day, may day,
mayde And it's the worst thing a fireman could say,

(27:36):
or here, it means you're either trapped or your friend
is trapped. And so I believe that Patty heard that
and was running up the stairs in the North Tower
because Terry was one of his best friends, and it
didn't have to be his best friend. Patty would have
done that for anyone, but it was especially important to
him because it was one of his best friends. And yeah,

(27:57):
all those guys died in the North Tower. Just so
out of the three hundred and forty three New York
City heroes New York City Fire Department heroes, one hundred
of them were from our Special Operations Command, which is
where I worked. So our most experienced, well trained firefighters
in the world, probably from Chief Downey who was our

(28:20):
Special Operations chief, all the way down to our youngest guy,
were murdered on September eleventh. It took out one third
of our command, and so we lost a lot. It
wasn't just just three hundred and forty three firefighters. It
was all that experience that we lost, and all that

(28:42):
experience they would have passed on to the younger firefighters
had they lived. Right, So you get out, there's still
one tower standard. Yeah, I actually had the misjudgment. In
my state of fight or flight, I thought it would
be a good idea to swim across the Hudson River

(29:03):
to New Jersey. That's never a good idea, never a
good idea, But in that state of mind, I thought
that was a better option than staying in Lower Manhattan.
And I tried to break through one of the office
buildings to go toward the Hudson River. Luckily the glass
I couldn't break the glass. And as I was doing that,

(29:25):
I heard over. I heard my boss, Calvin over the radio,
my OEM boss over the radio, and he was screaming
for help. He was trapped in the rubble. And that
brought me back to reality. So I ran up the
West Side Highway. He was able to articulate where he was,
and so I was running up the West Side Highway
toward him.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
I got you hear in fear and pain on the radio. Oh, terror, terror,
And you know the voices. Yeah, they're my friends. They're screaming,
they're dying, they're screaming for help. They're my friends. All
that's like a lot.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
And and Calvin was my friend, and he's a black guy, dark, dark,
skinned black guy, and I got to him, and another thing,
I realized that in that moment, we were all the
same color, because we were all gray from the dust.
All the white boys were gray, all the black boys

(30:20):
were gray. Everybody was gray, and we were all the same.
And when I got to him, the par of the
fireman had gotten him out of rubble already and the
paramedics had him, and our bigger boss, Chief John Odermatt
from NYPD, grabbed me and said, Timmy, he's okay, he's
going to go to the hospital. He's in good hands.

(30:42):
We have to go find the mayor. Mayor wants us
with him, and so Chief Voto, Matt and I started
running north up West Broadway behind seven World Trade Center,
and the people behind me started screaming and I turned around.
Everybody was running away. We were chasing the mayor, and

(31:03):
when they started screaming, I turned around and I remember
seeing the antenna on the top of the North Tower
where I knew all my friends were. I remember seeing
it kick over just a little bit and then go
straight down and disappear, and I knew, I knew that
was my friends in there. We got overrun by the
dust and debris, and we got pummeled again and all

(31:24):
of that stuff, and I kept running north until I
found the mayor, and then we had to reorganize because
we had lost a lot a lot of civilians, a
lot of police officers, a lot of firefighters, and a
lot of our command staff was wiped out.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Two thousand, nine hundred and seventy seven lives were murdered
on nine to eleven, three hundred and forty three members
of the fire department, seventy two law enforcement officers. You
personally lost one hundred friends that day, probably a little more,
but yeah, maybe something people need to understand. And it's
four hundred thousand people were exposed to Ground zero's toxic environment.

(32:05):
Five thousand I've died from illnesses because of it, including
three hundred and sixty more. New York City Fire Department
nine to eleven hadn't stopped killing. There are firemen and
policemen that I have interviewed in New York who have
forms of cancer that doesn't even have names.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
You're talking to one right now. I don't know if
you know that I did not. Yeah, well do you
have found out About a year and a half ago,
I have a prostate cancer from nine to eleven, normal
man cancer, whatever, but it's nine to eleven related and
we found it, thank god, we found it early through
our very good health program. And it's something I will

