The Greatest Sacrifice: A Firefighter's Perspective on 9/11 and Its Aftermath

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I got a guest today, Brian Smith. I worked with
him and Narcotics and a couple other places. A really
cool story originally from New York. I'm gonna let him
talk about that a little bit. Uh, pretty quickly, we'll
know that that's where you're from. So tell us a
little bit about where you're from and just kind of
what it was like to grow up in New York.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Okay, So, born and raised in New York, the normal
part of New York because you've got you know, the city,
and you got the island and then everything else sort
of north of west Chester is like Virginia, just with
you know, people know how to speak English and and
how to drive in. The foods decent, but the but
it's very rural up there. But the but yeah, from

(00:52):
from New York, born and raised there from the city
right and just outside the city, so the the out
of boroughs and the you know, Long Island and and
you know, just you know what it was like growing
up there. I don't know. I mean I lived in
rough neighborhoods, grew up fighting all the time, and you know,

(01:14):
not especially well off or anything like that. But you
don't know, I mean when that's all, you know, That's
what you know.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
So so what did like an average day in New
York look like? So what did your parents do for
a living.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
So my dad was a fireman, and you know he
he'd be a work a lot, right, you know, sometimes
he'd be at work for days you didn't see him.
And then my mom, she had a lot of different jobs.
You know, she always had like some interesting job people.
I was like, how did you end up with this job?
But you know, never really stuck with some of them.

(01:46):
But anyway, the so you know, my dad used to
my dad used to break at chops, you know, like
all these jobs you get end up costing us more
money than it ends up you know, generating. But so
she was home, you know when she wasn't doing all
the thing. But it was, uh, I wasn't exactly a
stable house. My parents eventually got.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Divorced, and uh it was chaotic.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
You know. The adolescence was out of control and you know,
stayed in trouble but not enough where you know, it
ended up me.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
And anybody gave him look for you, Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
People came to I told my dad one time, I said,
you know, I had a bunch of my my buddy's
over and you know, just kind of hanging out or
whatever else, and like prank called some guy I don't
even know who Ellie was, and you know, two o'clock
in the morning. They were hell, we were probably fourteen
fifteen years old, drinking and just carrying on. And next
thing I know, somebody's beating on my front door. I'm like,
what the hell is this guy? That kicks the door opens.

(02:43):
Some man starts chasing me through my house. I'm like,
what the hell is this guy? And he's yelling and
carson at me. Tell him he's got you know, you know, uh,
I'm making these threats, but he's you know, he's got
all this pressure from the mob. And who do I
think I am? And I remember I had a I
found a utility knife. Me and this guy are hangled
up in the closet. I'm holding the utility knife to
this guy's throat like a maniac. And and eventually we

(03:05):
got to this point. Yeah, And eventually we got to
this point where we're like, all right, man, you know,
let's let's just and then the guy just sort of
like leaves right and he was like it turns out
he was like he knew one of my friends who
was another degenerate. And so I remember told my dad
like the day too later, I said, he has a
crack on the door. Some guy kicked the door in
and it chased me around the house. He's like, Okay,

(03:26):
you just didn't even phase him. You know, like not
a lot. I could be honest with. My dad was
very unflappable. Yeah, did the very little phase that man.
But the But anyway, I grew up in a in
a rough way. But you know it's it shapes you,
you know, so helps.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
You to So you go through your childhood, what was
it l like going to school? Like how many people
were in your high school?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
I think my graduating class had eighteen hundred people. I
mean it was it was pretty big. It was a
lot of it.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
You said you didn't know everybody.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
No, I didn't know anybody. I mean I knew people,
but yeah, it's not like here, God knows, I mean,
everybody knows everybody's you know, it's like this weird interconnected web.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
So you did meet a stranger up there like a stranger. Yeah, yeah, No,
you go through high school, you eventually went into service.
What drove you into Service.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
So you know, I grew up around my dad, like
I said, was uh, he was in the Marine Corps.
Then he got into the Fire Service back in nineteen
seventy eight Vietnam, so he was on the coast of Vietnam.
He h. He joined the Marine Corps nineteen seventy two

(04:37):
and left in seventy four. I think he was when
he got into the Marine Corps, I think that he
had this vision of what he thought that that was
going to be. And at the time Marine Corps had
some issues, I think, but I think that it just
didn't meet the what he thought was. Yeah, and so
he got out after a couple of years. And so

(04:57):
he got out in seventy four, and he was a
mechanic who was a mechanic in the UH in the
Marine Corps, and and he, like I said, got in
New York City. At the time was you know, they
had they were just going through a bankruptcy and they
laid off all these people and all this and including
a public safety people. And so my dad was the

(05:19):
first class they got hired that was not the pink
slip rehires. So in nineteen seventy eight they rehired all
the people they laid off, and then uh, in seventy eight,
my dad got on and he ended up in a
engine company in Brooklyn, And so it was always around that,
you know, growing up.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Do you ever just going to like firehouses?

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I mean we grew up in
a firehouse, you know, and every year on my birthday,
you and my dad would would take me in. You know,
get to spend the night at the firehouse. That's all,
you know, got to sleep in the bunk room. There'll
be a call. You get on the back of the truck.
I mean I remember being a kid, you know, answering
calls and people holding me while I'm holding on the
sitting on the backstep of the fire truck. You know,

(06:03):
we go to some fire and you know, eventually my
dad got into it, into another company, which wasn't nearly
as exciting, but he's still every year my birthday would
take me in, you know, go answer calls next morning,
get up, eat breakfast with the guys, and then go
watch a Yankee game. And no, no, not at all.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
I like teams that win.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of you know, I could
talk about the Yankees forever. But the you know, my grandfather,
so my grandparents on both sides, you know, they hit
the they hit the mainland here in the twentieth century.
You know, so we got nothing to do with the
war or anything else that everybody's gets gets all wound
tight about. But but my grandfather and my dad's side

(06:45):
and everybody ended up in you know, around Brooklyn, and
and so anyway, he went the Yankee games with his
father watching you know, bab Rutu Luke Garrick. So my
dad growing up, you know, go to Yankee games with
my grandfather watching Mickey Mantle and you know, Roger Morris,
Widdy Ford and all that, and so you know that
tradition had kind of carried on. So I mean, you know,

(07:06):
we're being ACU fans for one hundred years.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
So they schedule a game just for you on your birthday, now.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
You know the it would sometimes it would be around
my birthday. Sometimes they do it like on the seventeenth
instead of the fifteenth.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
But you know what, but but that was part of
your ritual. Yeah, it was that was cool. You'd spend
the night that was your birthday.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Oh yeah, that was awesome. So, you know, to answer
your question about you know what drove me to service.
It was it was a natural fit for me. You know,
I was around that you know, my dad. My dad
and I had you know times, especially to my adolescence,
was it was a strained relationship. And you know, of
course I love my dad, and you know, it was
just it was so much going on, and you know,
you just kind of find your way through adolescence, which

(07:46):
is never an easy journey for anybody. But the so
I get to a point where in ninety five I
ended up getting interested in volunteer fire service, you know,
volunteer fire company. That was that was new where I lived,
and I remember at that time it was like I
had conversations with my dad on a level I never
did before, because like, you know, we were talking about

(08:08):
you know, like hey, you know if you stretch an
inch and three quarter line for this kind of distance
and you have this and like that dude was rattling
stuff off and I was able to connect with him
in a way that like I just never had before.
You know, again, like I said, more relatable it was,
you know, and so so I was very much drawn
to that. Now I always wanted to get in a

(08:28):
police work, even though my dad was a fireman. You know,
I grew up on chips and starskin hutch and you
know I just wanted to, yeah, you know, go out
and chase bad guys, and you know it looked like
a lot of fun. But but I always said, hey,
if I got stuck in the fire service, it's not
a bad gig, you know. I mean, everybody loves you. You
show up. You know, it's a.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Uh, three meals a day usually all the time.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Get to hang out with your friends. I mean it's
a uh, you know, it's a tough flight those guys
got but the so so that initially, you know, drew
me to that public service, you know, I mean it
was something that was kind of it was ingrained in US.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Okay, so what did it? When did you get hired
by the Fire Department? Full time? Fire Department, New York.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
So I was working for a federal research facility in
Plumb Island, which is off the coast of Long Island.
It is run by the USDA and they do animal testing.
And it used to be it's a decommissioned military base
and that is where the government until like the nineteen fifties. Uh,

(09:30):
that's where they did testing for biological and chemical weapons
and stuff like that. So they shut all that down.
Well there's still some remnants of what they did over there,
and the place was it is really cool, I mean honestly,
like it's there's there's like all these old bunkers and
stuff from from World War two and they're on the
ground bunkers with tunnels, but it's all overgrown with vegetation.

