Ellis, Stephen Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) Engine 239 12/7/01
A four-page transcript of absolutely no interest.
Erdy, Richard E.M.T.-D. (E.M.S.)10/10/01 Battalion 52
Was tech in an ambulance driven by a female "Solano" [no transcript] that transported Danny Suhr to Bellevue, "I believe," he says.
Escoffery, Kenneth Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 1/16/02 Ladder Company 20
"George" off-duty member of Ladder 20 [no transcript]
"a few of us were standing in front of quarters when we noticed a plane came directly over the firehouse maybe around 8:45,"
"Four of us jumped in the hazmat rig, and we proceeded down to the World Trade to see if we could help. Two guys went up the staircase from the squad, and myself and George in the truck, we reported to the command station, because we had no tools, no radio, no masks, nothing."
"We hung around in the north tower in the lobby for a while. There were jumpers. After a while, body parts were flying into the lobby. Chief Hayden asked myself and George to check out a report of a fire that was on the second floor, the mezzanine."
"We evacuated them from there to the second floor, which was the mezzanine, and took
them down to the lobby. We took them around to the mezzanine and over the catwalk that went to the building north of tower one, which I believe that's probably building six."[over Vesey Street into Building 7]
Faccilonga, Keith Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/4/01 Engine 64
Fallucca, Peter Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/26/01 Engine 153
Farrington, Francis Lieutenant (F.D.N.Y.) 12/12/01 Engine 76
Felice, Michael Civilian (E.M.S.) 1/28/02 Fleet Services
Felidi, John E.M.T. (E.M.S.) 11/9/01 Battalion 20
Felitti, Pasquale E.M.T. (E.M.S.)10/11/01 Battalion 4
Fellini, Frank Chief (F.D.N.Y.) 12/3/01 Fire Department
Felton, Jarjean E.M.T. (E.M.S.) 10/10/01 Battalion 31
Fenton, David Captain (E.M.S.) 12/18/01 Division 6
Fenyo, Christopher Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)12/11/01 Engine 35
Ferrell, Nicole E.M.T. (E.M.S.) 12/13/01 Battalion 45
Ferretti, Douglas Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 1/24/02 Ladder 47
Ferriolo, Steve Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/12/01 Engine 207
Fiorentino, Vincent Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 10/12/01 Battalion 42
Fischer, Dennis Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/28/01 Engine 35
Fitzpatrick, Brian Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/6/01 Ladder 22
Fitzpatrick, Thomas Deputy Commissioner for Administration (F.D.N.Y.) 10/1/01 Headquarters
Fody, James Captain (F.D.N.Y.) 12/26/01 Engine Company No. 6
Fortis, Joseph E.M.T. (E.M.S.) 11/9/01 Battalion 20
Fraser, Charles Lieutenant (E.M.S.) 10/16/01 EMG Division 4
Fredrickson, Todd Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/28/01 Ladder 43
Monday, November 30, 2009
P Names Firemen's Oral Histories
Palmieri, Vincent Engine Company 6 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/6/01
Off-duty Former Union President Lou Boyle, [no transcript]
Captain Sakowich, "of my company" [no transcript]
Firefighter Jeff Straub, "of my company" [no transcript]
Firefighter Bob Emans, [no transcripts]
Firefighter Al Sicignano, "from my company" [no transcript]
Firefighter Butchie Barone, Engine 6, [no transcript]
"AS I'M GETTING BACK INTO VESEY STREET, A SUBURBAN COMES DOWN VESEY STREET, A FIRE DEPARTMENT SUBURBAN COMES DOWN VESEY STREET. A BUNCH OF GUYS JUMP OUT, I GO UP TO THE OFFICER WHO WAS IN THE PASSENGER SIDE. I SAID WHERE ARE YOU GUYS FROM? THEY SAID THEY ARE FROM THE ROCK, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, IF I BELIEVE CORRECTLY. I TOLD THEM OKAY."
"THERE WAS ALSO AN ENGINE PARKED ON THE CORNER, WHICH WOULD BE THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF VESEY AND CHURCH. HE WAS HOOKED UP TO A HYDRANT AND HE HAD THE SPICKET GOING AND THE WATER FLOWING. I WENT OVER I TOLD THE GUYS WAIT UP A MINUTE. I WASHED OFF, GOT THE STUFF OUT OF MY EYES, CLEARED MY MOUTH AS BEST AS I COULD AND TOOK DRINK."
"THIS LIEUTENANT AND IT WAS ACTUALLY AN OFF DUTY FORMER UNION PRESIDENT [ LOU] BOYLE. [no transcript] WE MET UP WITH HIM HE WAS LOOKING FOR HIS SON WHO WAS IN 33 ENGINE THAT DAY."
"I NOTICED AN ENGINE HOOKED UP WITH COUPLE OF LINES COMING OFF OF IT. I
NOTICED HE HAD A HYDRANT, HE HAD A GOOD HYDRANT, HE HAD GOOD PRESSURE, IT LOOKED LIKE. HE WAS RIGHT ON THE CORNER OF BARCLAY AND WEST."
"WHILE WE WERE ON THE OUTSIDE NEAR THE MARINA, WALKING NEAR THE MARINA, BECAUSE WE WERE GOING TO TRY TO COME AROUND UP LIBERTY TO SEE IF WE COULD GAIN ACCESS FROM WEST STREET THERE, WE ENCOUNTERED ANOTHER GROUP OF FIREMEN THAT WERE CARRYING A FIREMAN ON A STOKES BASKET. I DON'T KNOW WHAT COMPANY THEY WERE FROM, BUT I DO HAVE PICTURES OF THAT. A PHOTOGRAPHER TOOK PICTURES OF US DOING THE CARRY SO I COULD GIVE YOU HIS NAME IF YOU NEED IT, IN A PINCH, PROBABLY THE ROAD. THERE WAS ONLY MAYBE FOUR OR FIVE FIREMEN HELPING TO CARRY THIS GUY SO WE HELPED TO CARRY HIM. THEY NEEDED HELP. WE CARRIED HIM TO BOAT THAT WAS WAITING. IT WAS MARINE COMPANY BOAT. I DON'T KNOW WHAT MARINE COMPANY. THEY GOT HIM ON THE BOAT. I BELIEVE THEY WERE TAKING HIM TO JERSEY HOSPITAL."
"AS THE DAY DRAGGED ON I AGAIN GOT SEPARATED FROM JEFF AND CAPTAIN SAKOWICH. I KIND OF WAS OPERATING ON MY OWN FOR WHILE WITH A LOT OF OTHER GUYS. I DON'T KNOW EVEN KNOW WHO THEY WERE. [Looter]
Palone, Michael Engine Company 24 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/12/01
Firefighter Darren Lebow 5 Truck [no transcript]
Firefighter Kevin Anderson "outside 5" [no transcript]
Firefighter Jeff Anstead, [no transcript]
Firefighter Bobby Beddia [no transcript]
Battalion Chief Prunty [no transcript]
"On September 11th after the two planes hit the World Trade Center, I heard about the recall over the phone and headed into the city. When I arrived at the firehouse, a bunch of guys were getting into Captain Variale's pickup truck. I grabbed my stuff, jumped in the back of the pickup truck and went down Seventh Avenue down to the site."
"We went into World Trade Seven to try and get their standpipe system to possibly use their water off their tank on the roof."
"Anyway, I hooked up with a couple of guys and went into the basement of five, got right next to the collapse, searched for people, searched through the cars in the bottom of five, couldn't find anybody."[Looter]
"We went back down and hooked up with Craig Monahan, I believe, Jeff Anstead, myself, Bobby Beddia and went from where we were on West Street under the walkway bridge. That would put us in between the two walkway bridges and across the pile of rubble into I believe it was the B stairway, where they were searching for Ladder 6. We hooked up with a guy from rescue who was lowering down a civilian and tied the rope off from him. A guy from rescue in the top of the staircase lowered the civilian down and then slid down himself and then went down those stairs. They were getting the woman Sylvia out, basically helped carry her out on the stretcher. 6 came out somewhere there when we were there. 6 Truck came out. We were there for a while trying to get Battalion Chief Prunty, who was trapped under the steel in the bottom of the staircase."
"A. Right. When we went down into the bottom of five, we got right next to the bottom of the collapse, and we were in there pretty close. Kevin Anderson was with us. It was me, Lebow, Kevin Anderson. We basically grabbed any tools we could out of a Port Authority suburban that was down there. Anything that we thought we could use we grabbed and tried to do whatever we could.
Q. But it was just the three of you at that point?
A. It was the three of us at that point. Then when we came back up, we hooked up -- I think 5 Truck was there with the captain of 5 and the rest of 5 Truck and then hooked up with
Monahan and Beddia and Anstead and then actually went over to that B stairway."
Parris, Sidney Engine 21 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/14/01
Firefighter Jimmy Foley, Engine 21 Backup [no transcript]
Firefighter Mike Burn, [Byrne? otherwise, no transcript] Engine 21?
[This guy is a big time looter.]
"Came down West, and I made a left onto Vesey Street, and I was -- I parked the rig by a fire hydrant in front of the post office, and supplied the World Trade Center across the street right near West and Vesey."
"After that, FBI agent came down the block. He identified some landing gear that was in front of our rig, asked me to make sure no pedestrians came down the block to interfere with any type of metals and debris that were there, because they were trying to identify to put the pieces back together for the plane. I was detailed to 7 truck, I had just come down, because 7 truck left before he got to their quarters. He took my Scott bottle out of the cab at one of the compartments, and from there I left West and Vesey, the actual corner, I left there by the parking garage, to close the compartment that he left open and to put my shoes on the rig. At that particular time, I saw another FBI agent come by, who was starting to log some of the things. He was on his transmission, talking to whoever. They told me that another plane was in the area, and we thought that -- the chauffeurs -- some of the guys that were out in the street thought it was a third plane. At that particular time, I walked to the corner of Church, because I heard the plane, but I couldn't see anything. Afraid it was going to hit the same part of the twin tower and make it topple and start a domino effect. As I got to the corner of Church and Vesey, that's when the building, the south tower, came down right on the corner, and from that point on, it was like mayhem for me."
"The responding companies that were coming in, we started breaking windows or trimming windows to see if the buildings had a system that was already fed where we can get a line off of it, get some kind of pressure to get closer to the scene. We had to get past these cars." [Looters]
Pascale, Fran Division Commander (E.M.S.) 10/17/01 of Division 6, EMS operations. [female]
Dr. Neal Richmond [no transcript]
"From there I remember a woman coming out of the cloud, and that's the best way of saying. She was coming, up it would have been off Vesey Street. Actually my first initial response was I told her, "What are you doing here? You have to get out of here." I remember her reply, and only then did I realize she had a camera. She turned around and she said, "You don't understand," and she disappeared, just disappeared. I would not even be able to find out
who she was, what she looked like. I know it was a woman. My reaction to her comment was that she must have been media and she wanted to take as much film as she could, because it was a large-size camera, movie camera, that she had. So it wasn't just somebody just walking around with this. She just disappeared."
"I think it was Chief Gombo on the air. Somebody had directed me toward the building where there was going to be a triage area. When I walked in the building, I remember seeing Carrasquillo. There was Gombo there. Who else was there? Lieutenant Cahill was there. I remember seeing Steve Pilla, who is my ALS coordinator,"
"So I went into the area, and I saw Chief Kowalczyk, I saw Chief Gombo. I asked about Chief McCracken. Nobody had an answer."
"They had said they saw Chief Basile around. I wasn't sure who else was down there. I know Chief Goldfarb was down there. I didn't even know that Chief Villani was down there."
"He had asked me to take somebody with me, preferably a supervisor. I remember asking
for Captain Pinkus. He was there, so the first person I saw. He had asked me if there was a way if he could possibly grab some type of vehicle or whatever and get up to Chelsea."