(32:49):
I will not die from. It's a slow spreading cancer.
In my case. Do you have friends that have died from? None? One? One? Only?
Oh many many friends. I visited last week, my friend
and Aaron from Rescue one. He is fifty years old
and he has pancreatic cancer from nine to eleven fifty.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
I interviewed someone whose husband has a cancer. They don't
even have a name for, yeah, because it's just cancer.
But it's not even a named cancer because of so
much crap that they inhaled, not only that day, but
staying on site for two and three days later trying

(33:29):
to find life.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, weeks and months later, that dust kept kicking up
and we kept trying to use water to knock the
dust down because we were trying not to breathe it.
But you couldn't help it. And you know, one of
the most unusual cancers is male breast cancer, which we have.
It's like two or three or four times the average

(33:52):
that our guys are suffering from breast cancer and testical
and then, like you said, all the other crazy things
autoimmune diseases. My friend Mike Morrissey, I was with him
last week. He has Parkinson's from it. So it's just
it's the point is the attack has not ended. That's right,
that's right. We'll be right back. This one chokes me up.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
There are sixty nine children a former fire department people who.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Died that are now New York City Fire Department. Yeah, yeah,
I was with. We have a proud tradition with the
bumper stickers on some of the cars said on Heaven
and Earth, still the greatest job in the world. And
we believe that. I was with the four two of

(34:58):
the four a Sorrow children the other day at the
nine eleven Museum. The four children, three male and one female,
are all New York City firefighters, following in their heroic
dad's footsteps. Carlo Saro, who I think, as far as
I know, I was the last one to see him alive,
and all four of his children became New York City firefighters.

(35:20):
Tell us about is it Chris Chris Blackwell Junior? No,
Michael Lynch, Michael Lynch or right? So what an amazing story.
So Michael Lynch sor was the angel at the elevator scene, right,
he saved we say at least the three ladies. He
was six four or sixty five. He was very handsome,

(35:43):
He was a professional. They were trying to bring him
into Special Operations Command when he was killed, because they
had that much respect for him. When I went out
to his home in Long Island to tell his wife
that her husband was a hero and an angel in
his last moments, remember she had the little baby in
her lap, and she had the two year old boy

(36:05):
crawling on the carpet. So I told Denise the story,
and then I said I gave her my card because
I didn't know her personally before, and I gave her
my card, and I said, one day, when those boys
are older and they want to know about their dad,
tell them to reach out to me and I'll tell
them about their what a hero of their dad is. Was.

(36:26):
About twenty years later, I got an email from Michael
Francis Lynch Junior, and he said, my mom told me
that if I wanted to know about my dad's last moments,
that I should talk with you. And I said, that's correct.
He told me I've done everything that I was supposed

(36:47):
to do as the man of the house since he
was two years old. He went to college, he graduated,
he got his bachelor's degree, did everything right. He took
care of his little brother, He took care of his mom.
His mom had a girl later on, and so he
took care of his little sister, Elizabeth. He said, my
mom now told me that I have to go live

(37:08):
my life for me, and she said you're You're the
first step. So I met Mike my favorite watering hole, o'haris,
in my regular seat, just saying and Mike and I
drank all the beer in O'Hara's together, every drop, every drop,

(37:30):
and we we did, and we laughed, and we cried
and we hugged. And one of the most important things
he said to me was please never leave me, because
every one of those kids has abandonment problems, and many
of them have said that exact same thing to me,
many of them who I meant her. And I said,

(37:51):
I promise, Mike, I will never leave you. I will
always be here for you. I'm not your dad, I'll
never prove I'll never pretend to be your dad, but
I'll be your uncle or I'll be your friend whatever
you want. And so I said to him, you know,
what do you want to do. He's like, I want
to be a Green Beret. I was like, don't sign anything,
because they lie, and I said, come with me, and

(38:16):
I brought him up and down the East coast to
meet my army, Navy friends, seals, Delta guys, intelligence community folks,
all of them, and of course every one of them
embraced him and took them under their wings. So now
he had all these uncles and aunts in some pretty

(38:36):
amazing positions who wanted to help him. And he came
back later on he met my one of my best friends,
Navy seal Jason Redman, and so a couple months later,
I said, it's Mike, what do you want to do?
He said, I want to be a Navy seal. I
was like, I kind of figured that it would come
to that, and so we started getting in with the
right people who intentionally drowned him five times and you know,