(09:52):
So it's like it's like Indiana Jones, you know. So
we get out, start walking around, check out all these
cool things. And and but the had a slaughter like
every item on the island, right because they had a
had outbreaks and stuff out there, so everything that touched
the island they had to kill. I never killed them.
I'm not into killing animals. I don't mind eating them,
but you know, the old killing part makes me sad.

(10:13):
So the but they the only two things that they
were allowed to live on the island with ospreys and seals,
you know, seals that come up on the beach and
but the but everything else never know it. But you know,
deers can swim. They come they they'd swim right off
the mainland and and you know those got the little hooks.
But you know, they could they just float like barrels

(10:34):
and you know across they go and they come over
there and there's you know, there's no competition for foods,
so that they were happy as can be. You know, raccoons,
you name it. I mean all kinds of wild I
didn't have to kill anybody, but the government did. Oh yeah.
They would come in. They set up big piles of
apples or salt or whatever else, and these guys would
be sniping them ount in the trees in the middle
of the night. And then and in the morning they'd
have to neck crops all the animals. So they would

(10:56):
come into the lab and there's you know, there's there's
doors on the outside, and you know, they put them
in closet and then the scientists will pull them in
and make sure that they didn't have any diseases and
all this. So it's this whole thing. And then they
would burn up parts of the island. Man, it would
be crazy things that would happen at that place. But anyway,
I got talked. So one time, we're out there, and

(11:19):
so one thing we would do is like lighter on fire,
would have control burns. We had a flamethrower and you know,
so you'd burn up a lot of this vegetation because
if there's no vegetation, you don't have to worry about
the animals or be easy to find the ones. I
guess what you wanted to kill. So anyway, so we
burned up all this vegetation and it's sandy and you
look down on the ground and there's these vials. Pick

(11:40):
it up. It's like a glass file and it's just unmarked,
just some clear liquid, and I'm like, what the hell
is this? I don't know, there's some more of it.
Next thing, you know, it's all over the place. Joe,
God knows what was in it. But we just start
backing out real real quiet. Make sure you don't step
on and break any vials, and you just call whoever,
and you know, the EPA and somebody comes in and
just does that thing and he if they go, oh yeah,

(12:02):
I mean things like that all the time. But the
but inside the lab, you know, they got all these
animals they would experiment on, So you had animal handlers
inside there, and you know, some guy goes in there
breaks his hip, you know, like getting bumped against the
wall by a pig. Well it's first of all, it's
an island, So how do you get this guy out
of there? Plus he's in he's in a BSL four lab.

(12:26):
I mean, you can't just carry him out. So you
go in and out of the lab naked, so you know,
you take your clothes off, you go inside, you got
clothes on the on the dirty side. You conduct business
on there, and then you come out and you gotta
get you gotta get scrubbed down. And then as you
go so anyway, going there and get this oh yeah, yeah,
it was. Yeah, you don't have a lot in no

(12:46):
weig of dignity because there's there's no secrets there as
far as that goes. So so anyway, you go in
there and you gotta wheel this guy out and scrub
him down, and you know, you're talking to the nurses
on the dry side. We're all clothed of course, and
you're out there, you know, like trying to get scrubbed self.
And you know, then you come out and you got
to get this guy in helicopter to fly him out.
And then with this it's a it's a wild place, man.

(13:06):
But anyway, so while I was there, I was, you know,
put an application in civil service in New York is
very different than it is down here Virginia. But you know,
you gotta take a test, you're on a list. It's
all processman, it takes a while, you know. I got
a call and you got to a point where I
was getting hired, and I was like, yeah, this sounds

(13:31):
like fun, and so off to the academy.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
I got the academy for the fire department.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
That's in Randolds Island, So all of us stuff is
at Reynolds Island and Fort Totten, uh, from where a
lot of the training that I had, And so at
that point I was I already had, you know, because
of a lot of the trainings and stuff that I had.
I had all kinds of hazmat training and you know
EMS training and you know b L S, a LS,

(13:56):
you name it, uh and some other things.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
That kind of kind yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
And push me ended up pushing me into a special operations,
you know when I first got out. So, so I
finished the academy and like the day before you graduate,
they tell you where you're getting where you're going, right,
So at the time, I'm living on Long Island and
you know, you have this list, your your wish list
where you're gonna end up you know, you're gonna end
up here there. So I wanted to go to Queen's

(14:21):
because it was the shortest commute. You know. I had
this list, it was seven choices, and the last choice
on the list was the North Bronx because it was
the furthest away from my house. And it was a
captain that was in that was running the academy at the time,
real ball breaker, and I didn't have any issues with
the guy, but he hated the guy that I commuted
with hated him just it was a shame the guy was.
It was a good dale. He's a little goofy, but

(14:43):
just rubbed this guy the wrong way. And then he
used to talk about it. He's like, I will find
out where you live and I will send you to
the place furthest from and some of a bitch he did.
And uh yeah. So I ended up in this battalion
up in the North Bronx and first day I go
in there, they showed me around. I said to the captain,
I said, it's a beautiful firehouse. I said, I gotta

(15:03):
be honest with you. I can't work here like I
gotta fill out paperwork. I said, this is it was
like ninety miles one way, you know, plus I had
to pay tolls going over to white Stone Bridge. So
I says, it's not gonna work. And I remember I
called my dad and I said, you gotta know somebody.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah I had at that point.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
So my dad was working.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Uh was he did he have rank or he just
knew everybody?

Speaker 2 (15:23):
He knew everybody. So he So my dad got detailed
to a company in Queen's called has Matt when it
first started in nineteen eighty four. My dad's a charter member,
and so he was in has Matt up until about
ninety seven, and then he gets detailed to may at
Giuliani's office. He works for Office Emergency Management. I keep
going to work every day shooting huh people.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Oh yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, he knew people, and so I said, Dad, you
got to help me out here, like this isn't gonna work.
So he ended up he was in worked for Julia
Giuliani's office for a couple of years and then he
came eventually come back out to has Matt. But so
he said, yeah, I call somebody. I said I could do.
I said, all right. So I waited a little while
and you call him up on like what did your
contact ever call you back? Like what, I gotta make it,

(16:06):
gonna make a decision here. And I had a buddy
of mine called him up. He's like, yeah, let me
get a phone call from Chief. He said, Hey, it's
the chief goal far He said, I understand you want
to come to Brooklyn. I said, yeah, I would love that. Chief.
He's like, all right, done, And you know, just you know,
a lot of that stuff was there who you know,
And and then I ended up going down to Brooklyn.
Thank God, cut my commute by twenty miles, no more tolls,

(16:28):
you know, only took me an hour to get to work.
I was like, this is wonderful, right, you know, compared to.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
What I got now. Was at the station, you didn't.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Like not long come a few months, maybe that's still
long down. It was a long time, and it was
rough man.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
And the dude didn't like you just because of your body.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, I had nothing to do with me. And then
people at the station, everybody was nice whatever else. So anyway,
I ended up in this battalion down in Brooklyn, in
downtown Brooklyn, which was its ad Jason too. So it
was Battalion thirty one and I worked out a special
operations unit. It was called ATA. So we did you know,
we did ems, we did als, BLS, types of intervention.

(17:07):
We were also a support unit for the rescue companies,
for hazmat for all the squads, and we were and
we were a citywide response unit. So anything there was
a one alarm fire in the burrow we would handle,
you know, we get we get deployed to anything that
was above a two alarm fire. We could get deployed
city wide. Plus we were first line terrorists response unit.