"As we were traveling, there was a group of people who actually flagged us down. They said that we had a pedestrian struck...Pinkus and I jumped out of the vehicle. The male was actually laying on his stomach. I rolled him over. We opened up his airway. We were able to get a pulse. It turned out that he wasn't actually a pedestrian struck. It was medical-related. Later on I understand that it was cardiac-related...There was a couple of us who were able to lift him up, and we were able to put the man on a stretcher. We told the crew take him to the hospital. This was a situation we certainly didn't expect."
"With that I remember Dr. Asada showing up and Dr. Neal Richmond."
"We had actually asked the police, because we were trying to stop the units from all the areas, as well as our own, just bypassing and heading down to West Street, because everybody wanted to be there. It's understandable, but it wasn't something that really should be. If we needed them, then they go down there. There was accountability of the people."
"I remember finally seeing Chief Villani," I remember Chief Fellini, I remember another supervisor of mine, which was Lieutenant Haugh,"
"Chief Butler and Haugh jumped in the back of the vehicle , and myself and Chief Fellini was in the front."
"I could not believe Deputy Commissioner Feehan, I could not. And the Father, I think he was -- Father Judge. My response is how could these people have been in that building at the time."
Pastor, Frank Battalion 31 E.M.T.-D. (E.M.S.) 10/23/01
A: Okay. September 11, that Monday morning, I reported to work.
A: We were working 32 boy in Red Hook. We had the view of the city, and she yells out, "Frank, that plane just hit the building."
Q: Who is she?
A: My partner is Mala, Mala Harilal,
and I remember my partner, Mala, saying again to me, "That other plane is low." I don't know how much time, 10, 15 minutes, and we seen the other plane hit.
Q: You're still in Brooklyn?
A: We were still in Brooklyn.
As soon as I get on the other side of the west side -- I'm the driver. I come out of the tunnel,
and I just see -- I told my partner, "I just saw somebody's torso on the floor," and my partner said, "No, you're kidding." I says, "It's not a dog." I thought it was a dog, but I saw a torso with no arms and no legs, just split open on the driver's side.
"I see on the floor stumbling Chief Grant. He's got a non-rebreather on, no O-2, no nothing."
Patriciello, Joseph Engine 44 Lieutenant (F.D.N.Y.) 12/20/01
"At that time [prior to either collapse] there were maybe two or three car fires going in the vicinity of the pedestrian bridge."
"As my men went to obtain some extinguishers, I happened to be looking up and saw the explosion or the building fail with the ensuing fireball and cloud."
"I had eye abrasions that were looked at at the Ear, Eye and Throat Hospital."
Penn, Lonnie Battalion 20 E.M.T. (E.M.S.) 11/9/01 Shield 1296.
"After that, I helped one lady out of the front of the Marriott entrance, I recall. I was on my
way back. I had actually brought her to the Hatzolah ambulance, because they were carrying her, and a few other people and I assisted with her."
"I saw two other co-workers from station 22."
I saw Captain DeShore
Q. Okay. Who was your partner that day?
A. A rookie gentleman by the name of Joseph Henderson or Henderson Joseph [sic]. Basically, we got out and we passed a lot of body parts."
Q. You were pretty much in front of like 2 World Financial Center?
A. Yes, that's as far as I got.
Q. Right. Then --
A. I actually saw a police officer shoot the window out to get through.
Q. To get through 2 World Financial Center?"
A. Yes. Because he was ahead of me. I could see him. He shot the glass out and jumped through and I had later saw him in the hospital in Jersey.
Q. When you reached the yacht harbor behind 2 Financial, you said Captain DeShore was there and two other people from --
A. Two other EMTs from Boston Road.
Q. Do you know who they were?
A. My friend Conzo and Billy -- I can't pronounce Billy's last name. Truoccolo,
A. Like I said as soon as I stepped off the ambulance I mean I was just -- I felt like I was in
Beirut. All I saw was debris and body parts. I recall a little girl's foot. It was like a pink sneaker. It was tiny, around the age of seven, eight or so, because I have a daughter that size. I mean I just saw so many body parts, it was unbelievable. Then I look up and see people jumping."
"and there was two other medics from Boston that showed up. Joe Jefferson and I forgot his
partner,"
"Sat there [New Jersey side of the harbor] for about two hours in shock till a
guy came over to me and he don't know me, didn't -- you know, just gave me a hug. It was really a touching moment. He gave me a hug. I didn't expect. Just a lot of support on that side. Then we saw the F 16s coming and fly overhead and stuff like that."
Perez, Emilio Battalion 14 E.M.T. (E.M.S.) 10/31/01 shield number 3132
"We realized that -- I realized there wasn't going to be enough water to help the firefighters for cleaning the soot and debris from them. What I did was I approached one of the fire Lieutenants and started screaming to him, I need a wrench, I need a wrench. The men were going right back in. So he stopped them and like two of them just dropped. Got me the wrench. I started opening up as many hydrants as I could in that area. I opened up like a good, a good 11 hydrants. Then I was directing all the firefighters to go on into the areas where I was telling them to go douse down, this and that, but they were concerned for
the firefighters, so I says to them, listen, all your friends are all over there. All your men are right there by the hydrant. Just go over there. You will find them. Just by me directing them in that direction and being -- using the tone of voice that I did, it helped them because they approached -- but they didn't find the men they were looking for, they were being taken care of.
The FBI was there. The CIA was there. Guys with suits there.
I spoke to Lieutenant Nevins
I told my partner, Maximo,
"You know, when the supervisor -- I'm not insubordinate, but when the supervisor told me -- asked me where was the triage area, I mentioned to him. I says Rector and Vesey. You have to go there. I said no, I can't. I got to set up right here."
"There is no -- there was somebody standing back there with cameras and things, walking back and forth. There was one guy who followed me throughout the whole incident, snapping pictures, videotaping, back pedaling. Every time I looked he was right there."
"So as I was helping the next fireman, this guy was snapping pictures, so I think for every
firefighter that I think that I was helping, this guy must have had many photos of me and that's the only thing that I keep recollecting, that if I can only get this guy to get me a copy of this picture to see myself going through this whole deal, because I (inaudible). I see the photos of the chaplain when he was being carried out and it was similar. When I look at
that photograph, I did that for a lot of firefighters."
"After the third day, then I went down there and I returned back to Ground Zero to an area called the hole."
Q. Do you remember when you first got there seeing any EMS officers around that --
A. The only officer that -- I was happy to see him, was Lieutenant Albuerme. He is from Harlem.
A. My partner that day was Delgado.
Q. Do you know your vehicle number?
A. Vehicle number was 138.
Perez, Jose E.M.T. (E.M.S.) 10/23/01 Battalion 8.
Joe Valdivia [no transcript]
I was with my partner, Joe Valdivia,
A. No, just like I said, I think it was very unreal at the time. It seemed like it was a movie and it wasn't really happening. After a few hours, you know it's real.
Perrugia, John Headquarters Chief (E.M.S.) EMS Division Chief, in charge of planning for
the Chief of Department's office.
Battalion Chief Mike Maggio, 1rst Battalion, [no transcript]
Phil Parr, Battalion Chief, [no transcript]
Nick Cagliuso, former Fire Department employee, [no transcript]
Joe Farrell, from the New York State Health Department, EMS Bureau, [no transcript]
J.P. Martin, EMS Chief officer, [no transcript]
John McFarland, found Ganci and Feehan's bodies, [no transcript]
"I received a telephone call from one of my staff people, EMT Richard Zarrillo, on the Department cell phone. He indicated to me that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center."
"I called EMT Zarrillo back on his cell phone. I directed him to round up the rest of the staff, which consisted of a Captain and two Lieutenants, Captain Abdo Nahmod, Lieutenant John Nevins and Lieutenant Brad Mann and tell them to start making their way over to the World Trade Center."
"Moments later I got a notification on my Department pager to call the fire operations center. I immediately called them. They advised me that the Office of Emergency Management had been activated. I am the person in operations who is responsible for
staffing OEM or the Police Department's command and control center."
"I passed over some pieces of what appeared to be aircraft wreckage, fuselage, whatever, some body parts and bodies in various states, either people from the building or the airplanes. You couldn't tell. They weren't intact."
At that point I made contact with Captain James Yakimovich. He's a fire Captain who was detailed to headquarters with us for a little while. He was on a special assignment. He was in personnel on Washington Street. He was writing the fire Lieutenant's exam or whatever. He was in civilian clothes. He came out to the site when he heard what happened. He has experience at staffing OEM. I have used him on a number of occasions. I said Jimmy, you don't have gear with you. Why don't you come with me to OEM and if the First Division rep has gear we will release them.
So both of us were preparing then to leave the command post and make our way northbound on West Street to Vesey and then we would go to OEM. At that point Chief Ganci placed his hand on my shoulder and told me that I should be careful walking over there because there was stuff falling off the building. I told him not to worry about it. I was a big boy.
I reached 7 World Trade Center. We walked into the lobby and we were going up the escalators to the main level. I checked in at the security desk. As we reached the top of the escalators, there were lots of people running down the escalator on the promenade.
I spoke to one of the Deputy Directors and as I was speaking with him, I believe it was Deputy Director Rotanz, who is a Fire Department Captain on detail over there, Captain Nahmod and EMT Zarrillo approached as well. They had indicated that the building was being evacuated.
I questioned as to what the nature of the evacuation was. I was told that it was not because of what was occurring across the street. No one feared that the building was in any danger as a result of two airplane attacks and subsequent fires, but that there were reports of a third plane that had been hijacked. It was unidentified, the location, and they thought it may be coming in for an additional strike. Therefore, they were evacuating the building.
We proceeded down to the lobby where the various agency representatives were present. We
collectively started to set up in the lobby and try to think of strategies to where we could move the inter-agency cooperation effort. At that point, I also had a face to face discussion with Battalion Chief Mike Maggio from the First Battalion. He was the person who was sent up to be the rep at OEM. Mike is someone who assists us on lots of our event planning. He was detailed there. He didn't have any gear with him. He was a light duty Chief on administrative assignment there. So I told Captain Yakimovich that we are not going to send a Chief back. At that point he indicated that he was going to run over to 10 and 10 and secure gear and then report back to the command post and assist the Chief there. I told him that would be fine. I didn't need a lot of people inside. They needed more help outside.
As we were having discussions in the lobby as to what to do with OEM, a number of people came in the lobby as patients. Captain Nahmod and EMT Zarrillo started to look at them, put them off to the side and talk to them. At that point I stepped outside. I was going to request some EMS resources and I had face to face contact with Captain Mark Stone of the EMS 8 Battalion.
Q. Where was the EMS command post?
A. I don't know where the EMS command post was at that time. Again I didn't hear much. There was lots of stuff going on the radio. My mission at that time was not that of an EMS Chief responding to the operation. My mission was, as the Chief of Planning for the Fire Department, to respond in to handle the agency liaison stuff.
At that point I continued to liaison with my counterparts over at OEM. A short while later, just maybe a few moments, Dr. Asaeda, Office of Medical Affairs, and the EMT or paramedic that was with him, showed up. I told him we were seeing a number of people. In other words, more than 3 at that point in time, but again I wasn't directly involved, so I couldn't tell you the number. He said fine. He said he would stay over at our location and work with us there. We were in close proximity to the building. If you are familiar, I'll mark it with number 3 on the map, in front of 7 World Trade Center. Directly across the street there are some escalators that come down from the promenade. There is also an overhead pedestrian walkway that connects the World Trade Center plaza to the lobby of number 7. There was people coming down both exits. So it was a good position for us to find people who may require medical attention and get them into a secured area of the lobby. I didn't have any EMS people working out on Vesey Street proper, because it was not a safe location. There was people jumping out of the windows of the World Trade Center. We were witnessing that.