(39:00):
dropped him in the woods in some god forsaken place
and said good luck. And you know, they they gave
him a real rough time, as they should. And he
came back to me after that and kind of sheepish,
and he was he's the same as his dad. He's
six fourths, very handsome. He came back to me. He

(39:21):
was a little afraid to tell me. I was like, Mike,
just tell me what's going on. He said, well, I
decided to go back and be a Green Beret again.
I said, that's okay, Mike, that's that's a very noble
thing to do. And I get it. And so by
December of this year he should get his Green Beret.
He's passed on through everything, He's done very well. He

(39:41):
excels at this stuff, and and by the end of
this year he will be I believe, will be a
Green Beret. This is why to be able to tell
a beautiful story like this. If I had committed suicide
back then, which we had a lot of and my
family was a I would do that. If I had

(40:02):
done this, I wouldn't be able to witness this thing.
This Michael. I'm so I love this man, and I'm
so proud of him, of what he's done with his life.
I never would have been able to enjoy this with
him if I had taken my own life. Now, the
story I mentor a lot of these young people I

(40:23):
work a lot with the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the
greatest charity in the history of America in my opinion,
And so I know the Siller family. The Siller family
runs that Stephen Siller had the five children. I don't
know if I talked about that earlier. One of the
young girls is now all grown up. I didn't know

(40:43):
her before, but someone told me she wanted to go
into the FBI. So I was like, give me her
phone number right now, and so we got her into
the FBI. She is now in the FBI. She's very
happy working down in the DC area. I invited them
to our Proper Justice League cigar night at Shelley's back
room in Washington, d C. Because I wanted my FBI

(41:04):
and CIA friends. I wanted all them to know these kids,
because it's why they do their job right, It's these
kids are are why. And so I brought them together,
a bunch of the young people. And it's the first
time Michael and Genevieve met Michael Lynch Genevieve Siller. And

(41:25):
on Sundays she sent me the picture of the engagement
ring on her finger.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
No the children of falling firefighters, none, one are now
engaged and engaged in the FBI and Green Bries.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
He's going to be a Green Brave. She's in the FBI.
They just sent me the you're allowed to tear up man.
That's beautiful. I'm really proud of them and happy for them.
And they will carry on the story and the tradition
and yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
The stories of the greatest evil something good. It's beautiful, Yeah, beautiful.
Questions come after one more thing, okay, this one. This
part of the story is it was a lot when.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
I heard it. Was it Friday before oh yeah, Tuesday? Yeah,
Friday before the Tuesday, so it would have been September eighth,
two thousand and one. It was. It was a warm,
warm day out. I had just been turned down by
a lady who I loved very much, actually the only
woman I have asked to marry. Means she said no,

(42:45):
what is wrong with her? And in the end she
was right. But and to this day we're good friends.
So but but I was not in a good place.
I had the blues, and I was depressed and very
sad and lonely. And I left work at seven year
old trade Center that evening that Friday evening and I
wanted to go over toward the Hudson River where I

(43:08):
was on the water, have a beer and just, I guess,
feel sorry for myself or whatever. And I got over
there and they put the beer on the table for me,
and I didn't even touch the beer before I started
feeling very bad, feeling very ill, and I felt this

(43:31):
freezing cold come over me and I started shaking and
my body actually be compensated. If you don't know what
it means, basically, all your pores open up and you
just soak your clothes. It's a nervous kind of reaction.
And I didn't know what was happening. I was in

(43:54):
complete fear. I didn't even touch my beer. I put
a twenty on top of the beer, on top of
twenty dollar bill, and I walked out, and I walked
five miles home, and I could feel the evil around me,
and I didn't know what it was. I didn't recognize it.