(17:30):
You know, we had the you know, the hazmat suits,
the whole thing, like we can go in and and
deal with all sorts of things like that. And so
it was great. I mean it was so where we
was stationed. You know where that station is is, it's
pretty close to bepist Ivison Park Slope, which is a
really nice part of Brooklyn, And then you go a
few blocks further and then it starts to get pretty

(17:52):
rough fast, and and you know where I worked, especially
at the time as young as I was, it was wonderful, man.
I mean it was hard. Uh, the hours were hard.
The neighborhood was hard.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
The hours like for y'all.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
So, so I was at work all the time, and
you could work like mutuals and stuff, so you can
pick up all the people's shifts. And there were times
I'd be at work for days, you know, or you know,
I would sleep at work because I knew my next
shift would be coming up, you know. And then there
were times where you know, you're off and so so
of course with our with where we worked, we were busy, man,

(18:26):
all the time. And I went to the academy with
people that used to get what were called no hitters.
You know, they'd work a whole tour and they won't
to get a single job. They're like, yeah, we won't.
Just came to work and hung out and went on.
So well, that must be nice because I could tell
you we never had any no hitters. But to be
honest with you, like I said, where I was at
the time, I was happy, man, because I mean we
were as soon as we were clear from a job,

(18:46):
we had another one waiting for us. And so, you know,
we saw a lot of work, a lot of trauma.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
D MS side of things were just so the trauma,
I mean, I know, working in you know, and rural
areas and things like that. The trauma you had was
a lot of it's like car accidents and sit like that.
What was the trauma like in New York violence? Man, Like,
so people are getting shot stabbed all the time. I
mean it was a it was a nightly occurrence. I mean,
so you know, you go in there, and there were

(19:16):
times we pull up on scenes and people would still
be running around. It'd be somebody bleed in the middle
of the street, which just kind of screw them up,
and then you know, throw them in the back of
a bus and off would go and and you know,
and then you just wash up and move on to
the next job. And you know, so a lot of
that I had. You know, really you know, housing projects,
you know, thirty forty stories high and it's just you know,

(19:38):
housing projects and top of projects and top projects and
not not nice areas, and you know, and because of
the socioeconomic situation that we were in, you know that
we were working in, you know a lot of the
violence that kind of comes with that. Plus we'd see
I mean I had in the time I was there,
I had to live twenty one babies really and yeah,

(20:00):
it was uh, you know again for the experienced part
of it. It was great, man, Like you know, it just
exponentially you know, compared to what I would have gotten
in a place that was you know, slower as far
as jobs experience.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Wise, it was it was great, man. I mean, And
like I said at that point, I was, you're young
in your career. You're trauma junkie. You know that the
more you get you'd be like, oh man, let me
see the next one, and just couldn't get enough of me.
Just just eat it up.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
And so here's the question. So you said earlier, like
you did the counter terrorism stuff for anism stuff. So
that would have been like right after the first World
Trade Center bombing before.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
So I went through because of my connection with my
dad and his connection with Giuliani. I had counter terrorism training,
uh through the Fire Department and through the City of
New York because they did different things and a lot
of that background, you know, kind of led into where
I eventually ended up on the Special Option Unit. So

(20:54):
you know, and my dad, even when he was noem
you know, they like they trained for terrorism, they expected terrorism.
You know. Of course they were familiar with the first
bomb in ninety three at the Trade Center.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
So when did you graduate from the Fire Academy?

Speaker 2 (21:10):
So I came out in two thousand.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
Okay, so you so you had the first World Trade
Center bombing, like in the garage.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
So that was in nineteen ninety three. I was in
high school a t time. Okay, yeah, that was it.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
So but but at that point they were like, hey there.
I think New York had always thought like, hey, we're
we're a legitimate target.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Oh yeah, no question.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
But like that kind of to me, the limited knowledge
I had that was kind of like a wake up call, like, hey,
they really are trying to hit us.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
It was, but you know, not like September eleventh was,
you know, and you know, the gravity I think the
human nature. I mean, you think about the kind of
wake up call that not eleven should have been, you know,
and how you know, the years of progressing, you know,
people just yeah, you know, and it just gets a
point of like, well, okay, well I woke up, I'm

(21:57):
fine today, everything was okay, So I guess tomorrow I'll
be okay too. And and just the the blissful ignorance
of the kind of evil that's out in the world
that people just choose not to think about or just
don't know about or.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Whatever, but I guess if you're not prepared for it
or you don't train for it, sure it's easier just
stick your head and to say and hope for the best. Yeah,
so you were having counter terrorism training. How long were
you at that really busy station until I left until
I came to Virginia? Okay, all right, so kind of
just walk through, like what happened for you on September eleven?
So you said you were picking up a bunch of

(22:32):
different shifts, So like, what was it like to be
So you you're saying wide open all the time, all
the time, and everything else all the time. So from
your fire station in Brooklyn to the World Trade Center,
how far arrived was at?

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Five minutes? Okay? We're so we're in downtown Brooklyn. So
we're right at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, and
right on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge is
downtown is you know, downtown Manhattan? Okay? Yeah, down by
the Financial District, which is of course where the Trade
Center complex is. So so you know, I say, five
minutes depends on traffic.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
But you can but you can you can see it
from where you're Ah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Oh, yeah, no, you can. You can see the you
could see the whole part of the skyline down there.
So when so, I'd worked a shift before and we
were up all night, were running jobs whatever else, and
you know, we ended up catching a late job that
held us up a little bit. But anyway, we get
back to the station and one of the guys I
worked with, his name was Brian Gordon, and he was

(23:33):
living in Manhattan at the time. But to get to
the subway station where he would have to take to
get back home, he'd either have to walk through the
projects what you don't do, and so he'd have to
either do that or I get my right. So I'll
get my right. So we were walking out towards the
parking lot and I heard the explosion from the North Tower.

(23:56):
And when I heard, I looked up and I could
see the you know, the fireball coming out of the building.
I didn't see the plane go in and hear the plane.
And what happened was I heard, I guess by the
time the sound got across the East River to where
I was, where I was, you know, at that point,
you know, the explosion was still and I so I
looked at Gordon and I said, hey, you know, someone

(24:18):
just blew up the World Trade Center. And so we
were making our way back to out the truck that
we worked on. You know, the next shift was taken
it over, so you know, you do different things to
begin of the shift. You check your meters and make
sure your gear was right, and you know there's a
lot of equipment on the truck that you had to
make sure it was good for the shift.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
So so your all stuff had already rotated off.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean we were in civies and so
we go running back and these guys were getting ready
to go, you get ready to go on duty, and
so we said, look, someone just blew up the World
Trade Center, so that we knew that the unit was
going to get deployed. And so we said the guys
that were there, and I said, you want to to

(25:00):
wait for you? I said, no, no, go go go
We'll we'll catch up. You know, we'll just grab a
spare unit. So we go running inside the station and
the lieutenant that was on duty, his name is Chris McCarthy,
good guy, big dude, and you know he's just kind
of sitting at the desk or whatever, and we come
running in. We're like loose so much, just blue the
Trade Center up, you know, we need keys to a truck.

(25:22):
And he's like, I'm sitting in front of the TV.
I'm sitting next tot of radio. I think if someone
blew up the trade Center and I would know about it. Like,
if you guys need overtime, you don't need a story.
And and no sooner does he say that to the
you know, the the news footage of this gaping hole
in the side of this building is close up, you know,

(25:42):
just the paper and the smoke and the and you
know that comes across the radio attention of Brooklyn North
units and MCI has been announcing in a borough of
Manhattan and they started pushing out mass casuallyan so, so
at that point of course we knew we're going to
go to work. And I grabed keys off the board

(26:03):
and it was for a spare ambulance. They hadn't been
putting the service, but had lights, had wheels. I said,
this will get us there. We'll catch up with everybody
when we get down range. And so I gave set
of keys to Gordy grab radios, and Gordy side his
uniform and stuff on because he would he would wear
that to get on the subway, so I didn't have

(26:25):
to pay the fare, but you know, I had to
get a change. I had regular clothes and stuff on.
So I was like, I got to grab my key
and I said, Gordy, go out to the truck. I'll
be out there in a minute. And so Lieutenant McCarthy said, hey,
you guys, go out there. You know, let Central know
that you're available for the job. If they deploy you
switch over to city wide frequency. Be careful and stay