There was debris falling down from the north tower and making its way on to the street and promenade where we were located.
A few moments after Dr. Asaeda arrived andstarted talking to Captain Nahmod about the patients, a gentleman from the building identified himself as a security person or a security director. He asked me if there is anything that we needed or he could provide me with regard to the EMS. We questioned him as to the ability to open up the loading bays which are associated to number 7 World Trade Center. The entrances are located directly under the pedestrian foot bridge. I figured it was protected there, so debris wouldn't fall down. He said he would do that.I directed Captain Nahmod to move the patients into that area. Again, the lobby of number 7 is all glass facade. I was concerned that if something should come off the building, go through the glass or hit the glass, we would have an extraordinary amount of
patients in addition to what was already being seen. Further we took everyone from OEM and moved them to what would be the most southeasterly corner inside that first floor entrance of the 7 World Trade. There is a big granite or marble security desk and we started to establish around that as we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. At that point again, I went out front to see what was going on and where the ambulances I had requested were. I had a face to face with Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen. He was there with his driver. He was wearing his protective gear and his helmet. He questioned me as to -- I told him I was there for OEM, operating in the lobby, that the building was being evacuated and the nature of that. He indicated if I knew the whereabouts of the Mayor. I told him that as I was approaching OEM and coming up Vesey Street, I saw a large contingency of gentlemen in suits exiting down Vesey Street proceeding north on West toward Barclay. I recognized some of the people in that group as staff and TAs for the Mayor. I told him more than likely that was probably the direction the Mayor went.
I was in a discussion with Mr. Rotanz and I believe it was a representative from the Department of Buildings, but I'm not sure. Some engineer type person, and several
of us were huddled talking in the lobby and it was brought to my attention, it was believed that the structural damage that was suffered to the towers was quite significant and they were very confident that the building's stability was compromised and they felt that
the north tower was in danger of a near imminent collapse.
I grabbed EMT Zarrillo, I advised him of that information. I told him he was to proceed immediately to the command post where Chief Ganci was located. Told him where it was across the street from number 1 World Trade Center. I told him "You see Chief Ganci
and Chief Ganci only. Provide him with the information that the building integrity is severely compromised and they believe the building is in danger of imminent collapse." So, he left off in that direction.
Q. They felt that just the one building or both of them?
A. The information we got at that time was that they felt both buildings were significantly damaged, but they felt that the north tower, which was the first one to be struck, was going to be in imminent danger of collapse. Looking up at it, you could see that, you could see through the smoke or whatever, that there was significant structural damage to the exterior of the building. Very noticeable. Now you know, again, this is not a scene where the thought of both buildings collapsing ever entered into my mind.
I was there in 1993, 14 minutes after the bomb went off. I operated some 16 hours at the
building and with all the post-incident critiques and debriefings with various agencies. We were always told by everyone, the experts, that these buildings could withstand direct hits from airplanes. That's the way they were designed. They went through all of this architectural stuff, way beyond the scope of my knowledge.
It was hit by an airplane. That's okay. It's made to be hit by an airplane. I mean I think
everyone may have believed that. We were all told years ago it was made to be hit by an airplane.
Just moments before the south tower collapsed and, you know, when it happened we didn't know it was the south tower. We thought it was the north tower. There was a reporter of some sort, female with blond hair and her cameraman, an oriental fellow. They were setting up outside 7 World Trade Center, just east of the pedestrian bridge. I told them it would probably be better off to be set up under the bridge. At least it was protected. I was just about to enter a dialogue with her when I heard a sound I never heard before. I looked up and saw this huge cloud. I told him run. I grabbed the female, I threw her through the revolving doors of number 7. We were proceeding inside. She fell to the ground. I helped her out, I pushed her towards the direction of where we were all in the south corner and there was a little doorway behind that desk which led into the loading bays.
They proceeded to evacuate that group along with some secret service people.
Phil Parr, Battalion Chief, again he had no protective equipment whatever. I'm not sure how he ended up there. I think he was detailed here to headquarters and he made his way over there. He used to be a Deputy Director of OEM. So he made his way there. I didn't initially see him, but when it was all over, me and Phil found one another. We grabbed some hand lights from some Port Authority guys.
You know the level where the foot bridge connects, whatever. We found maybe a half dozen or so people out there. We told them to cover their heads and their faces with, you know, their shirts or clothes or whatever to help them breathe and to walk towards the Port Authority light. A few minutes after we were unable to see --
A. Correct, correct. We were walking underneath number 6 World Trade Center. If you have seen the pictures or are familiar with the way those buildings come, they come up and then they angle out so there is like a covered walkway path. We were there. We ran into a few firefighters. We told them that we were going to try to make a chain of people and if we found anybody we would get them out. There were lots of bodies on the plaza. A couple of firefighters and police officers that we saw in the rubble that we were able to get to and get out of the rubble and direct towards the people, they got out. There were a few people in the rubble that were dead, both firefighters and police officers and civilians that we knew we
couldn't do anything for.
Q. You had some alive, also?
A. Yes, we assisted them out. There were pockets of fire everywhere. At that point I noticed it
was unusually lit in the plaza, considering the event that happened. I looked up and saw this big gaping hole where the south tower used to be. That's the first point that I realized that the south tower had collapsed. Maybe ten or 15 stories high left of it. Probably most of it being a pile of rubble.
I ran into a former Fire Department employee who used to work with me, Nick Cagliuso, who used to work in the Office of Medical Affairs.
There were some people we saw more towards the center of the courtyard that appeared to be trapped. One of them looked like it may have been an Emergency Service officer. We directed two firefighters and an ESU cop to go and help them. The last I saw of them they were in the process of removing that person from the rubble. I then ran into James Basile, EMS 2 Division Chief. He was at the end of this group of people.
He indicated that he was in the lobby of number one and that there were some people still in the lobby, that there was a number of fire Chiefs in there. His aide was in there and that they were making their way out another way. He had made his way out from this location. He said you know we should not be here. We have to get out of here. I said there is no one else here. Let's do that, but on the way out, I said we are going through number 7 again. That's right on the way there. I explained to him the story. I said I'm sure the dust has settled somewhat. I just want to do another visual to make sure everyone that was with me and that was in that area downstairs was truly out.
So we went through the foot bridge again. At that point, I got separated from Phil Parr. Me and Jim proceeded over the pedestrian bridge back into number 7.
I started to make my way to the command post when I heard that horrible sound again, you know, that whining screeching jet engine.
Q. At this point the whereabouts of OEM were?
A. Everyone was scattered.
Q. Last they were by 7?
A. We were all in there. I knew that they all got out. All the people that were there with us.
I started making my way towards this Suburban vehicle. It was an EMS Suburban, the star of life was on the rear window. I ran into Mike Butler, Chief of Fire Prevention.
I don't know if that message got through, because after we got on Warren Street, we ran into Joe Farrell from the New York State Health Department, EMS Bureau.
At some point I heard an EMS Chief officer, later to find out that was J.P. Martin
They told me that there was a group of people up at Chelsea Piers with Kowalczyk and Pat
Scaringello.
I had John McFarland go down to Vesey and West Street, with a team of guys to do forward triage. I got a communication from John. He called me on his cell phone, indicating that they
found Ganci and Feehan's bodies.
Petrassi, Joseph Engine 65 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 1/13/02
At the north tower there was a Chief that directed the Lieutenant to take his men and work his way up, and that's pretty much what we did. We started heading up.
I'm not sure if it was at the 20th floor or 22nd, that's unclear, but we felt a shake, the building shake, and things just started getting like different. A little bit after that the Lieutenant said, well, we've got to make our way down, and we pretty much took whatever people were in the stairway, came down with them.
Q. Were there many people in the stairs?
A. Yes, the stairs were pretty full.
Q. Coming up and going down?
A. Going down. Well, when we were going up, people were coming down.
saw 2 Truck, Captain Ill.
Pfeifer, Joseph Battalion 1 Battalion Chief (F.D.N.Y.) 10/23/01
"I was working the night before in the 1st Battalion, and sometime about 8:15 or so in the morning we got a call to Lispenard and Church for a gas leak in the street."
"I went into the lobby. There were people injured. I went into the lobby and tried to gather information, where the plane hit, what floor, and the best we could get is somewhere around 80. As the units were coming in, we checked for the elevators to see if we had any elevator service. There wasn't any."
"Then what we did was I started to send people up to perform a rescue because we knew there were people trapped above the fire and we were getting reports in the lobby people were trapped in the elevators and people were trapped, and I believe we started sending units up."
"I briefed Chief Hayden on what I knew at the time, which was an approximate floor and we believe we had people trapped. Then we kind of went through a high-rise operation to try and get people up there. We paired the engines. I know I told engines, half the group to take hose, the other half not to, at least early on, and started their way up. Also, I saw my brother, who was a Lieutenant in 33, and we spoke a little bit and then he went up also."
"Then the plane hit the second tower, the south tower. At that point Chief Donald Burns and Battalion Chief Orio Palmer went into the second tower and I took command of that."
"Right before that we discussed the operation of the radio. Any time in a high-rise building, communications is difficult. We tried to get repeaters to work. The Trade Center had a repeater. We tried to get that to work. That did not work for some reason, and there were problems with the repeater in the car also. So communications from the onset was difficult and both Orio and myself tried to get that to work. We tried it numerous times and we couldn't get the repeaters to operate properly, so we had to rely just on handie-talkie communication, which is at best hit or miss in any high-rise."
"At one point I was asked to get the operations with the helicopter into motion. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I could not get a hold of the dispatcher to do that. One of the citywide radios got moved around and I couldn't grab that, and there were no phone lines. The phone lines were out and nobody was picking up or the lines were busy to the dispatcher, so I couldn't get through to them on a landline or a cell line."
"We weren't getting good reports from the police at all. There was one point there was a possibility of a second plane coming in and somebody said something and I turned around to try to confirm that and we couldn't confirm that. There was also later on the possibility of a third plane. Again, we just heard somebody say it and we tried to confirm it. We could not confirm it with any law enforcement people. We all ran out at that point. So that was the difficulty we had."
"At one point after the second plane hit, I think, I'm not positive of the time line, I know Chief Callen asked over the radio to come down to the lobby. But with difficulty with communications, that didn't happen. It didn't fully happen. I'm not too sure who heard that or how many people came down. There was no way of really telling at that point. But right before the south tower collapsed, I noticed a lot of people just left the lobby, and I heard we had a crew of all different people, high-level people in government, everybody was gone, almost like they had information that we didn't have. Some of them were moved across the street to the command post.
Q. Who were you with at this time?
A. You name them, they were there.
Q. With you?
A. Yes, in the lobby. They were moving the command post. So, I guess, after that companies were coming in and we were listing them on the command board so we had an account of everybody. Unfortunately, the command board is not around any longer."
"At one point the Fire Safety Director, Mike Hurley, asked us if we wanted the building evacuated. I'm not too sure if he meant both buildings or he was just talking about this. In either case, I believe he was talking about both buildings. I turned to Chief Hayden and said do you want to evacuate the buildings? He said yes. I turned to Mike and I told him evacuate the buildings. So there were definite communications back and forth that we wanted the buildings evacuated. I forget what stage that was at that time. Again, I can't put that on a time line. But it was before the second building collapsed for sure because Mike wasn't in the lobby with us. So it was sometime before that."