(44:15):
Of course, I didn't know what was coming at that time,
but I was scared out of my mind. So we
hear that, right, I believe you. I hear it, I
feel it.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
I've heard you tell that story, I've read it, and
I've heard you tell it before and it never changes.
What makes it crazy is some years later your interaction
with the Navy poot.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Yeah. So in my I called my lost years after
I retired like so for two thousand and four or
five six, In those years, I was trying to figure
out what to do with my life and my friend
even to keep it, yeah, even keep it. Yeah, those
were those are my hard years. For sure. I was
very lonely again. I was I had you know, all
my guy friends were gone. I had no one to

(45:09):
hang out with, and so I thought, I like to travel.
Maybe I'll be a flight attendant. And then Jet Blue
hires retired New York City firefighters to be flight attendants.
Their number one flight attendant was a retired New York
City fireman. I was like, I'll give it a shot.
So I went and did the training and I did
a few flights. In the end, it wasn't for me.

(45:31):
But on one of my flights from LA to New
York on Jet Blue, I was a flight attendant in
the back of the plane. And now you know I'm
making I'm not making this up because I would never
tell this. I was a flight attendant, So you know,
I'm not making this up. So I'm in the back
of the plane and there's an extra pilot on the plane.

(45:52):
It's a east West coast flight, and so one of
the pilots came back to take a break stretcher's legs
or whatever. He came back and sat with me in
the back of the plane and he was like, what
did you do before? I was like a fireman. And
of course, as soon as you say that, he's like
nine to eleven. I was like, yeah, So I tell
him the story, and then I tell him the story
of the Friday night before the Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
And which at this point was just a weird night
to you. Yeah, it's just before this conversation.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Right. It didn't make it doesn't make any sense, and
I had forgotten about it for a long time, and
then for some reason I came back and so I'm
telling the story and he just sits there and nods
his head.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
And this guy's a Navy, former Navy power yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
And now even flies for Jet Blue, right, And he
had his bag with him and he waited till I
was done telling the story, and he goes, I want
to show you something, and he reaches in his bag
and he pulls out a book that's covered in a
leather case with a zipper. It's all worn, and he

(46:59):
goes like this with zipper and he undoes it and
he opens the book up and it's all highlighted in yellow,
pink blue highlighter throughout the whole book. And he's just
he's going like this through the book and he comes
to a page and he puts it to me and
he says, read this. What's the book the Bible. He's

(47:22):
a student of the Bible. And he goes right to
the page. He has it like memorized, and he says,
read this, and it describes what happened to me in
the Bible. And it's called spiritual discernment. And when you're
at your lowest emotionally, sometimes you are able to feel

(47:49):
other world's other spirits. And I believe, and he believed,
and I think he's right that I was feeling the
evil gathering at grounds before the following Tuesday. And it's
called spiritual discernment. And look, I'm not a conspiracy guy
at all. I'm the opposite, but this actually is true.

(48:11):
This is what happened to me. And I all I
did was tell this guy the story. But he knew
he understood what I was talking about because he read
about it in the Bible.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
The reason I wanted to tell you the story is this.
I don't know why you're alive, but you were twenty
feet from the stupid building when it fell. You should
be dead. You survived a fire hurricane with glass flying
to there and I don't know why, but there's a reason.

(48:43):
Your talk about what you just said says an enormous
amount about your faith.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
I think, and.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
Before we open up for questions, with that faith in mind,
and that duty and service and the heroic actions of
yourself and the friends you lost, as you consider and
look back on those who attacked our country and you,
how are we to reconcile humanity, evil, grace forgiveness.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
I am not proud of this, but I'm not a
big forgiver right now, and maybe I'm wrong for that,
but I believe in proper justice for those who did this,
who happily admit they did this and happily say they
would do it again if given the chance. They have
said that in court. I have witnessed these families suffer

(49:57):
for the last twenty five years, including the children who
grew up without their dad, without their mentor without their
spiritual guider, without someone who has a rolodex to get
them a job at the FBI or be a Green
Beret or whatever. Right, these kids, you know, didn't have
that chance. So I'm not I'm not big on forgiving

(50:18):
the guys who planned this and anyone that supported them.
And maybe I'll learn better as I get older, or
maybe in another life, and I'll be more forgiving, But
I don't feel I feel proper justice is correct, and
we have not done that, and it's it's it's look,
I'm part of the team doing it, and it's just shameful, shameful.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Which is why we cannot forget, because it will happen
again if we lower our.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
They want to do it again. They want to do
it bigger. You know, these Islamists and and look, I've
been accused of being all all those islamophobe and racist.
I've been a of all of that. You're careful to
say terrorists after yeah, yeah, well so that's who everybody knows.
Islamists are the Muslims who want to impose what they