(26:46):
out of trouble. Because Gordy and I were always in trouble,
I want to say trouble. But whatever shit storm was
blown through Brooklyn, we were always like the eye of
that storm as it came and made its way through.
And so we did go work. We were just notorious
for having that that magnet attached to us.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
So yeah, a little extra.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
So so anyway, so we go out and we get
on the radio, said, you know, we got a full house,
had crew or a battle for the MCI and they said, yeah,
proceed down to one world trade report to the command
post for further assignment at the corner of Vessey and West.
So okay, let's go and at that point they'd shut
a hicula traffic going into the city, into Manhattan, but

(27:28):
of course emergency vehicles could go. So you know, cops
are there blocking regular cars from going across. We're driving
on the sidewalk and you know, pushing people out of
the way, and next thing you know, we're on a bridge.
We're going across, and I said, I said, okay, I mean,
obviously I could see a giant burning building here. I
know my way around New York, like the main roads,
but you know, once you get off them, you know,

(27:48):
some of these off roads. You know, we used to
have these things, they would call them maps, like we'd
have to pull out this big map and you look
at the grid and figure out how they get from
place to place, you know.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
And everything's different now because of all the all the
traffic and anything else.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
So we so I looked over Gordia, I said, hey, man,
gotta let me know which way we go. When we're
on inside the bridge, left, right, straight, like whatever. You know,
I could see a big burning building on the bridge,
you know. But once you're in the valley, it's not
like you look up and look. I mean, you're looking
at you're in the valley of giant buildings. So he said,
I don't know. I said, well, you're looking at the map, man,

(28:22):
like you got to tell me. And he's like, I
can't see it. I can't see it. And Gordy, I
remember thinking, on the way of that job, thank god
I have this man with me, because I'm going to battle.
And you know, Gordy was he was in the Marine Corps,
did four years in the Marine Corps and then transferred to
the Army for three because he was attached to a

(28:42):
you know called Seabirth, which was a biological instead of
response for us. And because of that, he was a
hazmat specialist, which was a degree which was a level
above where I was just as a technician. And so
this is the guy like he literally retired from the military.
The next day he starts the academy for the fire Department.

(29:03):
And when he came out, because of especially, he was
able to get tied to our unit. And so I'm like,
thank god I got Gordy with me. He was a minium.
He is a maniac, but like, that's the guy wanting
to trench with me. And and he was just staring
at the buildings like I can't see, man, like just
getting you know, circuits were getting overwhelmed. And about that

(29:23):
point there's an unmarked R and P coming up behind us,
and I said, well, let's just follow this guy. He's
either going on the same job we are, or it
is something crazy going on somethingwhere else that you know,
we'll follow him to something. And so anyway, we get
off the bridge and we make our way down and
we get into the complex or the trade center, and
by that point it's pandemonium. I mean it's just thousands

(29:46):
of people running down the street. Of course, there's all
kinds of traffic on the radio, and in New York,
you know, the way that the radios would work was that,
you know, you could key up and start talking. Somebody
can step on you. So you know, if you keep
it up because you had something important to say, well,
next thing, you know, that transmission is getting stepped on.
And then that was constantly happening because everybody had something

(30:07):
really important to say. Hey, someone just jumped out of window.
Hey this is coming in, you know, like things have
fallen off the building. So all this kind of stuff
was going out. It was crazy, man, So you almost
turned it off. So I ended up getting down to
the corner of Church Street and Liberty Street, and there
was a highway sergeant there for the police department, you know,

(30:28):
like I said, looking like Pons and John got the helmet,
the big black boots, the whole thing, you know. So
I said, hey, serge, do you have any idea where
we're getting deployed? You know where we're supposed to get stationed.
I don't know where we're going, he said, Man, I
have no idea. He's like, there's no on the radio.
He's like, I'll tell you what, though, there's a bunch
of people that are hurt, real bad down in the tenhouse.
So I said, well, where's that? And what he was

(30:49):
referring to was the quarters of Engine ten and a
lout of ten, one of only two houses in the
in New York City Fire Department that with a engine
and the ladder have the same number. So it was
just down Liberty Street. He said, there's a bunch of
people hurt there, And we ended up going down there.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
So that fireuse treating people down there.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Right, So that firehouse is directly across the street from
the South Tower, which had not been struck, which gets
struck as soon as we got there. So at that point,
you know, we had gotten in and we talked to
the captain of the house and were like, hey, man, like,
we're at your disposed. We don't know where the hell
we're supposed to go at this point. We're supposed to
go to World Trade one. We're now across the street
from World Trade two. And he said, look, all my

(31:30):
CFR guys are on the engine, they're ready deployed around
the corner. I don't have anybody. He's like, I have
a house full of injured people here and some of them,
some of them are hurt pretty bad. You know, a
lot of trauma. And he's like, if you guys could
do anything to mitigate this until we can get some
extra resources here, this would be a great, great place
to start. I said, okay, then, of course, so you'll

(31:52):
start tri yes, pulling out MCI tags, the whole thing. Well,
you know, it's strange with trauma and when you're in
the high stress kinds of traumatic incidents like that, like
the different things that you experience and you know, like
the gaps in time or whatever else, auditory exclusion. I

(32:18):
remember hearing people screaming, but I never heard the South Tower.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Getting hit because you were in into your mode.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
And I was locked in. But I could hear and
I could see everybody looking up. And I came out
towards the front of the firehouse and I could see
the fire, the explosion and all I'm like, oh man,
you know, and really at that point and it changed
for me because the whole time, I'm like, I'm going
down to this job. It's gonna be huge, gonna be awesome,
awesome in a gruesome way, you know, like you know,
not to be.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
Morbid, but no, but you you trained for this, yeah,
and you're like, all right.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Like I'm prepared to go to this is this is
this is the fight that I trained for. And but
in the in fire and ems, you know, you're you
respond to things. You know something's happened, and you get
there and you go deal with what's happened. This was
something that was continuing to happen, and at that point,
you know, it was like, you know, like this thing

(33:10):
is not done yet, like we're still under attack, you know.
So we had put out to that point to our dispatch.
We had to kick back over to one of our
regular channel because the city of city wide channel is
too crazy, And I said, hey, we you know, we're
gonna try to set up some triage on the south
side of the complex, direct all the ambulatory people to

(33:33):
the tenhouse, and you know, get us some additional resources
to be able to get people on the out and
out of there. And it wasn't long after that there
was a couple of firemen come running into the to
the apparatus bay doors. They hollering and they said, help, help, help,
we need a medic. A brother's been hurt up the street.
And then they go take off. So I grabbed two

(33:58):
other firemen and the stokes basket and I go out
to go after these guys. Well, Gordy says, I'm coming
with you, I said, Gordy waiting here. I'll be right back,
I says, nobody else. Somebody's got to stay to take
care all these people. Us. I don't worry, but I
won't be long because really, at that point we had
seen a lot of an initial you know, trauma from
things falling off the building, hitting people whatnot. After the

(34:21):
second plane hit, we saw a lot of burns, bad ones,
I mean, you know, like skin falling off people's arms,
kind of stuff. I mean it was it was pretty
pretty gruesome, and I said, what do you gotta stay here?

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Man?

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Sell people back in a minute. So we end up
going down the street and I remember, you know, several
things from that point. The first thing was, you know,
in my career in public service, I mean, it's coming
up on thirty years now, I've been to all kinds
of jumper calls, right and fire service, he'd be either
jump up or jump down. That's how they get classed

(34:55):
because if they would jump up, did somebody stand on
the ledge thinking about it? You figure out what they're
gonna do, and then you respond from there, jumped down
meant that they made the decision, and of course you
were never really going at a render aid. But in
the in the city, the fire departments responsible for picking
up dead people in public view. So you know, I've
been to jumper calls, I've seen what you know, what

(35:17):
the result of that is. But in all my time
in emergency service, before or after, I've never had to
worry about dodging them. And from the time that I
left the firehouse to the time I eventually make my
way back, I had seven jumpers land probably twenty thirty
feet from me, and so, you know, we go out

(35:38):
and initially, you know, just looking up because it's like
the building is so tall you can't see the top
of it until you're back a couple of blocks, you know,
And it's hard for people to understand if you've never
been near a high rise like that. But you know,
I remember this, yeah, you know, and in fire school
they teach you that the collap zone of a building
is one and a half times it's height. Ok, well,

(35:58):
how do you calculate one and a half times the
high of a building you can't see the top of.
And I remember thinking, God, if this building falls down,
hope falls down like a big tree in the other direction, right,
because I was like, I mean it's huge. I mean
it was. It was an acre for every floor of
that building. There's one hundred and ten of them, you know.
I mean it's it's hard for people, I think, to

(36:19):
digest the actual size of those buildings. Anyway, So we're
looking up because of course you have things constantly falling
off the building, steel, glass, concrete, people, and you know,
looking not to get hit by anything.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
So could you I don't know this sounds morbid, but
could you hear him coming, scream the whole way down,
Scream the whole way down. It's horrible.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
And then you know, you almost I don't know if
it's you get conditioned by you know, looney tunes, you
know the you know, the road runner and the coyote.
You know, you just they hit the ground, you know,
kind of Yeah, people are like water balloons, you know,
from that height at that speed, you know, just hit
the ground and it's just just I don't know, explode.