"Then in the lobby we heard the south tower is collapsing. I'm not sure, like I said before. I get mixed up with south and north and two and one. But right before the south building collapsed, we heard a loud rumbling noise, and those that were left in the area, we knew something was collapsing, and I noticed in the lobby area where you go around the corner to an escalator that leads up into the Customs Building, and as things were collapsing into the lobby of the north tower, I pushed everybody around the corner. I knew where I was so I pushed people around the corner. There was my aide, Chief Hayden, Chief Callen, an EMS Lieutenant, Father Judge, I think Chief Villani, and there might have been a couple other people, a Lieutenant, I don't know his name, a Fire Lieutenant, and maybe a couple other people. They were just pushed around a wall literally and then the whole area went black. We heard things collapse. There was debris falling in and everything was black. At that time I went around to Chief Hayden and said I'm going to evacuate the building. I got on the radio and I called up to the Battalion Chief upstairs, which I got an acknowledgment to evacuate the building for a number of times.
Q. Do you remember what Chief that was?
A. I don't know what Chief. But I did get acknowledgment, like I said, a number of times firefighters said they heard me and that's why they got out. And that was just in the blackness where at that point we didn't even know our way out. Then Father Judge was there and he was lying on the ground and I went over to him, took off his collar, I opened up his shirt, checked for a pulse, and I knew at that point that he didn't have any.
Q. Where was he?
A. He was with us in the lobby all the time.
Q. In the lobby?
A. Right. He was saying some prayers and he was very anxious in the lobby. I could watch him. He was very concerned, very different, Father Judge, as I know him. Apparently, what it was, it was a heart attack. We didn't know at the time it was a heart attack. We thought he was hit with debris.
Q. He didn't have any obvious injuries?
A. He didn't have any obvious injuries. Then again, we're in black with just a couple of flashlights. So at this time we had to figure out how to get out of here now. So I kind of had an idea where I was going in the building."
"So I went up the escalator and now some of the other guys are taking Father Judge and they're carrying the body up and out to the top, and then there was a bridge across, and I told them, I told Chief Hayden and a whole bunch of people, hey, listen, let me see if the bridge is still here, whatever, and let me go across and I'll let you know if we can get out this way. Again, I had no idea. At this point we had no idea that the whole south tower had collapsed. No idea. We didn't hear any reports. We knew something collapsed, part of the building came down, elevators
collapsed. We knew we had something but no idea.
MR. CASTORINA: Meanwhile, the building you were in was evacuating; you gave the word already?
MR. McCOURT: In other words, the firefighters and everybody were starting to come down?
A. Well, I gave an order to evacuate and it was acknowledged and there were reports that people heard that and they were coming down to the extent, again, communication was difficult. It was difficult. I was glad somebody heard it.
Q. Did you see Commissioner Feehan there at all?
A. He was there in the lobby earlier along with Commissioner Von Essen and OEM.
Q. And Chief Ganci?
A. I didn't see Chief Ganci myself. But everybody had to come there first.
Q. The bridge was intact, that footbridge going across?
A. The footbridge that went across, pretty much you couldn't see out of any of the windows and everything and it was like fire. Everything was smoky so you couldn't see anything. So I walked all the way across the bridge and found out that the bridge was intact. I radioed back to tell them that you can come across the bridge, that everything is intact, you can get out this way, and I was getting no answer on the radio. I called a number of times, a number of times. I went across with four guys. So the four guys I was with walked all the way back across the bridge again and I tried to contact them, and I was able to contact Chief Hayden, who took a bunch of guys out, like out a window onto the side plaza. So I knew they were out and it's not exactly the area I wanted to go because things were falling down and people were jumping. So I took the group I was with back across the bridge, my third trip across the bridge.
Q. Where did that lead you to? Where did that come out?
A. It came out to the World Financial Center. We got out there and then we were standing under the bridge trying to see what was going on. I couldn't see what was going on. Everything was covered with smoke."
"Then after a while it started to clear. Actually, I was with a civilian. Actually, I was laying over him because he had no helmet or anything. Then we got up and we couldn't see, but it started to clear to like a brown, cloudy smoke, and I hear pop, pop, pop, which sounded like gunfire to me. Then right after that I hear people screaming get down, get down. It's not normal. I worked in the ghetto long enough that you get down.
Q. Of course.
A. Because it sounded like gunfire and I've heard gunfire before. It could have been something totally different. I have no idea. I grabbed the guy I was with and told him, hey, we have to get down, we have to get some cover. Then it started to clear again a little better and we got up and I looked down the block and I saw some law enforcement taking a guy away in handcuffs and he was very agitated.
Q. Would that be on the other side of west?
A. On the west side of West Street.
Q. Towards the river?
A. Towards the river.
Q. Did you ever find out what he was --
A. No. But the cops were real agitated and it was early on. I couldn't imagine what they would arrest somebody for. Again, it could have been almost anything creating that sound. I have no idea. But I figured that was three strikes at that point. And then I came back to the scene and tried to figure out what took place here and what we had.
Q. Did your brother make it out?
A. No.
Q. I'm very sorry.
A. That's the toughest part. And that's the story."
Piambino, Thomas Engine 65 Lieutenant (F.D.N.Y.) 1/24/02
Thomas Piambino is in Marine 1 of the New York City Fire Department.
On 9/11, I was assigned to Engine 65,
"We went in through the west side of the building right off of West Street into the north
tower. We went into, I guess, the -- I think the windows were out already. They were already blown out when we got there, so I don't even think I went in through a door. I'm pretty sure I went in through a window into the west side of the north tower. There was no command post there, and they were just sending us up. I had no particular assignment. We had our roll-ups, Scott bottles and extra Scott bottles we were carrying."
"The south tower had fallen, but at that time I didn't know what it was. All I heard was a tremendous explosion. The tower I was in shook really bad. It really shook bad, and my opinion, I thought it was another aircraft that hit the building."
"...I thought it exploded, and I didn't realize it had collapsed. It looked to me like an explosion, and you could feel the -- you could feel it coming, and they were still running away from it. I mean, you weren't going to out run it. At that point, we all split up. I mean, it was like run, and each one of us took refuge behind something, and I wound up taking refuge behind an ESU truck, I believe it was, a Police Department ESU truck, I think, and I just rode it out until first there was the explosion or the concussion, and then there was very, very strong wind, and then there was the black...."
Picarello, John Battalion 40 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/6/01
Chief Henry, [no transcript]
Chief Stack, [no transcript]
"In about a second or two, you just heard like a ba-ba-ba-boom,
from 10 Truck was Georgie Bachman.
"The first person I actually saw was actually Father John Delendick. He had told me about Father Judge."
Piccerill, Steve ENGINE 204 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/12/01
Mike McKenna, [no transcript]
Lieutenant Healy, [no transcript]
Eddie Rodriguez, [no transcript]
"ALL OF SUDDEN I TURNED AWAY AND HEARD TREMENDOUS EXPLOSION AND TURNED AROUND THAT WAS THE SECOND PLANE HITTING THE TRADE CENTER SO
THAT'S WHEN THEY TOLD US TO RESPOND..."
"WE FINALLY GOT OUT OF THE TUNNEL, WE WERE DRIVING OUT OF THE TUNNEL UP WEST STREET AND WE'RE SEEING BODY PARTS IN THE STREET, TORSOS, CHUNKS OF FLESH, PARTS OF THE AIRPLANE LANDING GEAR, CAR FIRES EVERYWHERE. IT WAS LIKE WAR ZONE."
"AND LIKE IT SOUNDED LIKE THUNDER AND JUST SAW STUFF COMING DOWN"
"AND I'M LOOKING AT ONE OUR OF OUR GUYS GARY Z. He got hurt pretty bad at the time."
AND THIS GUY Mike McKenna
MET UP WITH THE GUYS FROM 224, 202. I HUNG WITH THEM FOR LITTLE WHILE THEN. WE WERE JUST HANGING OUT WATCHING THE BUILDING 7 READY TO GO
"our Lieutenant Healy"
"Eddie Rodriguez"
Picciotto, Richard 11th Battalion Battalion Chief (F.D.N.Y.) 11/27/01 Montel Williams Show, September 17, 2001
"RUSHED INTO THE LOBBY SEE THE COMMANDER, a CHIEF HIGHER THAN ME HES
GOING INSANE, HE'S OVERLOADED, SO THERE'S COMPANIES WAITING TO BE, YOU KNOW, WHAT DO WE NEED, WHAT DO WE NEED ,WE DON'T JUST RUN IN. IT LOOKS LIKE WE RUN IN, BUT IT IS COMMAND STRUCTURE AND I GET A COUPLE COMPANIES TO THE SIDE, GO TO THE CHIEF IN CHARGE, WHAT DO YOU NEED, AND HE TELLS ME WHAT HE NEEDS. I TAKE MY COMPANIES AND WE GO."
"CHIEF PICCIOTTO: THAT WAS MY INITIAL ASSIGNMENT PEOPLE TRAPPED ON THE 21ST AND 25 FLOOR"
"I WAS IN THE BUILDING WHEN IT CAME DOWN, AS FAR AS I KNOW THERE WERE ELEVEN SURVIVORS OUT OF BOTH BUILDINGS. I'M ONE OF THEM. WE WERE
TRAPPED FOUR HOURS."
"I'M UP IN APPROXIMATELY TOWER 1, SOMEWHERE IN THE 30S AND THIS RUMBLING STARTS HAPPENING. BY THIS TIME, ALL CIVILIANS, CIVILIANS STOPPED COMING DOWN WHEN I HIT ABOUT THE 16TH FLOOR 20TH FLOOR, AGAIN THAT'S GUESSTIMATIONS."
YOU TELL ME HOW LONG IT TOOK THAT BUILDING TO FALL?
MONTEL WILLIAMS: I'D SAY 30 SECONDS"
"THAT'S MY GUESSTIMATION 30, 40 SECONDS"
"SO ITS AN EERIE SILENCE. THE RADIOS STOP. WE HAVE DIFFERENT CHANNELS. THEY STOP AND EVERYONE IS, YOU KNOW WHAT WAS THAT?"
"MY THINKING WAS EITHER I THOUGHT A BOMB HIT THE OTHER BUILDING AND BROUGHT IT DOWN AND IF THERE'S A BOMB IN THAT ONE THERE'S A BOMB IN THIS ONE."
"AND I'M SAYING TO MYSELF, DID I DO THE WRONG THING HERE. SO ITS AMAZING THEY GIVE THE ORDER FROM THE COMMAND POST STAND BY...
MONTEL WILLIAMS: MEANING STOP THE EVACUATION?
CHIEF PICCIOTTO: STOP THE EVACUATION. I RELAY THAT ORDER AND AMAZING AS THAT IS THESE FIREMEN, I CAN'T SAY ENOUGH, WE BASICALLY STOP. EVERYONE IS WAITING TO FIND OUT WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO."
"CAR CHARLIE WHO I THINK I KNOW WHO THAT CHIEF IS, SAYS---TIME SPAN DON'T KNOW---CONTINUE THE EVACUATION. THIS IS LESS THAN 1 MINUTE THIS WHOLE THING HAPPENS PROBABLY LESS THAN 30 SECONDS AND SO THE EVACUATION CONTINUES AND NOW WE'RE GOING DOWN."
"AND THEN THAT NOISE, THAT FIRST-TIME-IN-HISTORY-ANYONE-HEARD-THAT
NOISE, AND I SAID IT WAS VERY UNIQUE NOISE IT."
"MONTEL, ABOUT TWO MONTHS AGO JUST A REAL QUICK STORY, TWO MONTHS AGO THREE FIREFIGHTERS IN QUEENS FROM RESCUE 4 WERE IN A BUILDING THAT COLLAPSED. THEY WERE IN TWO STORY BUILDING THEY WERE ALIVE IN THE BASEMENT WE HAD RADIO CONTACT. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU REMEMBER BUT THEY HAD THE FUNERALS. HARRY FORD, THEY WERE IN TWO STORY BUILDING THAT COLLAPSED AND WE COULDN'T GET TO THEM IN TIME. WE JUST COULDN'T GET TO THEM."