(51:12):
believe on you, and if you don't comply with them,
then you pay attacks, and if you don't pay attacks,
then they kill you. Yeah, we're not talking about We're
not talking well, it's a certain group, but they're Look,
who are the people. Who is the group of people
that suffer the most at the hands of Islamists, Innocent Muslims,
they're the ones that suffer the most. And I have

(51:33):
lots of Muslim friends who look, I've we had this
Afghan female tactical platoon. Nobody knows about them, sixty Afghan
women who who fought with our Tier one forces in
Afghanistan for the purpose of taking the women and children
on a raid so that the men wouldn't touch them. Right,

(51:56):
So these women would win fighting with our guys, but
then they would take the win and children and protect them.
So sixty of them. Of course, when we pulled out,
they became the number one target of the Taliban, and
so they forty of them made it to America and
we were able to get them into get them help,

(52:16):
and we took them to the nine eleven Museum, the
Statue of Liberty, because that's what they hoped for for
the women and for their girls. And then we took
them to oharas they don't drink. But we had a
good time anyhow. But there's a lot of there's a
lot of good people of all faiths. But you know,

(52:37):
these Islamists that are causing trouble around the world, they
need to be poked in the nose. We'll be right
back some That's a story.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
And in the context of an army of normal folks,
it's really hard to say that Tim and his brothers
are normal. But I think of the office workers helping
one another down the escalator. I also think of the
cognitive decision of these firefighters saying I may not make it,

(53:24):
but I'm going anyway. And then I think of the
work that the ones that have survived have done to
support the children of firefighters and to keep the awareness going.
And so this whole story is wrought with stories of
heroic normal folks seeing areas and ed and filling it
from firefighters to civilians to now. And it's why we

(53:47):
celebrate your story, Tim, and it's why I want it
to be told for that, but also to challenge us
to remember there are twenty three and four year old
people walking the face of the planet right now that
aren't even alive when this happened, and it is incumbent
upon us as a nation to remember and respect and honor.

(54:10):
Does anybody out there have any questions for firefighter don Scott?

Speaker 2 (54:15):
You do?

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Alex has got a microphone. Yeah, coming your way. Please
say your name.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Thank you, Harold Daniels here in Memphis. I don't know
what it's like to be a I know New York
City FI fighters are the best in the world.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
I do know that, Thank you. Uh.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
I'm a first responder myself, and I do a lot
of stuff with the Health Department and training, and I
work Katrina and pulling bodies out of houses and stuff
during Katrina, and babies and kids and where people got
up to the attic with the water rossel hide, they
gathered addict and they didn't find their way out.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
And you hold the mac up a little bit, and.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
So I experienced that. But my question to you, and
I'm going back to the forest gump. We're Lieutenant Dan
as far as why did he save me? I wanted
to be with my man. Has that ever entered your
mind about all the friends that you lost? It you
want to know in yourself and you might fight it
in your dreams or fight it well, I'll say God,

(55:16):
why am I still here? I did not go with
my friends. It's a really good question, thank you. If
funny Lieutenant Dan is actually a good friend of mine,
the actor, so it's a it's a good question.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
I Gary, Yeah, Gary Yeah. So I know what my
mission in my purpose is. So I'm lucky compared to
a lot of people. This is my mission in my purpose,
working with the Three Letter agencies, going around the world
and being able to say thank you to our heroes
who serve overseas and our partners from different countries and things.

