Crane's Corner: 8-17-21 The Shirt Tells The Story

Anyone who was there and I was, cannot forget the horrors of 9-11. It was at once, among the most beautiful, crisp fall days one could behold, nice enough to numb New York briefly to the horror that would come.Gotham..at the height of a weekday rush hour is loud; a cacophony of assorted noise--traffic honking horns, a police whistle, pedestrian chatter, the sales pitch of street entrepreneur moving on any given day their allotment of newspapers, umbrellas, counterfeit scarves, watches, and bags and other assorted swag. There is the rumble of the subways and the always changing ethnic soundtrack of the city, salsa on this block, rap around the corner, showtunes down Broadway. Yet on this crisp morning, the noise you expected to hear was shattered by siren, not one or two, but many signaling a disaster in decibels, the alarming noise--seemingly screaming from all directions, would persist as the grimmest of days for New York, America and much of the world unfolded. On that busy morning, 45 hundred jetliners were flying various routes above the US bringing business people together...transporting others to or from a vacation destination---4 of those planes...packed with innocent travelers and suicidal terrorists were unwitting missiles or bombs crashing into the iconic World Trade Center Towers, the pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. Before morning gave way to noon...some three thousand lives were lost, and the world as we knew...would never quite be the same. The dead, or pieces of them have long been laid to rest, a new larger skyscraper, The Freedom Tower finally filled in the gaping hole in Lower Manhattan, Thousands of family and friends of victims have moved on. Yet at a time when many who were just babies when the planes attacked, yell about defunding the police this is no time for those of who know better to keep quiet.

340 NY City firemen, two paramedics and a department chaplain died on 9-11. 71 uniformed police officers, first responders all died doing their job, trying to save others against all odds. Many of those who didn’t die that day but who worked for weeks on the toxic debris pile, would later pay a terrible price. Cancer and other respiratory ailments are known to have killed scores of police and firefighters, exposure to the poisonous debris is suspected of sickening hundreds of others.

I knew some of them, last night a 20 year old tee shirt brought back memories of one. A man named Terry Farrell. One of the finest and the bravest. Terry, not just content to serve as a U-S Marine served as both a police officer and a firefighter in New York City. I met Terry one Sunday morning in the late 90’s in church. His son TJ and my son Timmy were grade school pals. Terry was built like a college linebacker. His smile could light up a room and his handshake made you wonder if he’s broken a few small bones. Yours,  After 20 years on the job, the decorated NY Police Officer retired and joined the NY City Fire Department, telling his wife Nora, it would be a lot less dangerous. In some houses it probably was, not at Rescue 4, the elite NY City firehouse that got the big jobs, the impossible jobs, the sometimes deadly jobs. The Firehouse that employed the best including Terry Farrell.

A few months before 9-11 Farrell and his Rescue 4 team arrived on the scene of a multi alarm arson fire at a Queens paint factory, It was Fathers Day 2001. Three firefighters died. When Terry came home his wife Nora begged him to quit. He compromised, telling her he would put his papers in at the end of the year.

On Tuesday September 11, 2001, Terry Farrel and his Rescue 4 colleagues got the call and raced across Queens and into the the burning World Trade Center, no one knows how many lives he saved or how many stairs he climbed to help others, what was known later is that Terry Farrel died when the Tower collapsed pinning him and others under tons of fiery debris...more at www.edcranescorner.com/blog-page/