"AMAZINGLY ONE WHOLE COMPANY LADDER 6" [was entombed in the staircase with him and Josephine.]
"BELOW ME THERE WAS AN OFFICER FROM 16 AND A FIREMAN FROM ENGINE 39. ALSO THERE WAS JOSEPHINE, THE WOMAN I TOLD YOU ABOUT, AND THERE WAS A PORT AUTHORITY COP, I BELIEVE HIS NAME WAS DAVID LIM."
"THE PEOPLE IN OUR VOID WERE BANGED AROUND, SEPARATED SHOULDERS, CONCUSSIONS, BUT NO LIFE THREATENING INJURIES."
Montel: "THE FACT THAT YOUR CORNEAS WERE SCRATCHED, BURNED..." [he's wearing dark glasses for the interview]
"A VERY VERY GOOD FRIEND OF MINE, WE STUDIED TOGETHER, JAY JONAS, HE'S THE CAPTAIN OF TRUCK 6"
"...WHEN I HIT ONE CHANNEL, I'M HEARING A VOICE CALLING MAYDAYS. ALSO AND HES HURT I THINK SAID THAT..."
MONTEL WILLIAMS: YES
CHIEF PICCIOTTO: SO EVERY TIME I'M GOING THROUGH AND I HIT THAT CHANNEL I'M TRYING TO CALM HIM DOWN BECAUSE I KNOW HE'S NOT GOOD, AND JUST EVERY TIME I HIT THAT CHANNEL, I TALK TO HIM FOR MINUTE, CALM DOWN, I DON'T CALL ANYMORE. WELL, I CALL, HE WANTS ME TO COME GET HIM. ITS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO COME GET HIM, BUT I DON'T WANT HIM TALKING
MONTEL WILLIAMS: RIGHT
CHIEF PICCIOTTO: HE'S CONFIRMED, HE'S ONE OF THE CONFIRMED. THEY RECOVERED HIS BODY. I DON'T WANT TO SAY THE NAME.
MONTEL WILLIAM: SURE BECAUSE YOU JUST COULDN'T GET TO HIM."
"CHIEF PICCIOTTO: SO I'M DOING THE MAYDAYS AND FINALLY AT ONE POINT SOMEONE ANSWERS ME. BUT THEN IT GOES AWAY, I DONT HEAR HIM. ABOUT HALF HOUR LATER I'M GOING AGAIN THROUGH CHANNELS AND ANOTHER VOICE ANSWERS ME. THE FIRE DEPARTMENT IS VERY SMALL COMMUNITY, ESPECIALLY THE CHIEFS RANK. EVERY CHIEF JUST ABOUT KNOWS EVERY OTHER CHIEF. GUY ANSWERS ME, 12TH BATTALION, THE UPPER EAST SIDE , I RECOGNIZE THE VOICE IT'S A GUY I CONSIDER FRIEND OF MINE, GOOD FRIEND NOW, MARK FORAN. MARK THIS IS RICHIE..."
"I HEAR MARK TALKING AND HE SAYS I GOT A COMPANY, LADDER 43, HE TELLS
Pat McNally, PAT I GOT 43, I'M GOING TO GET RICHIE..."
"AND TWO HOURS, TWO-AND-HALF HOURS. I'M LAYING ON MY BACK."
"I see a little bit of light."..it's getting brighter and brighter." "What it was, it was a small opening." BUT THE DUST AND THE DIRT AND THE SMOKE WAS OBSCURING IT
"FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE RUBBLE FIELD WE'RE ABOUT, YOU KNOW, ITS GUESSTIMATE 30 40 FEET HIGH."
DEBBIE PICCIOTTO WHO IS RICH'S WIFE AND HIS CHILDREN LISA [student at Pace downtown.] AND STEVEN
CHIEF PICCIOTTO: SHE [Lisa] SAW THE SECOND PLANE HIT AND SAW BOTH BUILDINGS COME DOWN LIVE.
Steve: SOMEONE CAME TO THE DOOR AND SAID THAT YOUR FATHER IS OUT, AND HE'S OKAY AND HE DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ELSE, SO I WAS LIKE, WELL WHAT DO YOU MEAN HES OUT? HE'S OUT OF WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED? AND HE'S LIKE, WELL I DON'T KNOW THE STORY AND THIS IS AT LIKE 3:30 3:45, AND HE'S BEEN TRAPPED SINCE 9: 00 O'CLOCK. AND I GOT A PHONE CALL FROM MRS JONAS AND SHE TOLD ME THE WHOLE STORY.
LISA PICCIOTTO: WELL THE THING IS BEFORE WE WERE ABLE TO GET OUT OF STATEN ISLAND WE WERE SO ANTSY WE HAD TO DO SOMETHING SO MY ROOMMATES AND I, WE WANTED TO GO DONATE BLOOD BUT THE LINE WAS JUST PHENOMENAL ALREADY AND DOWNTOWN WAS BEING TOTALLY EVACUATED SO THEY KIND OF TURNED US AWAY AND THAT'S WHEN WE WERE PUSHED ON THE FERRY BOATS.
Pierce, Joel Battalion 57 Paramedic (E.M.S.) 1/23/02
Chief Tramontana
Bruce Hydock, EMT Battalion 57
Richardson, EMT Battalion 57
Jason Steele, EMT, Battalion 57
Lieutenant Soto,
Captain Olsen,
Chief McCracken,
JOEL DANIEL PIERCE PARAMEDIC 3927 35 ZEBRA BATTALION 57
[partner] ERIC RODRIGUEZ PARAMEDIC RODRIGUEZ SHIELD 2526
"I JUST STOOD THERE STARING, AND THEN I WATCHED EVENTUALLY THE SECOND
PLANE, I SAW IT. IT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS CIRCLING COMING SOUTH, THEN CAME BACK NORTH, STRIKING THE SOUTH SIDE OF TOWER NO 2."
"I JUST STOOD THERE LOOKING UP AT THE TWO TOWERS, AND I JUST WATCHED PEOPLE JUMPING. I MUST HAVE COUNTED ABOUT EIGHT PEOPLE, ONE OF THEM WAS ON FIRE AS HE HIT THE GROUND."
"I SAW THAT CHIEF MCCRACKEN, CHIEF GRANT, THEIR AIDES, AND SOME OTHER OFFICERS WERE AT THE CORNER OF LIBERTY STREET AND SOUTH END AVENUE."
"I FOUND CHIEF WELLS"
"I CAME BACK AND HE LOOKED EVEN WORSE, AND I WAS LIKE, YOU'RE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT AND HE STARTED ARGUING WITH ME. I SAID DON'T FUCK WITH ME YOU'RE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL. THEY HAD A PHYSICIAN COME OVER THAT WAS DOWN THERE VOLUNTEERING SO HE LOOKED AT HIM, LOOKED AT HIS EKG, DID SOMETHING. HE SAID YOU'RE GOING TO VINNY'S AND THATS FINAL."
"SO I SPOKE WITH ANOTHER LIEUTENANT SOTO." "HE BECAME THE TRIAGE LIEUTENANT AND I WAS HIS AIDE FOR THE DAY BETWEEN ONE LIBERTY PLAZA AND
ENGINE 10/LADDER 10."
"I REMEMBER AT ONE POINT I WAS BACK DOWN, I THINK I WAS DOWN BY IN FRONT OF ENGINE 10/LADDER 10. NO. I WAS IN FRONT OF LIBERTY PLAZA AND THEY SAID THEY NEEDED MORPHINE DOWN THERE. THEY FOUND SOMEBODY INSIDE AND THEY WERE GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE HIS LEGS OFF AND THEY NEED MORPHINE. THEY SAW ME AND THEY SAID ARE YOU MEDIC? I GO YEAH. YOU GOT MORPHINE? I
GO YUP. THE GUY WHO WAS WITH ME HE SAID YOU'RE COMING WITH ME AND THEY PHYSICALLY GRABBED ME. THEY SAID YOU'RE COMING WITH US. THEY SAID YOU'RE COMING WITH US, WE NEED YOU NOW, WE NEED YOUR DRUGS."
"AT THAT POINT I FOUND MYSELF ON THE PILE AND I DON'T KNOW IF---IT FELT LIKE I WAS HALLUCINATING, BECAUSE JUST LOOKING AROUND, I WAS UP ON TOP OF THAT PILE A GOOD WAY IN, IT WAS HOT AND I WAS LOOKING AT ALL THESE HOLES DOWN. IT WAS LIKE ONE WRONG STEP AND I'M DEAD. IF I FELL INTO THAT LITTLE HOLE, I'M DEAD AND THAT WAS IT, BECAUSE I COULD SEE THE FLAMES BELOW. YOU COULD SEE THE REDNESS. I KNEW IF WENT IN IT WAS LIKE THE PITS OF HELL. IT WAS LIKE DANTE'S INFERNO, I GUESS YOU COULD CALL IT. I WAS IN THE REMAINS OF THE SOUTH TOWER, BETWEEN THE SOUTH TOWER AND NEAR THE HOTEL, AND IT WAS SOMETHING, JUST BEING THERE, ALL THE WAY IN. I DON'T KNOW HOW FAR IN I WAS. I MUST HAVE BEEN GOOD 200 FEET IN WHEN I WAS GOING UP AND DOWN THESE PILES OF DEBRIS. THEN I GOT CALLED OUT AND I LEARNED THAT THEY MANAGED TO FREE THE GUY'S LEGS UP, SO THAT MADE ME HAPPY. I GOT OUT OF THERE. I CLIMBED ALL THE WAY BACK. I ASSISTED WITH THE HOSE PULLING BECAUSE THEY NEEDED LOT OF FIRE HOSE IN THERE. SO I WAS A PART OF THE HOSE LINE WITH LOT OF OTHER FIREMEN AND ALL THE RESCUE WORKERS."
"I SAW CHIEF TRAMONTANA."
"I WORKED THROUGH THE NIGHT. I MET UP WITH SOME OTHER PEOPLE, EMT BRUCE HYDOCK, BATTALION 57, EMT RICHARDSON, BATTALION 57, WHO ELSE, EMT JASON STEELE, BATTALION 57."
"CAPTAIN OLSEN, WHO ORDERED ME TO GO TO THE COMMAND POST."
Pilla, Steven EMG Division 6 Paramedic (E.M.S.) 10/17/01
I'm one of the ALS coordinators for Division 6 EMS
"I heard that there was an explosion -- I heard the radio on citywide in the office."
"Smoke coming out of the world -- I thought that it was a tape on. They said no, there was an explosion. We turned the TV on. Sure enough, the tower was on fire."
"It was myself; Neil Sweeney, who is vacation relief right now for the other coordinator who is out on refresher; Amedegnato, who is one of the chief's aides here, EMT; Lieutenant Cahill, who was the officer in charge in the division; and Chief Pascale herself."
"One of the firemen who now works as a medic for one of the private hospitals, he comes out and sees me.
Q. Do you know his name?
A. I'll give it to you later as soon as I --
Q. Okay."
"We set up a triage area in the lobby of the building. I'm still trying to figure out what building we were in. I believe it was the Winter Garden building. That's the only one I can think of. So we're in that building. People started coming in filled with ash and choking and respiratory problems. But no one was really hurt.....I popped out, went back into the same building, which wasn't as damaged, and did triage again. There were more and more people in there."
"There was a girl with a broken leg. She got blown just from the force of the ash. She kept
going down from the force of the ash. We ended up treating her. She was stable. There was a chief in there, a fire chief, with a broken shoulder and bloody nose. I was going down the line triaging people. They were upset, they were bent. People with no shoes on I guess from running out of the tower. A fire chief comes over to me and says, "Listen, son. There was a terrorist attack. This building's next, because they know they're going to start attacking other buildings." He had a very good point there, because you're always waiting for the next attack. This is a terrorist act. So I got my chief and decided to go into Stuyvesant High School. At that point I was going to get the fire chief out, to an ambulance..."