(55:54):
So I have a very full, meaningful mission. If I
had heard my best friend Terry Hatton screaming for help
on the radio, I would have been up those stairs,
you know, just like Patty was. I didn't hear him,
and I didn't know he was in trouble. I am
happy to be alive. I am happy to be able

(56:15):
to impact, especially the lives of like Michael and Genevieve,
you know, and bring them together. Right. Do I wonder
why I was spared? I guess I used to, but
I don't think. I don't question that anymore. Do I
miss my friends like crazy every day? One hundred percent?
Do I think about what life would have been like

(56:37):
with them still in my life. Yes, my best friend,
Terry Hatton's wife Beth, found out she was pregnant two
days after nine to eleven and they were around forty
years old, so they hadn't had children before. And she
made it through some rough times in her pregnancy and
had a healthy baby, girl named Terry with an I

(56:57):
named after her dad. So she's my little pal now.
And at that around that age twenty three, twenty four,
twenty five, they start wanting to know more about their
dad and stuff. She didn't know her dad, So I'm
getting closer with her again, and I hope to help
help her understand her father and what a hero he

(57:20):
was and then help her with anything she needs. And man,
there's nothing more fulfilling than that, So thank you. Anybody else?

Speaker 4 (57:29):
I actually have more than one question, so I'll start
with the easy one. You said as a teenager that
you were going through the madness of your own family
and you found the profession which you eventually entering in firefighting.
I work with kids, and I'm curious how you found
that and what led you to finding that. Did someone
help you? Did you accidentally discover it? Or how did

(57:51):
you find that because we need that for more people.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Yeah, good question, thank you. Yeah. I was was how
blunt can I be here as blunt as you want? Yeah?
I was smoking a lot of weed and failing out
of school, and I hated the world. I had no purpose,
no mission. I wasn't enjoying anything. A house caught on

(58:17):
fire across the street from where I lived, and my
father and the boys we all went running down and
to see our neighbor's house burn up. And there was
a young guy there. I was fifteen, he was sixteen,
and he was my friend, Jay Walsh, and he lived
all the way on the other side of town. I
was like, Jay, what are you doing all the way
over here? And he was sixteen, so I was licensed.

(58:40):
So he goes, well, I came, you know, in my
car whatever to he and he goes, I'm a junior
fireman like that. And I was like, you're a what
He's like, I'm a junior fireman. And I was like,
what's a junior fireman? And he said, come down on
Wednesday night and see if you like it. And you know, well,
we train and drill with ladders and hoes and all

(59:03):
kinds of stuff, learn ems stuff and all that, and
so I went down the following Wednesday. I thought it
was the coolest thing in the world. And I went
down the following Wednesday and attended and it was great.
I loved it. I had a great time. A few
days later he called me up and he said, Tim,
you can either be a junior fireman or be stoned.
You can't do both. In other words, knock it off.

(59:26):
And so because of Jay, and I tell him he's
my friend to this day, all he had to do
was tell me that that was available and then smack
me around a little bit and say stop being a jerk.
And that was it. I was got on straight and narrow,
and I became junior fireman and EMT and it was
the best thing that could ever have happened to me.

(59:46):
So I highly recommend it, especially for kids who are
maybe on the wrong track.

Speaker 4 (59:51):
Okay, and I want to thank you for being willing
to just constantly relive that trauma and share those stories,
because I think that's so powerful. Well, one of my
other questions is, I'm a school counselor and you went
through trauma I cannot imagine. And you've spoken of the
several years when you were in despair and discouragement. Are

(01:00:13):
there any specific things that helped you to get through
that trauma? What can we do for people that have
had instrumentable trauma so they can be more like you
and find the hope and the purpose in what they've
been through.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
So that my mantra is truth in history, which means
tell the whole truth. Patience and grief and resilience of
the human spirit. I find that patience. You can pray
to God all you want. You know, I was praying

(01:00:49):
to meet good quality men, similar to the friends I lost.
He didn't answer. God didn't answer me in that way.
He answered me in a different way, and I won't
get into it right now. I think it's too long
of a story. But he answered me in other ways.
So you have to pray, but don't expect that specific
prayer to be answered. But God knows what's wrong with

(01:01:12):
you and will help you. Patience in grief means a
lot of patients. It doesn't mean a month, it doesn't
mean six months. It means five years or ten years
of patience, and that's hard. But eventually you find the life,
laughter in love in what I call the tim two

(01:01:33):
point zero again in your life. The other thing that
I or two more things. I went through ten therapists
and I stayed at it. When I speak to our
first responders in military and our veterans, and I tell
him that I went through ten therapists before I found

(01:01:57):
my dear Ashley, who I just with, and she didn't
pretend to know what I went through. What she did
is she gave me tools to put in my toolbox
so I could help myself, such as compartmentalizing grief. No,
I had never heard of that before. And I was
able every morning to mourn for an hour and then