(37:02):
I mean, it's it's and obviously you got, you know,
a person one hundred and fifty two hundred pounds coming
at you a terminal velocity. You don't want get hit
by that. And and there were guys that got killed
by people falling off the buildings, jumping out of the buildings.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Was the chaplain or the chaplain for the judge.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
So so we're kind of walking out like this, and
you know, as we're getting down to where this guy was,
I remember at one point I had I was kind
of looking for what I expected to see. You know,
my initial anticipation was gonna go out there, it was
just gonna be stuff everywhere, and it really wasn't. At
first A lot of smoke, things on fire. But you know,

(37:42):
I didn't really see that, you know, the biological debris.
So I started walking a little bit more and then
I slipped. And when I went to see what I
slipped on, and it was that's when I started to
get to you know, that biological debris, and it was
it was somebody's head. And I remember I stopped. I
kind of paused, and I looked, and I mean that
it was just carpeted. It wasn't like you know, sort

(38:03):
of walking through the minefield hoping out to squish do something.
It was like you gotta walk through it. And and
I remember.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
That's is that from jumpers or a combination?

Speaker 2 (38:12):
That was from the plane in the building. And the
reason why I know that for sure, other than the
mass of it, you know, the actual volume of it was, uh,
there's you know, there's one point where I stopped and
I looked, and it felt like a long time. It
was probably just a second or two where I thought,

(38:33):
what could do that? You know, It's one thing, you know,
I kind of expected to see an arm And I
mean I've been by that point, I've been involved in,
you know, responding to all kinds of stuff. And you know,
I've seen all manner of trauma, but not on that scale.
And like I said, there's things you expect to see,

(38:54):
but you know, I was looking at stuff and I'm like,
what could do that to a person? And and there's
there's one child that ended up getting killed down there,
and and I tell you it's it's strange because you know,
in hindsight, you think about like what would I do,
what I do different in all this and just the
weird kind of things you think about and entertain. But

(39:17):
there was a there's a child's foot, and you know,
of course in hindsight, you know, doing the research, like
I know whose foot that is? Everything else is sort
of indiscriminate. You know, it could be anybody, and you know,
odd enough, like you know, like one of my regrets
is like I didn't grab a foot and like put
it in my pocket, you know, because I don't know

(39:40):
that that family ever had a chance to to you know,
to bury that kid. And but anyway, so we're in
this mess and like all right, we got to keep
trudging through because I mean, we're out that we're on
a mission. I mean, we just and I remember thinking,
like I'm not to think about this later, because this
is this is crazy. But kept pushing through and we
got to hell, I don't know, we were maybe thirty

(40:03):
feet from where this guy was and he got hit
in the head with something from the building and a fireman, yeah,
it was a fireman, and he I could see the
other firemen that were around him, and they picked him
up on a like a long board, and they were
carrying him away from where we were. And when they
picked him up, I could see that he had received
a mortal wound to his head. They were taking a

(40:23):
body away, and so I knew that there was nothing
that I could do. And I remember to the two
guys I was with, I said, let's just let's just
get back outside. I woudn't get killed out of here
like this shit was constantly just raining off the building,
you know. And so we did and we started making
our way back and we got back probably about halfway

(40:46):
and it was one of those little carts, you know,
they sell coffees and butter rolls, all kinds of stuff,
and it was locked up, and we broke the lock off.
I said, look, man, we're gonna be here probably twenty
four hours, who knows when when he gets relief, let's
just get some waters and stuff like that. We're like,
we're gonna need to start rehabbing people. So we took
out a milk cart, chunk out all the mud, the

(41:08):
milk and the butter and all that, filled it up
with like waters and snapples. Give it the one guy.
He runs it into the firehouse, start doing a second thing,
and I was probably, hell, I don't know, three or
four bottles of water into that thing, and I heard
this sound and it's it's hard to describe, honestly, you know.
I mean, it was like as gifted a wordsmith as

(41:30):
I could be at times. The closest thing I could
think is if you imagine standing on a runway of
an airport, and so you're at LaGuardia and then there's
a seven forty seven dive bombing you, and as it's
coming straight to wherever you're standing, they're pulling back on
the thrusters towards you. That's what it sounded like. And

(41:53):
in my mind, I never looked up. I mean, I'm
standing from here to the wall to the building that's
about to, you know, collapse down on top with me,
and I never looked up. I just looked at the
other guys with and it was just run. And the
two of us started to run. And you know, one
of those other you know, trauma type of responses was

(42:14):
that time slows down. You know sometimes people say time
will speed up, sometimes just saying to slow down. You know,
I think that your processor, it just starts getting overwhelmed
with so much information that you know you're perceiving that
processing at a different speed. And I remember running like
I was running through oatmeal, like just you know that
dream we're trying to run away from somebody but you

(42:34):
can't get your legs to work, like it felt like that,
but in real life, and we ran towards this firehouse,
and inside this firehouse, all the other people that could
got up and ran away from this horrible sound too.
And the guy that was in front of me, I
don't know who he was, so I don't mind embarrassing him.

(42:56):
So it was just some random vironment. But he runs
and there's a there's a Chinese guy that's on the
floor and he has a fracture of pelvis, so he
can't get up and run, so he's kind of dragging
his his bottom half like he was a you know,
like an animal that gets hit on the side of
the road, you know, and he hurtled him and I'll
never forget that. As soon as he heard him, the

(43:17):
first thing I thought was, oh shit, and I not
gonna pick him up. And so I'm running and I
kind of grab a hold of this dude. His name
is Fou. So I grab a hold of Foo. And
you know, we had put this they call it a
k D. It's an extra extracation device. Well, if you
turn it over, it's meant for taking people out of
a car. But if you turn it over you can

(43:38):
actually use it the stable as a pelvic fracture. It's
not what it was designed for, but it works. So anyway,
we would put this thing on him, and I grabbed
him by the KD and I grabbed him by his
shirt or jacket and just kind of went to pull
back like this. And as soon as I did, I
get I mean, I get hammered. And you know, when
you're at the beach and you get hit by a

(43:59):
wave you see coming and then you're just going along
for the ride, you don't know which way is up
and down. So I'm no physicist or engineer But as
that building comes down from the south tower, the top
portion of the building falls south towards where we are,
and the rest of it comes straight down. And as
it's coming straight down to the ground, it's just releasing

(44:21):
this wave of energy and pressure. And it hit me. Hit,
rips food out of my hands. I go deeper into
the firehouse, hit my head, I hit the ground, and
I could feel it pressing me down against the ground.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
And did you how so how big is that firehouse?
Is it big enough where its size of the gymnasium
or something?

Speaker 2 (44:41):
No?

Speaker 1 (44:41):
No, no, I mean it's it was wide enough to
put you know, an engine and ladder. I mean it's
it wasn't a big building. No, no, it's but it
would shove. So did it shove you all the way
to the other wall or probably? No?

Speaker 2 (44:50):
Probably, I don't know, fifteen twenty feet into the deeper
into the firehouse. I know I was standing near the
rear wheelwell of the ambulance that we drove there, and
I got I got pictures I'll send you. I mean,
the thing is completely crushed, it's just destroyed. And you know,
I ended up deeper into the firehouse in the apparatus bay,

(45:15):
and I could feel a pushing me down, I could
feel things coming past me. I get hit in the face.
You know, I'm bleeding and I ended up breaking my
nose and and you know, had all kinds of soft
tissue injuries and just the roar of it, you know,
it just kind of riding it out and then all
of a sudden it just stopped. It was complete silence.