"At that point we're getting everything together, and now we're going to move to
Stuyvesant High School. Somebody comes in and says there's a gas leak, there's explosions going on, we have to evacuate. So now we're all running out of the building again. The 20 people I'm treating again beat me to the door. I have no idea where these 20 people are. Someone is running around with a triage cage around their neck. So we run out. You try not to hear the explosions in the background, things just blowing up; vehicles, I guess, that were on fire from the debris or if there were gas leaks. You could hear them getting closer and closer, so there was a good possibility there were gas explosions."
"A Port Authority cop came out. Their suits are dark blue. He was white. His whole suit was pure white. They set up their own triage area in another high school, one of the colleges."
"So strange we had all these triage areas set up and we were getting dribs and drabs. There were no real patients."
"We walked back. We didn't do any further because building number seven was coming
down. That was another problem, to wait for building seven to come down, because that was
unsecure. It was about 5:30 that building came down."
"We didn't do much, to tell you the truth. I was just walking around aimlessly, because there was nothing much to do. You sat there. You were amazed."
"I remember somebody saying to everybody, "Don't forget to fill out an exposure form when you get back." God only knows what was in that. You could feel the fiberglass on your arms. You knew it was like pulverized glass and fiberglass. Everything was pulverized."
Pinkus, Jace Command Center Captain (E.M.S.) 10/11/01
Q: AND YOUR ASSIGNED COMMAND AREA THE FIRE DEPARTMENT OF THE CITY?
A: METROTECH COMMUNICATIONS EMERGENCY MEDICAL DISPATCH
"AT THAT POINT COMMISSIONER GREGORY DIRECTED MYSELF EMT SAM HARRIS AND CAPTAIN DAMATO TO JOIN HIM AND WE WERE GOING TO RESPOND TO THE SCENE."
[parked at West and Vesey] WE ATTEMPTED TO GET OUR STUFF OUT OF THE VEHICLE AND AS WE LOOKED UP WE SAW A PLANE HIT THE SECOND BUILDING AND WE NOTICED THAT THERE WAS A LARGE BALL OF FLAME COMING FROM THE SECOND BUILDING."
"I MET UP WITH LIEUTENANT DAVILA."
A: "WITHIN MOMENTS I SAW CHIEF GANCI, COMMISSIONER GREGORY PROCEEDED ON WEST SOUTH
Q: COMMISSIONER?
A: GREGORY AND CAPTAIN DAMATO.
A: I SAW CHIEF NIGRO, WITHIN COUPLE OF MORE MINUTES, LIEUTENANT HOWIE HAHN ARRIVED, DR ASCEDA, DR CHERSON, AND THEN THERE WAS ANOTHER DOCTOR, I FORGET HIS NAME
Q: MALE FEMALE
A: MALE DOCTOR
"A FEW MORE MOMENTS, CHIEF GOLDFARB, I WAS IN CONTACT WITH."
A1 THERE WA LIEUTENANT BRAD MANN, LIEUTENANT JOHN NEVINS
LIEUTENANT MANN
"I HAD CONVERSATION WITH CHIEF GOLDFARB THAT IF NEEDED WE WOULD BE GOING TO---WE IDENTIFIED AMERICAN EXPRESS TO BE AN AREA OF TRIAGE."
"WE NOTICED AS WE WERE STANDING IN THE STREET---WE LOOKED UP. WE DID NOTICE THAT THERE WERE PEOPLE JUMPING FROM THE BUILDINGS. I PERSONALLY SAW ABOUT 20."
"AT SOME POINT I HAD BEEN TOLD THAT ONE OF THE MEDICS WAS MISSING. I FOUND OUT LATER THAT IT WAS CAROS LILLO. THAT WAS MISSING. I SAW HIS PARTNER ABRIEU, THATS A B R I E U."
"IT WAS CHIEF PERUGGIA THAT WE HEARD WAS MISSING. CHIEF MCCRACKEN IT WAS REPORTED THAT HE WAS MISSING."
"A COUPLE OF MINUTES GOES BY, CHIEF CARRASQUILLO, CHIEF GOLDFARB, AND BELIEVE THERE WAS ANOTHER CHIEF..."
"THERE WAS A PARAMEDIC SMILEY I HAD CONTACT WITH."
"I BELIEVE CHIEF MARTIN AT ONE POINT MIGHT EVEN HAVE EVEN SHOWED UP IN THE BUILDING, IN THE AMERICAN EXPRESS BUILDING."
"CHIEF GOMBO I HAD SEEN EARLIER."
LIEUTENANT TERRANOVA
"ENDED UP IN THE EMBASSY HOTEL. THERE WAS CHIEF GOLDFARB, LIEUTENANT TERRANOVA, CHIEF GOMBO, CHIEF PASCAL, CHIEF CARRASQUILLO, CHIEF BASILE, I SAW CAPTAIN SICKLES, LIEUTENANT YIORAS."
"AND AS WE HEADED TO CHELSEA PIERS WE WERE FLAGGED DOWN ON MAYBE
6TH STREET AND WESTSIDE HIGHWAY. THERE WAS A PEDESTRIAN STRUCK. TURNED OUT TO BE THE PATIENT WAS NOT PEDESTRIAN STRUCK BUT WAS ON THE
80TH FLOOR OF THE FIRST BUILDING."
"UNTIL WE GOT TO CHELSEA PIERS AND AT THAT POINT WE MET UP WITH CHIEF KOWALZYK AND THE DIRECTIONS THAT WERE GIVEN TO ME, ME AND KEVIN MAHON WAS UP THERE ALSO."
A: DR RICHMOND I BELIEVE I SAW ALSO
Q: WHERE WOULD YOU HAVE SEEN DR RICHMOND
A: WELL KNOW FOR SURE SAW HIM LATER ON IN THE EVENING, BUT I BELIEVE I SAW HIM, YOU KNOW, I STAND CORRECTED. I SAW HIM LATER ON IN THE DAY, LATER IN THE EVENING."
Pisano, Gerard Ladder 149 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/27/01
"We walked over the bridge and we assembled over, I think it's Broadway and I forget what block that is. Let me see. Probably, yes, it was Broadway and Vesey. Right over there by Saint Paul's Church."
"We were assigned to another officer and we were told to make a search somewhere, but we had no masks. We spent a good part of the day trying to find masks. There were no masks around."
"Then into the night, we were digging on the pile. Just free hand, you know, just going down there and doing whatever we could do."
Plover, Vincent Ladder 85 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/26/01
Worst interview out of 500. The man is serious sick if he thinks this constitutes professionalism.
Q. The fellow, from Engine 14, the firefighter from Engine 14 that you were with, do you have his name?
A. Yes, John Dilillo. Now, he responded with 14 engine.
Powers, James Engine 35 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/11/01
"I reported to Engine 35 and reported in to Lieutenant Whalen. Lieutenant Whalen put me in the Engine and said, "Right now you're going to be our fifth man in the engine."
"Myself, firefighters Lowrey, Billy Vanname "our chauffeur," Fischer, and Keith Schroeder were on the rig with
Lieutenant Whalen. We also had Lieutenant Patten [does he mean Lieutenant Hadden, whom he references later on?] and Battalion Chief Horan on 35's rig."
"We had heard on the radio the first tower collapsed. We heard somebody on the department radio calling for help, saying he was trapped. We were told that we were going to be going
into World Trade Center number 1, the north tower building, because it was still standing and there was still fire. When we got to the battalion chiefs that were on West and, I believe, Barclay, they said, "Okay. Make sure you've got everything, your roll-ups. We're still going into this tower number 1 or World Trade Center number 1."
"I was treated by a couple of EMT's and some firefighters and they took me back up the West
Side Highway to near Murray Street and we were sitting there and then somebody said that there was a major gas leak in one of the buildings and we had to run from there, so everybody started running again."
"So I was loaded onto a green golf cart and I was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital and I was in and out. I could breathe in, but I felt like I wasn't getting any air, and I was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital approximately 45 minutes to an hour after my arrival at the World Trade Center."
Prezant, Dr. David Fire Department Deputy Chief Medical Officer
"I believe I saw the Fire Commissioner's Assistant, Captain Goldbach."
I saw Commissioner Fitzpatrick there.
"After about five or so minutes, I realized that I was not being of any help to anybody. At that
time no firefighters had been injured. The building had not collapsed. I remember overhearing several Chiefs saying that a collapse was not possible."
"So the EMS Chiefs -- I forget his name. I can't remember whether it was Chief Gombo or Chief Goldfarb. I can't remember. They suggested that I report to Chief Welch, who was immediately outside the south tower on West Street, and set up another EMS triage site for civilians and firefighters that would be coming out of that tower."
"when Chief Welch -- it could be Chief Wells. I'm not certain how to spell or pronounce his name."
"We found to the left of us a civilian with a broken leg."
"To the right of us was a civilian with apparently an injured arm."
"We walked, Dr. Kelly, myself, Chief Nigro, his aide and the captain that had helped Dr. Kelly."
"As we did, we then made a decision that we, Dr. Kelly and myself, would set up a triage center. Interestingly enough, it was selected as being the UFOA headquarters, which I believe is 254 Broadway or 225 Broadway, something like that."
"it probably was within less than a half an hour, we were joined by several other medical officers, Dr. Garvey, Dr. Ortiz, Dr. Maloney, and within an hour, by Dr. Manner. These are all Fire Department Medical Officers."
"But happenstance would have it that there was a convention of surgeons a block away who
then joined us and we wound up with, you know, estimated numbers, six vascular surgeons, four orthopedic surgeons, four general trauma surgeons and nurses. So we had the staff to actually set up a true MASH unit..."
"Dr. Feirstein, the psychiatrist from the Fire Department, joined us shortly and he was in charge of the psychological area."
"It wound up that we didn't have many injuries at all and we, like many of the emergency rooms, all the emergency rooms, with the exception of the first few injuries, had no injuries."
"So we got everything up out of our building and out of the park and we moved into Pace University."
"We stayed there waiting for patients and very few showed up. Around 8:30 we closed up that area and then were available just going around in the car to see firefighters and et cetera."
"A. There were tons of firefighters and police officers and civilians, most of them coming in for an eye wash or to get out of the dust area for a while, but we didn't really deal with any wounded or any chest pain or any significant smoke inhalation. The same was true for the emergency room that was very nearby, which is...
Q. Downtown Hospital?
A. Downtown Hospital. They really were empty."
"Q. It sounds like a very good triage area you set up there.
A. Yes.
Q. It seems like you had everything going for you.
A. Yes. It's just...
Q. Unfortunately, there was nobody to treat."
Puma, Frank EMT Division 1 EMS
EMT Kevin McKeon
EMT Joe Torres, [Norberto?]
"After we heard the first plane hit and felt the ground shake, I ran down to the corner of Church and Park Place, looked up and I saw the plane shooting out of the top of the towers. That's when I grabbed for my radio and yelled over the air, "1 Adam. A bomb just went off in the Trade Center."
"Through that whole time before the second plane hit, we were treating anywhere
between 7 and 15 different patients. When the second plane hit, me and my partner were in the back of our ambulance."
"He then proceeded to get into the driver's seat, and we started making our way to NYU Downtown Hospital, Beekman, to drop off our first set of patients when we got flagged down for another lady who got hit by the landing gear of the first plane. We then proceeded to put her on a long board as best as we could, because we couldn't roll her because she had no back anymore. We put her on the long board and put her in the back of the ambulance, dropped off our first set of patients at Beekman Hospital."