(01:02:21):
shut it off and try and have a productive day. Right,
Admirrable make your Bed. Sorry I'm losing his name right now. Yeah,
thank you, Admiral mccraven. He is. Yeah, he's writing the
forward to my book. But he has a very simple

(01:02:44):
book New York Times bestseller called Make your Bed. It's
just that simple get up in the morning. It doesn't
have to be your bed. But do one or two
or three things that make you feel good about yourself
every morning, and force yourself to do it, and you'll
be amazed at how it changes your disposition for the
rest of the day. Yeah. Oh, and another book you

(01:03:10):
guys can look at if you want is by a
Navy seal called Touching the Dragon, and basically, the dragon
is that pain. Right, So my dragon would be the
loss of my friends. Right. My friend Donna's dragon was

(01:03:36):
she was on the seventy eighth floor of the South Tower.
She actually gets hit by the plane when the plane
comes into the building and it slams her against the
wall and it explodes and she gets all burned up
and she has to claw her way out from the
bodies of her dead, burned friends. And so that's her thing.
Was She's burned pretty badly and she felt like she

(01:03:58):
couldn't go out in public. And we got our through that.
So that was her dragon. Once I helped her to
face her dragon and not just to touch it. But
I say, you know, if I wrote a book like that,
would be like punch the dragon in the nose, you know,
don't just touch it. And that's where I try to do.
I try to punch the dragon in the nose every

(01:04:19):
chance I get, because that dragon is not going to
take that power away from me and make me unhappy.
And so those are things for the kids that I
think can be really helpful all those things, and I'm
happy to talk with you more.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
And last one is because of what you're sharing and
I can remember, after all of us can exactly where
we were when it happened. And as you mentioned, we're
moving more and more away from people being able to
remember the experience. What do you find impactful for us
to share with others so we can make sure that

(01:04:53):
people never forget and it's not just some story. I
find that the kids I work with they have no
idea and they don't get it. Do you have anything
that you've seen to be impactful, I mean other than
I mean I think if they heard you, they might
get it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
A couple of things. The Tunnel to Towers Foundation T
two t dot org has a whole Educate educational section
or curriculum for kids, and the nine to eleven in
the nine to eleven Museum has also has curriculum for kids.
If you go to New York, go to the nine

(01:05:30):
to eleven Museum if you've not done yeah, one hundred percent, yeah,
and bring the kids to that. So there was one
two Yeah. I'm based on the oh oh yeah, the
conspiracy theory stuff so there's a big being a bit
a big push for whatever reasons. I have my thoughts,

(01:05:51):
but there there's been some people, including Mel Gibson and
Senator Ron Johnson who have this decided to get on
the conspiracy theory train. It's bs, it's not true. I
was there seven World Trade was my office. I was
there through the whole thing. NISSED National Institute of Standards

(01:06:15):
and Training did a scientific, evidence based investigation that that
proves that the conspiracy theories are not true. And the
reason I get angry about people that espouse that is
because it takes away from the truth that Islamist al

(01:06:35):
Qaeda terrorists murdered twenty nine hundred and seventy seven innocent
human beings. It also furnishes the heroism of your friend.
It does. It does so, which is unacceptable. That whole
conspiracy theory thing is so wrong. It's so offensive to us,
to the families, and to the heroes that were murdered

(01:06:56):
that day.

Speaker 5 (01:06:57):
Last question, so, several years ago, I visited a friend
in Connecticut and took the train from Connecticut to New York,
and I was kind of shocked, being my first.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
Time in New York.

Speaker 5 (01:07:09):
How large a place is, and so I just wonder,
like when you guys work in the fire department and
you're pulling from all these areas, like how many departments
are there?

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
And do you rotate?