(45:38):
You know, it was complete blackness. And you know the
old days in the fire surface what they would do
before it had Scott packs and all that. You know,
the old school guys who you know all died young
because they had love cancer and god knows what. You know,
they would they would breathe one of two ways, either
through the through their armpit or down at the at

(45:58):
the ground they go in they be fighting a fire,
and then when it had to breathe, they just get
real close to the ground and you know, being an
inch or two of air that was breathe a boy,
I guess, and you go down and hold their breath
and come back up again. I mean, hardcore dudes, and
I'm against the ground and there was no inch of anything.

(46:18):
Of course, unbeknownst to me, you know, all alow. Manhattan
now is covered in this thick dirt dust cloud. Now
my mind, A plane just crashed out in front of
the firehouse, and you know, like I'm just in the
Hollywood black smoke of it, and I'm just waiting for
it to go up, and i just gotta get out
of the building and get a fresh air from outside.
And I remember thinking, I got a two hot I said,

(46:42):
I have one breath that I need to take advantage of,
and I need to use that breath to find fresh air.
So I remember thinking, all right, I got to get
to a scott pack. I got to get to my truck.
But then I realized when I had my truck, I
got an an ambulance. I don't think I have band
aids in it had nothing. It's all right, I'm in
a firehouse. But the engine in the ladder, you know,

(47:03):
the truck is around the corner, and the and the
pump is around the corner. So I realized, like there's
no option with that, and I'm like, I gotta breathe.
And I tried to breathe through my jacket, but it
was like someone took a shovel at dirt and put
it right down my throat and then as soon as I,
of course, you breathe that in and your response says then,

(47:24):
which draws an ex breath, And by about that point,
everybody else in that firehouse was in the exact same situation,
complete terror. Can't breathe can't see, and you know, you
hear the screaming, and I said, I gotta get out
of this building. I just gotta again my mind, my
mind's eye, just gotta find the back door outside, the
sunshine and fresh air. And of course there was none.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
So how much debried did you have on top of
you pushing you down?

Speaker 2 (47:50):
So a lot of that I think was the was
the pressure. What ends up happening is is debris fills
the front part of the firehouse, and so I'm in
the firehouse. So that's structure. You know, we saved my life.
Now that the firehouse itself ended up sustaining a lot
of structural damage. In fact, that firehouse didn't reopen until
like November of two thousand and three. But it saved me,

(48:16):
you know, structurally, it kept.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
You know, all the other solid debris started filling up,
and yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
It was it was everybody else jew it that was
that was on the street, you know, when I was
looking back, just instantly snuffed out. They're all gone. And so,
you know, I get up and I start trying to move,
and I ended up falling behind. It was a port
authority guy. It was a boss, and I knew he
was a boss because if I get real close, I
could see a shirt. It was white. In New York,

(48:44):
you know, the boss's wet white shirts because they don't
get thirty. You know, they're busy telling everybody else what
to do. So I had no falling behind this guy
and he's moving and I'm like, maybe he knows where
I don't know. I've never been in this fire house before,
and I'm like, I don't know where I'm going. But
this guy's in motion, I said, is a man with
a plan? Follows my lead blocker. And I'm moving and
I imagine what hell is like, and I feel like

(49:06):
I got a taste of it because the terror, you know,
that comes with not being able to breathe. I could
feel people that I was walking on screaming, grabbing at me,
everybody yelling for help. And I remember thinking to myself,
does anybody know the way out of here? You know,
just like, all right, you know, let me go out,
let me regroup, and then I'll come back to help.

(49:28):
You know, well, we ended up stopped and he turns around,
it's like starts walking into me because the back portion
of the firehouse was damaged and there was no way out.
And then I heard Gordy come over the radio with
a may Day, you know, santral help help. You know,
we've been you know, we have heavy casualties, we can't
breathe send help and all these sorts of putting out

(49:50):
this blood curdle on may Day. And I said, god,
I got fud Gordy and I start kind of making
my way back through the firehouse and end up bumping
into him. And when I did, I remember he came
up and you know, of course he gives me a
big barrel hug and he's like, holy shit, dude, I
thought you were dead. And I said, yeah, me too,
And I said, look, dude, we need to come up

(50:12):
with a game plan because like we're not in a
good situation here.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
So kind of describe what it was like. So you
you had like once you stood up, you had room,
but it was still dirty, dirty.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Hardly see a thing you couldn't see.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
Yeah, I mean it was almost like being in a
fire without oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yep, exactly without the heat, but you couldn't see anything.
And you know, eventually, like we had like streamline flashlights,
and I remember it was like a lightsaber because you
get like a two two and a half foot beam
off that thing, but it couldn't penetrate that the air
quality was so it was so thick with this dirt
smoked dusk. God only knows what else. And so I remember,

(50:52):
you know, Gordy and I were close, and I said, look, man,
we need to come up with a game plan. You know,
we gotta dig our way out of this thing and
in mega run for Brooklyn or like like whatever we
need to do. We need to be on the same page.
And he said there is only one option. He I
remember he grabbed me by my jacket and he said,

(51:13):
I'm not dying here with these people today. I said,
that's fair. I said, but go down. What are we
gonna do? I mean, we can't leave everybody in here,
And so, you know, we kind of made a pack
and I remember at the time there were people I
remember yelling. I could hear them yelling. Madic medical, help, help,
And I'm like, hold on a second, and I said, Gordy,

(51:34):
we're the last two people out of this building. Whatever
comes of it, Like, we're the last two guys out.
And I said I could live with that, and and
that's what we did, and we we just went back
into into treatment mode. I remember one point, you know,
I was setting it was a fireman's leg. He had
an open tip, fifth fracture. And I remember as I

(51:56):
was setting it, of course, he's screaming, and he leaned
up and he looked at me and he said, brother,
you okay. I said, yeah, I'm okay. He's like, were
you bleeding really bad? And at that point we had
found some paper masks and and I pulled it off
and it was full of blood, and like I said,
I broke my nose. And I said, look, man, it

(52:18):
doesn't hurt yet. I'll worried about it when it hurts.
Let's get you square away and we'll we'll take care
of it then, and we did. We ended up making
contact with a team on the outside of the building
able to pass that guy through.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Oh, so you did went, you found an escape route?

Speaker 2 (52:31):
We did, okay, And so it was on the back
side of the building, away from the complex, and so
we started directing ambulatory people out of there. In fact,
we had gotten to a point where there were four
people left in that building. It was me, Captain of
the House, Captain Kelty, Gordy and Fu. Right, this poor

(52:51):
Chinese guy I couldn't get up, like there was nothing.
There was no way for us to get him out
of there. That hurdle, the hurdle, and poor food could
hardly speak English, and he, you know, I begging for us,
the guy. I said, pooh, I'm worry guy. You're my
number one guy. Used to you're my number one guy.
First Amuel, who gets here? You're out of here? And
you know, meanwhile, this poor bassard is on the floor
just in all kinds of pain. You know, he's got

(53:13):
The only schmuck that can talk to him is tell him, yeah,
you're my number one guy. And we just keep walking
past him. Anyway, So we get to this point and
we I remember walking back out towards the apparatus bay
it it got a little bit easier to see. I
could see this debris from the remains of the of
the South Tower, and I remember shouting into that wall
of debris. Is there anybody in there? Can anybody hear us?