"We then proceeded to go back to Vesey and Church where we originally were, but we were
stopped by the PD. We noticed other ambulances going into Battery Park City, so we followed
them. That's where we had our triage center set up, one of our many triage centers that day."
"We started walking back up towards West Street between Liberty and Vesey when we heard them start screaming over the radio that the first tower, the south tower, was ready to fall.
We started running because we looked up and we saw the part of the tower coming down. Me
and my partner started running, and I ran west down Vesey Street and almost jumped right into the Hudson River."
"I ran into a couple people that I work with: EMT Allen Cruz, who was working the LSU truck that day, EMT Joe Torres, EMT Mike D'Angelo and a couple other faces that I don't remember their names."
"Then we heard them screaming over the air that the second tower was ready to fall."
"Then after that we heard that we were starting to set our staging area up further near the Chelsea Piers."
"I finally ran into my partner, Orlando Martinez, after an hour and a half of being separated from him."
"Then we heard them screaming over the air again that there was a gas leak, everyone
keep pushing forward. We then proceeded to get back in our ambulance."
"we started running into more people from our station, EMT John Moritz, EMT
Kevin McKeon."
"A. I remember when we pulled up first, because we were the first emergency unit on the
scene there, I remember counting at least six bodies who jumped out from the 50th floor."
"I remember the F-16s and the F-18s flying overhead before the first tower collapsed that we all jumped on the floor because we didn't know what it was. We looked up and saw it was
our guys, and we were like, okay, we can stand up now and take control of this."
Off-duty Former Union President Lou Boyle, [no transcript]
Captain Sakowich, "of my company" [no transcript]
Firefighter Jeff Straub, "of my company" [no transcript]
Firefighter Bob Emans, [no transcripts]
Firefighter Al Sicignano, "from my company" [no transcript]
Firefighter Butchie Barone, Engine 6, [no transcript]
"AS I'M GETTING BACK INTO VESEY STREET, A SUBURBAN COMES DOWN VESEY STREET, A FIRE DEPARTMENT SUBURBAN COMES DOWN VESEY STREET. A BUNCH OF GUYS JUMP OUT, I GO UP TO THE OFFICER WHO WAS IN THE PASSENGER SIDE. I SAID WHERE ARE YOU GUYS FROM? THEY SAID THEY ARE FROM THE ROCK, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, IF I BELIEVE CORRECTLY. I TOLD THEM OKAY."
"THERE WAS ALSO AN ENGINE PARKED ON THE CORNER, WHICH WOULD BE THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF VESEY AND CHURCH. HE WAS HOOKED UP TO A HYDRANT AND HE HAD THE SPICKET GOING AND THE WATER FLOWING. I WENT OVER I TOLD THE GUYS WAIT UP A MINUTE. I WASHED OFF, GOT THE STUFF OUT OF MY EYES, CLEARED MY MOUTH AS BEST AS I COULD AND TOOK DRINK."
"THIS LIEUTENANT AND IT WAS ACTUALLY AN OFF DUTY FORMER UNION PRESIDENT [ LOU] BOYLE. [no transcript] WE MET UP WITH HIM HE WAS LOOKING FOR HIS SON WHO WAS IN 33 ENGINE THAT DAY."
"I NOTICED AN ENGINE HOOKED UP WITH COUPLE OF LINES COMING OFF OF IT. I
NOTICED HE HAD A HYDRANT, HE HAD A GOOD HYDRANT, HE HAD GOOD PRESSURE, IT LOOKED LIKE. HE WAS RIGHT ON THE CORNER OF BARCLAY AND WEST."
"WHILE WE WERE ON THE OUTSIDE NEAR THE MARINA, WALKING NEAR THE MARINA, BECAUSE WE WERE GOING TO TRY TO COME AROUND UP LIBERTY TO SEE IF WE COULD GAIN ACCESS FROM WEST STREET THERE, WE ENCOUNTERED ANOTHER GROUP OF FIREMEN THAT WERE CARRYING A FIREMAN ON A STOKES BASKET. I DON'T KNOW WHAT COMPANY THEY WERE FROM, BUT I DO HAVE PICTURES OF THAT. A PHOTOGRAPHER TOOK PICTURES OF US DOING THE CARRY SO I COULD GIVE YOU HIS NAME IF YOU NEED IT, IN A PINCH, PROBABLY THE ROAD. THERE WAS ONLY MAYBE FOUR OR FIVE FIREMEN HELPING TO CARRY THIS GUY SO WE HELPED TO CARRY HIM. THEY NEEDED HELP. WE CARRIED HIM TO BOAT THAT WAS WAITING. IT WAS MARINE COMPANY BOAT. I DON'T KNOW WHAT MARINE COMPANY. THEY GOT HIM ON THE BOAT. I BELIEVE THEY WERE TAKING HIM TO JERSEY HOSPITAL."
"AS THE DAY DRAGGED ON I AGAIN GOT SEPARATED FROM JEFF AND CAPTAIN SAKOWICH. I KIND OF WAS OPERATING ON MY OWN FOR WHILE WITH A LOT OF OTHER GUYS. I DON'T KNOW EVEN KNOW WHO THEY WERE. [Looter]
Palone, Michael Engine Company 24 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/12/01
Firefighter Darren Lebow 5 Truck [no transcript]
Firefighter Kevin Anderson "outside 5" [no transcript]
Firefighter Jeff Anstead, [no transcript]
Firefighter Bobby Beddia [no transcript]
Battalion Chief Prunty [no transcript]
"On September 11th after the two planes hit the World Trade Center, I heard about the recall over the phone and headed into the city. When I arrived at the firehouse, a bunch of guys were getting into Captain Variale's pickup truck. I grabbed my stuff, jumped in the back of the pickup truck and went down Seventh Avenue down to the site."
"We went into World Trade Seven to try and get their standpipe system to possibly use their water off their tank on the roof."
"Anyway, I hooked up with a couple of guys and went into the basement of five, got right next to the collapse, searched for people, searched through the cars in the bottom of five, couldn't find anybody."[Looter]
"We went back down and hooked up with Craig Monahan, I believe, Jeff Anstead, myself, Bobby Beddia and went from where we were on West Street under the walkway bridge. That would put us in between the two walkway bridges and across the pile of rubble into I believe it was the B stairway, where they were searching for Ladder 6. We hooked up with a guy from rescue who was lowering down a civilian and tied the rope off from him. A guy from rescue in the top of the staircase lowered the civilian down and then slid down himself and then went down those stairs. They were getting the woman Sylvia out, basically helped carry her out on the stretcher. 6 came out somewhere there when we were there. 6 Truck came out. We were there for a while trying to get Battalion Chief Prunty, who was trapped under the steel in the bottom of the staircase."
"A. Right. When we went down into the bottom of five, we got right next to the bottom of the collapse, and we were in there pretty close. Kevin Anderson was with us. It was me, Lebow, Kevin Anderson. We basically grabbed any tools we could out of a Port Authority suburban that was down there. Anything that we thought we could use we grabbed and tried to do whatever we could.
Q. But it was just the three of you at that point?
A. It was the three of us at that point. Then when we came back up, we hooked up -- I think 5 Truck was there with the captain of 5 and the rest of 5 Truck and then hooked up with
Monahan and Beddia and Anstead and then actually went over to that B stairway."
Parris, Sidney Engine 21 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/14/01
Firefighter Jimmy Foley, Engine 21 Backup [no transcript]
Firefighter Mike Burn, [Byrne? otherwise, no transcript] Engine 21?
[This guy is a big time looter.]
"Came down West, and I made a left onto Vesey Street, and I was -- I parked the rig by a fire hydrant in front of the post office, and supplied the World Trade Center across the street right near West and Vesey."
"After that, FBI agent came down the block. He identified some landing gear that was in front of our rig, asked me to make sure no pedestrians came down the block to interfere with any type of metals and debris that were there, because they were trying to identify to put the pieces back together for the plane. I was detailed to 7 truck, I had just come down, because 7 truck left before he got to their quarters. He took my Scott bottle out of the cab at one of the compartments, and from there I left West and Vesey, the actual corner, I left there by the parking garage, to close the compartment that he left open and to put my shoes on the rig. At that particular time, I saw another FBI agent come by, who was starting to log some of the things. He was on his transmission, talking to whoever. They told me that another plane was in the area, and we thought that -- the chauffeurs -- some of the guys that were out in the street thought it was a third plane. At that particular time, I walked to the corner of Church, because I heard the plane, but I couldn't see anything. Afraid it was going to hit the same part of the twin tower and make it topple and start a domino effect. As I got to the corner of Church and Vesey, that's when the building, the south tower, came down right on the corner, and from that point on, it was like mayhem for me."
"The responding companies that were coming in, we started breaking windows or trimming windows to see if the buildings had a system that was already fed where we can get a line off of it, get some kind of pressure to get closer to the scene. We had to get past these cars." [Looters]
Pascale, Fran Division Commander (E.M.S.) 10/17/01 of Division 6, EMS operations. [female]
Dr. Neal Richmond [no transcript]
"From there I remember a woman coming out of the cloud, and that's the best way of saying. She was coming, up it would have been off Vesey Street. Actually my first initial response was I told her, "What are you doing here? You have to get out of here." I remember her reply, and only then did I realize she had a camera. She turned around and she said, "You don't understand," and she disappeared, just disappeared. I would not even be able to find out
who she was, what she looked like. I know it was a woman. My reaction to her comment was that she must have been media and she wanted to take as much film as she could, because it was a large-size camera, movie camera, that she had. So it wasn't just somebody just walking around with this. She just disappeared."
"I think it was Chief Gombo on the air. Somebody had directed me toward the building where there was going to be a triage area. When I walked in the building, I remember seeing Carrasquillo. There was Gombo there. Who else was there? Lieutenant Cahill was there. I remember seeing Steve Pilla, who is my ALS coordinator,"
"So I went into the area, and I saw Chief Kowalczyk, I saw Chief Gombo. I asked about Chief McCracken. Nobody had an answer."
"They had said they saw Chief Basile around. I wasn't sure who else was down there. I know Chief Goldfarb was down there. I didn't even know that Chief Villani was down there."
"He had asked me to take somebody with me, preferably a supervisor. I remember asking
for Captain Pinkus. He was there, so the first person I saw. He had asked me if there was a way if he could possibly grab some type of vehicle or whatever and get up to Chelsea."
"As we were traveling, there was a group of people who actually flagged us down. They said that we had a pedestrian struck...Pinkus and I jumped out of the vehicle. The male was actually laying on his stomach. I rolled him over. We opened up his airway. We were able to get a pulse. It turned out that he wasn't actually a pedestrian struck. It was medical-related. Later on I understand that it was cardiac-related...There was a couple of us who were able to lift him up, and we were able to put the man on a stretcher. We told the crew take him to the hospital. This was a situation we certainly didn't expect."
"With that I remember Dr. Asada showing up and Dr. Neal Richmond."
"We had actually asked the police, because we were trying to stop the units from all the areas, as well as our own, just bypassing and heading down to West Street, because everybody wanted to be there. It's understandable, but it wasn't something that really should be. If we needed them, then they go down there. There was accountability of the people."
"I remember finally seeing Chief Villani," I remember Chief Fellini, I remember another supervisor of mine, which was Lieutenant Haugh,"
"Chief Butler and Haugh jumped in the back of the vehicle , and myself and Chief Fellini was in the front."
"I could not believe Deputy Commissioner Feehan, I could not. And the Father, I think he was -- Father Judge. My response is how could these people have been in that building at the time."
Pastor, Frank Battalion 31 E.M.T.-D. (E.M.S.) 10/23/01
A: Okay. September 11, that Monday morning, I reported to work.
A: We were working 32 boy in Red Hook. We had the view of the city, and she yells out, "Frank, that plane just hit the building."