Speaker 5 (01:07:22):
How do you get to know so many firemen or
you just stay within your fire Oh, I.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
See what you're saying, Okay, So yeah, yeah, So the
New York City Fire Department is probably now or under
ten thousands, somewhere around eighty five hundred to seven hundred firefighters.
And so, of course I was mostly a Bronx Harlem guy,
but starting in ninety one or ninety two, I was

(01:07:50):
in special operations. And once you're in special operations, you
work in all the special operations firehouses throughout the city.
So that's where I got to know this whole group
of firefighters. I knew around around one hundred. There's a
couple other guys that knew around one hundred who are alive.
But there are two guys I know of that knew

(01:08:10):
two hundred just because of the way their careers went.
And so there, if it's possible, they're hurt twice as
bad as me. It's breathtaking, and look, it took a
long time, but we got it back up and the
fire departments back to where a friend of mine said

(01:08:31):
that he said the fire department will recover, but not
for twenty years, and that was a true statement.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
What's the world? Yeah, yeah, sure, that's okay. This will
be the last one, and I'm staying around.

Speaker 6 (01:08:46):
So this is a very difficult question to ask. So
I'm not enjoying doing this, and I hope nobody takes offense.
But I don't know a lot about the procedures of
how you handle going into situations like that. You know,
as a fireman. Has things changed since nine to eleven?

(01:09:10):
Do you think they should change?

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
So, just so we know, has the fire Department changed
operational procedures and such in policy since September eleventh? And yeah,
I mean the answer is, of course yes. We sent
everything we had to that scene, and that's one of
the reasons we lost so much of our leadership and
so much of our special operations command. So now since then,

(01:09:38):
we hold back. We won't send our entire special operations
force to one emergency, we won't send our leadership to
one emergency anymore. We got a lot of federal money
to help us recover. Back then, we probably had four fireboats.

(01:09:59):
Now we probably have close to thirty fireboats in New
York City. We've built two new state of the art
communications nine to one one communications centers in kind of
secret places, one in Brooklyn, one in the Bronx, and
they're redundt. Well you're not gonna you're not going to
find them, but they're they're but they're completely redundant with

(01:10:21):
each other. We have built new firehouses that our people
don't know, but there's there's big, huge office spaces underground
and they're wired to be so that our fire department
headquarters can move to any of these firehouses in case
something happens at our headquarters. So we're you know, we're more.

(01:10:44):
We've responded more to what could happen if we're attacked.
They call it COOP and COG continuity of operations and
continuity of government, and the local fire and police departments
really haven't. The federal departments do that a lot, but
the locals hadn't done that before. But now we have

(01:11:05):
done that. We do a lot more training now than
we used to do. We've done that. We have done
an awful lot to improve our chances of helping people
in our chances of survivability ourselves.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
Thank you everybody here. Tim's going to hang around, maybe
have another beer. Maybe Alex will actually pull some money
out of his pocket and buy you a beer.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
I don't know. Bottom one give.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
Before we before we finish up, Just quick, quick plug.
We will have another live interview on June twelfth, and
it's another non eleven survivor named Father Mark.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Hannah Uh. Father Mark will be here.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
He saved fifty lives on nine to eleven. After not eleven,
Father Well Mark became a became a Coptic priest and
hence the father title. It's part of our Lunch and
Listen series that we've been doing at Crosstown Concourse. So

(01:12:12):
you show up around eleven thirty, sit there and eat
your lunch and meet somebody really special. You can learn
more and RSVP at Fathermark dot event bright dot com.
As we continue to do our part to try to
keep your story, your friend's heroic story, and our collective

(01:12:35):
memory is a nation alive so that we don't live
through this misery again. Tim, thank you, brother, Thank you
so much for coming to Memphis. And I know that
everybody here and everybody listening one learned a lot, and
two joins me in saying thank you for what you've done,

(01:13:00):
but thank you for representing the heroes that can no
longer speak for themselves. And I, for one, sir, believe
that's why God kept you alive that day.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
Yes, sir, thank you very much, God bless.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
And thank you for joining us this week. If Tim
Brown has inspired you in general, or better yet, to
take action by becoming a firefighter or something else entirely,
please let me know. I'd love to hear about it.
If you write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us,
I will respond. And if you enjoy this episode, please

(01:13:38):
share with friends on socials, subscribe to the podcast, rate
and review it. Join the army at normalfolks dot us,
consider becoming a premium member. There any and all of
these things that will help us grow an army of
normal folks. I'm fill quirk. Until next time, do what
you can