(53:36):
You know, like, if there's anything we could do to
help extricate somebody out, we would, But got no response.
Remember yelling at a couple of times, and then I
heard this sound and it was the North Tower collapsing,
and it was the same sound that I heard before.
And as soon as I heard it, my first thought was,

(53:57):
I fucked up. I have my shot. I had an
opportunity to go, and I just I stayed too long.
And so the three of us, me and Gordy and Kelty,
we ended up running into a bathroom and the three
of us get on the floor in the corner of
this bathroom and Captain Kelty was to my left, and

(54:21):
he was an older guy, but he was holding my
hands and I had fire gloves on and he was
holding my hand so tight I thought he was gonna
break every bone in my hand. And Gordy's kind of
wrapped up around my legs, and you know, I remember,
I remember my head against the wall and I thought,
if this building comes down like this, helmet's not gonna
protect me, and I tilted it back and the very

(54:45):
next thought was if I die in here and someone
sees me with my helmet on like this, They're gonna
think I was retarded. So I kind of fixed it.
And I remember just kind of being huddled up together
with them and praying and just waiting, just waiting, you know.
And it was different than the first go through because
the first time, I'm in motioned the whole time, like

(55:07):
I don't have time to stop and think, like things
are happening. That's when I'm waiting and you already knew
what it did, and I know what's coming, and and
it gets loud. It's terrifying. I mean, it felt like
it went on forever. I don't know how long it was,
but eventually stops, same silence, like it's just nothing. And

(55:31):
I said, you guys, hear that? And they said, what
I said, someone's taking a piss in here. And they
said what I said, someone's Here's someone taking a leak
in here. You know, I don't pretend to be like,
you know, some ultrue, you know, brave anything, you know,
but like this is pretty calamitous. And I'm thinking to myself,

(55:54):
who the hell is stopping in the middle of this
thing for a potty break, Like it's like blowing my mind,
you know, And and I got up and what happened
was we were in the corner of this bathroom under
a sink, and I guess the vibrations from the buildings
coming down and shut loose one of the faucets and
it was just dribbling into the sink. And I remember

(56:14):
I had to get real close to see what it was.
And I turned it off. And as soon as I did,
there were no trumpets from heaven. There was no neon signs.
But I could tell you with a much clarity. It
was like this message in my brain and it was
you still have work to do, And it was amazing.

(56:36):
It was like a slap in the face for me
just to get back into reality. And you know, I've
told people that that message is what carried me through
everything else for the remainder of that incident. That message
is what carried me out of bed in the days
and weeks and months that followed. You know, when I
would lay there and think, boy, bother, you know, like

(57:00):
you know, the you know that the survival, guilty and
all the rest of that kind of stuff that goes
with you know, that kind of experience, and you know,
I'm a firm believer. When it's your time to go,
it's your time to go. But the reason why I
had to get out of bed, the reason why I
had to go back to work and do what never

(57:20):
needed to be done for that day, is because that's
not work to do. And when the day comes, I
got no more work to do, you know, then that's
the day I'll hang it up.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
And so what so what you kind of describe what
happened for you? How long was it? I know you
lost your dad that day?

Speaker 2 (57:36):
Correct? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (57:37):
How long was it that you figured out what had
happened to him? And I think people people, I know,
when you have somebody and you're looking for a missing
person and stuff like that. What was I mean, I
don't know the story, So what was the story with
what happened with your father?

Speaker 2 (57:51):
So I ended up eventually, it's probably about four o'clock
in the afternoon. Afternoon by the time I get down
to the to the piers. I ended up getting a
ride from NYPD back to Brooklyn. From there, I get
back to the station. Of course, get back over there,
and everybody's been recalled to work. I get in there.
You know, my lieutenants are in there. My lieutenant that

(58:13):
had sent me over to this job, McCarthy come back
and just just crying. He's like, you know, I thought
I sent you guys to your death. And I said, no,
we're good, lou And you know, my captain came in,
you know, kind of grizzled, the old dude, and just
he's like, you know, he boys good and I'm like, yes, sir,
we're good. And he's like, where's my where's my truck?
I said, I think, I said I got the keys.

(58:34):
I said that's about all that made it. And so
he's like, now it's fine, we'll take it out of
your paycheck. And they ended up calling for ambulances for
us to go to the trauma center because we were
in bad shape by that point. And honestly, like I
had some I had some plan. I was gonna get
back to the station, get my car, and then just
drive out to the island or something, but I realized
my keys were buried in the trade center, and so

(58:54):
I couldn't even drive if I wanted to, and I
couldn't have. I mean, I was done. No more adrenaline,
no more blood sugar. I mean, I was up. I'd
worked the whole night before, and I mean I was
tapped out. I was a victim, and I said okay.
So they ended up calling for two ambulances. Well, Gordy,
here's this, and you know this maniacs like no, no, no, no no.
Because the agreement was was that whatever we were going

(59:15):
to do, we were not getting separated from that point forward.
We were going to be attached at the hip. And
Gordy was true to that pact. So they ended up
sticking to both of us in the back of one
ambulance and you know, squeeze both of our big asses
in that thing. And then of course get to the hospital.
So we get sent to King's County King's County Medical Center,
which is a King's County hospital as a trauma center

(59:37):
in Brooklyn. And I've been in them many times taking
other people, treating other people. First time, I first and
only time, thank god, I've been in there as a victim.
And I will tell you what the ass kick and
I took in Low Manhattan was a close contest between
who kicked my ass even worse because you know, they
sent me through the whole.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
Trauma regiment and I'll hold to check you out.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Oh yeah, you know, I got to do all this stuff.
And I'm here to tell you, if you've never had
the experience of a foudy catheter while you're awake, I
don't recommend it. It was this guy sweet talked me
into it. He said, I said, man, I think I'm good.
He's like, now we're pumping you for a lot of
pain meds. Man, like, you got to get this in
and you got all these tests. I said, a man,

(01:00:23):
I think I'm good. He's like, listen, you don't understand
like magic with this thing. He's like, you're not even
going to know. I was there and he seduced me,
and he sweet talked me into this procedure. And I remember,
and maybe I'm maybe I'm being dramatic, it is the
way I remembered it. But I remember screaming, and I

(01:00:44):
remember the guy coming up on from on the sheet
and he was sweating and he said, and I said,
what the hell happened? I reached down in his blood
and I'm like, what happened. He's like, Oh, it's like
this traumatic insertion and this whole thing. I'm like, God,
but less so after this, you know, eventually gotta run
me through all these tests with this thing, and you know, again,

(01:01:05):
like I said, if you've never experienced it, I don't
recommend it. Unconscious people do your thing. You know, they
don't know. They're no worse for the wear. But I
go through this, and eventually I said to the x
ray tech. So they pulled in. At the time, they
were expecting waves of injured people. So every hospital had
all these people come in and they just weren't injured people.

(01:01:27):
And so I had some medical student that was in
with me. I'm talking to the X rayt tech. He's
kind of behind the screen or whatever else, and I said, hey, man,
we've been at this for a while. I said, can
I take this? Can we get this thing out? Like
it's really uncomfortable. He said yes, he tell was a
med student, go ahead and take it out. So these things,

(01:01:48):
you know, they stick it in as a little and
they pump up a little balloon and they keep it
from backing out. We got to deflate this thing. At
least you're supposed to go ahead and rip this thing out.
I thought I was gonna die right there on the
table screaming. So there was a fire captain that was
it was outside the room and came in and like,
what the hell are you guys doing in here? And

(01:02:09):
I'm like, i've i've I had it. And by that
point they admit me to the hospital. I go up
to my room and for the first time, it was
about I don't know, maybe eight nine o'clock at night,
for the first time, I found out that the buildings
came down shute. I had no idea I thought they
I thought they were planes. You know, It's not like

(01:02:30):
I look up. It was nothing I could see and
the sound, I thought they were planes. So I thought
there were four planes that crashed. They all just happened
to land and right around me. And because what happened
was they had a little arm like this with a
TV attached it to the bed and I swing it
over and I'm looking at the screen and I'm watching
this unfolding as bad as I thought it as it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Was, I was like, this is the worst.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Day of my life. And right about that point, to
answer your question, two of my lieutenants come in with
my load paperwork and I had the phones were all
messed up in New York, so the hospital had been
trying to call my family to let them know that
I was hospitalized. They ended up leaving like an answer

(01:03:15):
machine message or something back when we had answer machines.
So they ended up calling in and I had I
had somebody from my family call and called the room
and they're like, hey, what's going on. I said, Hey,
I'm in the hospital. I said, I got to get
out of here. It's terrifying. They had opened the windows.
All the smoke from manhatt was coming in the hospital.
Fighter jets were flying over the hospital, you know, so
as you can imagine, like the noise of jet engines

(01:03:38):
were terrifying me. You know, I want to jump onto
the bed every time they fly over. And it was constant.
So it was this torture. And so I said, ye
I'm gonna get out of the first thing I can.
In the morning and I said, okay, Well, have you
talked to your dad? I said no, he's probably busy
telling someone where to go or what to do whatever.
I'm sure he's busy. And so everyone's over your stepmother's house.
Nobod's heard anything from us this morning. He went to this,

(01:04:00):
he went on this job. I said, okay, So I
called down to his firehouse and I got through, and
you know, the guy that was on house watch. Answered,
He's like, you know, has Matt two eighty eight And
I said, uh yeah, I keep telling me what the
status has mat one is. So he says, who's calling?
I said, what it was? Brian smith Kevin Smithson said,
you know, I'm on the job. I got was down

(01:04:21):
at the trade center and that got me up at
k H right now. But I was just trying to
find out what's going on. And he just started screaming,
you know, they're gone, They're all gone. He just like screaming.
And I remember how the phone away from my head,
and that's about the tam at the time. My lieutenants
came in, and I remember they just kind of standing
and looking at me, and I said, look, man, I
don't know who put you in charge. Answer in the phone,

(01:04:42):
I said, but somebody else probably needs to. I'm gonna
come by the fire house in the morning. You know,
we'll see if we can sort all this out. You know,
hung up the phone, and honestly, I didn't. I wasn't
really worried, you know. And these guys, remember my lieutenants
looking at me, and I said, yeah. They said, my
dad's miss them, and I said, you know, he's fine.
Like everybody, Gordy was missing. Everybody's missing. Nobody knows what
that was going on right now. Guys went to be

(01:05:03):
academy with they were on a missing list and they
show up. And so that night I didn't sleep up
the whole time. Thank god it was a little bed
like this, because otherwise Gordy would have crawled up in
there with me, just pulled his chair up next to me,
and you know, the two of us snuggled up as
best we could and get released. In the morning. My

(01:05:24):
lieutenants get me back to the station. I could put
clothes on because they cut they cut all my clothes off,
and so I ended up getting clothes. And then I
got arrived from Brooklyn to Queen's by Dad's firehouse and
I went in and I said, I talked to the captain.
It was on duty. I said, a captainN you give
me the I mean, what's the scoop? He said, Brian,
I'm gonna be I'm gonna be honest with you, because

(01:05:44):
I told him. I was like, look, I'm not just family,
I'm I'm on the job. I'm obviously you know you
don't have to give me the water down version. He said, Brian, honestly,
there's not a lot I could tell you. He said,
I have a lot of guys that are on accounted
for at this point, he said, the last radio transmission
we had from your dad and the group that he
was with was on the eleventh floor of the North Tower.
He said, right after that transmission, the building came down.

(01:06:08):
He said, you know, your dad's dad's a tough guy, man,
he's you know, they got all these pockets, cell phone
signals and all the rest. And I said, I mean
I knew. I knew at that moment, you know what
my dad's fate was. And of the seventy houses that
lost personnel and nine eleven from the fire department, my
dad's firehouse had the single greatest loss of life. The

(01:06:32):
two companies that were in their squad two eighty eight
has Met one has Matt had eleven guys that were
killed and the squad had eight, so nineteen guys between
the two companies out of that house. And of course
my dad being one of them, and so so yeah,
and you know, they never recovered anything from my dad.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
You know, we did the DNA stuff and hoping to
get something.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
And I'll be honest with it, like it never. I'm
not a cemetery guy. I gotta go to cemeteries to
go visit people, So it never, it didn't seem that
important to me. But as time went on, you know,
it was like, oh, maybe there'll be a funeral this weekend,
maybe the funeral next month, maybe, you know, I mean
all the time, and you know, at work, you know,
I was on a list that if they recovered anybody
from either of those companies, I would get called down

(01:07:19):
to the trade center and we'd go down and do
the removal. And that's when I wasn't working regular shifts
down at the trade center. You go down there and
you'd have different jobs. You'd you'd work the morgue for
two hours, then you go down and doing and removals,
and you go down you're doing digging, or you'd be
a spot or you know, there's different jobs and you
kind of rotate you through them all and you just

(01:07:40):
be digging in this muck looking for human remains. And
you know, most of the time, especially as time went on,
you'd kind of dig through until you can start to
smell something, or you'd find clothes, you know, which you
kind of give you an indication that you were near something.
And you know, I just remember the whole time that
I was down there, and really want to my bigger

(01:08:00):
regrets in hindsight, it was just that I didn't pull
more time down there, because you know, I thought if
the roles were reversed, you know, I know, my dad
would be down here and the so you know, just
went down and dealt with the more vivid, more morbidness
of the way that that whole thing was unfolding. But
I will tell you, man, it was therapeutic as nasty

(01:08:23):
as all that stuff was at times, you know, and
really to people that are not in the business, it's
hard for them to understand like I was doing something
at least, you know, towards conclusion. Yeah, you know, and
I was, rather than just kind of sitting through and
just trying to process my trauma, you know. So so anyway,
that was that and the you know, I was there

(01:08:44):
until the very end when they you know, the last
day of the the official last day of recovery in
in May of two thousand and two, and then you know,
and then eventually wrapped up my career in fireing MS
when h came down to Virginia in you know, November
two thousand and two, ended up getting a job at

(01:09:05):
a municipality down here, and you know, I've been down here,
it was twenty three years.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
So just to kind of wrap it up, I just
I don't think people. I think the thing I struggle
with the most when I hear stories like yours is
how little the general public just respects the amount of
you've sacrificed personally and your family has gone through because

(01:09:33):
of nine to eleven and just service in general. And
I mean, I just think if people would have to
live to just just like a second of what you
had to experience, would they look at things the same?

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
You know, It's amazing to me. You know, right after
nine to eleven they stopped showing jumpers. It was like
a day or two after. It's too insensitive for viewers.
We don't want to upset people. And I remember thinking
at the time, people need to be upset, like these
people died horrible deaths. You know. One of the one

(01:10:05):
of the most compelling things I think at the at
the nine eleven Museum, there's a little section in there
and it's kind of blocked off. You got to go
around a little curtain and say, you know, sensitive whatever else.
And his pictures are jumpers. And his quote from somebody
that was talking about observing somebody was getting ready to jump.
It was a female jumper and right before she went,
you know, like the wind blew a skirt up a

(01:10:25):
little bit and she he pointed out how she you know,
just kind of straightened out her skirt and the you know,
and how in that moment that they weren't just jumpers.
There were people, you know, human beings with dignity and
and you know, and even though they made that the
you know that that jump and you know, the terror

(01:10:46):
that I felt paled in comparison. They looked down. It
wasn't like anybody's thinking they were gonna make it. And
it wasn't a quick flight down, man. So you know,
to me, those people who don't have a voice, you know,
the even the language we use, like you watch news
footage today and we'll talk about the three thousand people

(01:11:07):
that were lost on September eleventh, as if they were
wandering through the woods and just couldn't figure out how
to get home, just in the simple language that we use.
You know, my dad's death Certiket says homicide. He was murdered.
Those people weren't just a victim of circumstance. They were
murdered people intended to murder them. And I think that

(01:11:30):
when we start to I don't call it sugar coating,
but you know, just make it a little bit more
palatable for people to digest how bad something like that
really was. I think you do a disservice and the
dishonor to the people that did make that ultimate sacrifice,
you know, the ones that don't get to go home
and tuck the kids in, you know, don't get to
go home and you know, walk their kid down the

(01:11:52):
aisle or whatever the case, you know, wherever the whatever
station they were in life like that's it. It's over.
And you know, and I don't know, it's you know,
to your point, I think that I think that most
people just kind of you know, floating on through life.
Just maybe it's blissful ignorance, maybe it's maybe it's just

(01:12:14):
easier to live life not thinking about the evil that
was surrounded by. But but it's reality, you know. And
of course in law enforcement we see it every day
and and and you know, it's hard to you know,
not let that chew you up or or see the
rest of the world through that lens, because of course
it's not all evil, it's not all broken, h but

(01:12:35):
there's a lot of it out there.

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
And we see the broken. I mean that's the that's
the I think that's the rough part is we don't
see it. You really have to dig to find the good,
and I think maybe that's what people are trying to
stay away from. So yeah, brother, I appreciate your time, man,
appreciate your service.

Speaker 2 (01:12:53):
Well, thank you you. It's high praise. Buddy Mo

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The Greatest Sacrifice: A Firefighter's Perspective on 9/11 and Its Aftermath

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