Q: Who is she?
A: My partner is Mala, Mala Harilal,
and I remember my partner, Mala, saying again to me, "That other plane is low." I don't know how much time, 10, 15 minutes, and we seen the other plane hit.
Q: You're still in Brooklyn?
A: We were still in Brooklyn.
As soon as I get on the other side of the west side -- I'm the driver. I come out of the tunnel,
and I just see -- I told my partner, "I just saw somebody's torso on the floor," and my partner said, "No, you're kidding." I says, "It's not a dog." I thought it was a dog, but I saw a torso with no arms and no legs, just split open on the driver's side.
"I see on the floor stumbling Chief Grant. He's got a non-rebreather on, no O-2, no nothing."
Patriciello, Joseph Engine 44 Lieutenant (F.D.N.Y.) 12/20/01
"At that time [prior to either collapse] there were maybe two or three car fires going in the vicinity of the pedestrian bridge."
"As my men went to obtain some extinguishers, I happened to be looking up and saw the explosion or the building fail with the ensuing fireball and cloud."
"I had eye abrasions that were looked at at the Ear, Eye and Throat Hospital."
Penn, Lonnie Battalion 20 E.M.T. (E.M.S.) 11/9/01 Shield 1296.
"After that, I helped one lady out of the front of the Marriott entrance, I recall. I was on my
way back. I had actually brought her to the Hatzolah ambulance, because they were carrying her, and a few other people and I assisted with her."
"I saw two other co-workers from station 22."
I saw Captain DeShore
Q. Okay. Who was your partner that day?
A. A rookie gentleman by the name of Joseph Henderson or Henderson Joseph [sic]. Basically, we got out and we passed a lot of body parts."
Q. You were pretty much in front of like 2 World Financial Center?
A. Yes, that's as far as I got.
Q. Right. Then --
A. I actually saw a police officer shoot the window out to get through.
Q. To get through 2 World Financial Center?"
A. Yes. Because he was ahead of me. I could see him. He shot the glass out and jumped through and I had later saw him in the hospital in Jersey.
Q. When you reached the yacht harbor behind 2 Financial, you said Captain DeShore was there and two other people from --
A. Two other EMTs from Boston Road.
Q. Do you know who they were?
A. My friend Conzo and Billy -- I can't pronounce Billy's last name. Truoccolo,
A. Like I said as soon as I stepped off the ambulance I mean I was just -- I felt like I was in
Beirut. All I saw was debris and body parts. I recall a little girl's foot. It was like a pink sneaker. It was tiny, around the age of seven, eight or so, because I have a daughter that size. I mean I just saw so many body parts, it was unbelievable. Then I look up and see people jumping."
"and there was two other medics from Boston that showed up. Joe Jefferson and I forgot his
partner,"
"Sat there [New Jersey side of the harbor] for about two hours in shock till a
guy came over to me and he don't know me, didn't -- you know, just gave me a hug. It was really a touching moment. He gave me a hug. I didn't expect. Just a lot of support on that side. Then we saw the F 16s coming and fly overhead and stuff like that."
Perez, Emilio Battalion 14 E.M.T. (E.M.S.) 10/31/01 shield number 3132
"We realized that -- I realized there wasn't going to be enough water to help the firefighters for cleaning the soot and debris from them. What I did was I approached one of the fire Lieutenants and started screaming to him, I need a wrench, I need a wrench. The men were going right back in. So he stopped them and like two of them just dropped. Got me the wrench. I started opening up as many hydrants as I could in that area. I opened up like a good, a good 11 hydrants. Then I was directing all the firefighters to go on into the areas where I was telling them to go douse down, this and that, but they were concerned for
the firefighters, so I says to them, listen, all your friends are all over there. All your men are right there by the hydrant. Just go over there. You will find them. Just by me directing them in that direction and being -- using the tone of voice that I did, it helped them because they approached -- but they didn't find the men they were looking for, they were being taken care of.
The FBI was there. The CIA was there. Guys with suits there.
I spoke to Lieutenant Nevins
I told my partner, Maximo,
"You know, when the supervisor -- I'm not insubordinate, but when the supervisor told me -- asked me where was the triage area, I mentioned to him. I says Rector and Vesey. You have to go there. I said no, I can't. I got to set up right here."
"There is no -- there was somebody standing back there with cameras and things, walking back and forth. There was one guy who followed me throughout the whole incident, snapping pictures, videotaping, back pedaling. Every time I looked he was right there."
"So as I was helping the next fireman, this guy was snapping pictures, so I think for every
firefighter that I think that I was helping, this guy must have had many photos of me and that's the only thing that I keep recollecting, that if I can only get this guy to get me a copy of this picture to see myself going through this whole deal, because I (inaudible). I see the photos of the chaplain when he was being carried out and it was similar. When I look at
that photograph, I did that for a lot of firefighters."
"After the third day, then I went down there and I returned back to Ground Zero to an area called the hole."
Q. Do you remember when you first got there seeing any EMS officers around that --
A. The only officer that -- I was happy to see him, was Lieutenant Albuerme. He is from Harlem.
A. My partner that day was Delgado.
Q. Do you know your vehicle number?
A. Vehicle number was 138.
Perez, Jose E.M.T. (E.M.S.) 10/23/01 Battalion 8.
Joe Valdivia [no transcript]
I was with my partner, Joe Valdivia,
A. No, just like I said, I think it was very unreal at the time. It seemed like it was a movie and it wasn't really happening. After a few hours, you know it's real.
Perrugia, John Headquarters Chief (E.M.S.) EMS Division Chief, in charge of planning for
the Chief of Department's office.
Battalion Chief Mike Maggio, 1rst Battalion, [no transcript]
Phil Parr, Battalion Chief, [no transcript]
Nick Cagliuso, former Fire Department employee, [no transcript]
Joe Farrell, from the New York State Health Department, EMS Bureau, [no transcript]
J.P. Martin, EMS Chief officer, [no transcript]
John McFarland, found Ganci and Feehan's bodies, [no transcript]
"I received a telephone call from one of my staff people, EMT Richard Zarrillo, on the Department cell phone. He indicated to me that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center."
"I called EMT Zarrillo back on his cell phone. I directed him to round up the rest of the staff, which consisted of a Captain and two Lieutenants, Captain Abdo Nahmod, Lieutenant John Nevins and Lieutenant Brad Mann and tell them to start making their way over to the World Trade Center."
"Moments later I got a notification on my Department pager to call the fire operations center. I immediately called them. They advised me that the Office of Emergency Management had been activated. I am the person in operations who is responsible for
staffing OEM or the Police Department's command and control center."
"I passed over some pieces of what appeared to be aircraft wreckage, fuselage, whatever, some body parts and bodies in various states, either people from the building or the airplanes. You couldn't tell. They weren't intact."
At that point I made contact with Captain James Yakimovich. He's a fire Captain who was detailed to headquarters with us for a little while. He was on a special assignment. He was in personnel on Washington Street. He was writing the fire Lieutenant's exam or whatever. He was in civilian clothes. He came out to the site when he heard what happened. He has experience at staffing OEM. I have used him on a number of occasions. I said Jimmy, you don't have gear with you. Why don't you come with me to OEM and if the First Division rep has gear we will release them.
So both of us were preparing then to leave the command post and make our way northbound on West Street to Vesey and then we would go to OEM. At that point Chief Ganci placed his hand on my shoulder and told me that I should be careful walking over there because there was stuff falling off the building. I told him not to worry about it. I was a big boy.
I reached 7 World Trade Center. We walked into the lobby and we were going up the escalators to the main level. I checked in at the security desk. As we reached the top of the escalators, there were lots of people running down the escalator on the promenade.
I spoke to one of the Deputy Directors and as I was speaking with him, I believe it was Deputy Director Rotanz, who is a Fire Department Captain on detail over there, Captain Nahmod and EMT Zarrillo approached as well. They had indicated that the building was being evacuated.
I questioned as to what the nature of the evacuation was. I was told that it was not because of what was occurring across the street. No one feared that the building was in any danger as a result of two airplane attacks and subsequent fires, but that there were reports of a third plane that had been hijacked. It was unidentified, the location, and they thought it may be coming in for an additional strike. Therefore, they were evacuating the building.
We proceeded down to the lobby where the various agency representatives were present. We
collectively started to set up in the lobby and try to think of strategies to where we could move the inter-agency cooperation effort. At that point, I also had a face to face discussion with Battalion Chief Mike Maggio from the First Battalion. He was the person who was sent up to be the rep at OEM. Mike is someone who assists us on lots of our event planning. He was detailed there. He didn't have any gear with him. He was a light duty Chief on administrative assignment there. So I told Captain Yakimovich that we are not going to send a Chief back. At that point he indicated that he was going to run over to 10 and 10 and secure gear and then report back to the command post and assist the Chief there. I told him that would be fine. I didn't need a lot of people inside. They needed more help outside.
As we were having discussions in the lobby as to what to do with OEM, a number of people came in the lobby as patients. Captain Nahmod and EMT Zarrillo started to look at them, put them off to the side and talk to them. At that point I stepped outside. I was going to request some EMS resources and I had face to face contact with Captain Mark Stone of the EMS 8 Battalion.
Q. Where was the EMS command post?
A. I don't know where the EMS command post was at that time. Again I didn't hear much. There was lots of stuff going on the radio. My mission at that time was not that of an EMS Chief responding to the operation. My mission was, as the Chief of Planning for the Fire Department, to respond in to handle the agency liaison stuff.
At that point I continued to liaison with my counterparts over at OEM. A short while later, just maybe a few moments, Dr. Asaeda, Office of Medical Affairs, and the EMT or paramedic that was with him, showed up. I told him we were seeing a number of people. In other words, more than 3 at that point in time, but again I wasn't directly involved, so I couldn't tell you the number. He said fine. He said he would stay over at our location and work with us there. We were in close proximity to the building. If you are familiar, I'll mark it with number 3 on the map, in front of 7 World Trade Center. Directly across the street there are some escalators that come down from the promenade. There is also an overhead pedestrian walkway that connects the World Trade Center plaza to the lobby of number 7. There was people coming down both exits. So it was a good position for us to find people who may require medical attention and get them into a secured area of the lobby. I didn't have any EMS people working out on Vesey Street proper, because it was not a safe location. There was people jumping out of the windows of the World Trade Center. We were witnessing that.
There was debris falling down from the north tower and making its way on to the street and promenade where we were located.
A few moments after Dr. Asaeda arrived andstarted talking to Captain Nahmod about the patients, a gentleman from the building identified himself as a security person or a security director. He asked me if there is anything that we needed or he could provide me with regard to the EMS. We questioned him as to the ability to open up the loading bays which are associated to number 7 World Trade Center. The entrances are located directly under the pedestrian foot bridge. I figured it was protected there, so debris wouldn't fall down. He said he would do that.I directed Captain Nahmod to move the patients into that area. Again, the lobby of number 7 is all glass facade. I was concerned that if something should come off the building, go through the glass or hit the glass, we would have an extraordinary amount of
patients in addition to what was already being seen. Further we took everyone from OEM and moved them to what would be the most southeasterly corner inside that first floor entrance of the 7 World Trade. There is a big granite or marble security desk and we started to establish around that as we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. At that point again, I went out front to see what was going on and where the ambulances I had requested were. I had a face to face with Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen. He was there with his driver. He was wearing his protective gear and his helmet. He questioned me as to -- I told him I was there for OEM, operating in the lobby, that the building was being evacuated and the nature of that. He indicated if I knew the whereabouts of the Mayor. I told him that as I was approaching OEM and coming up Vesey Street, I saw a large contingency of gentlemen in suits exiting down Vesey Street proceeding north on West toward Barclay. I recognized some of the people in that group as staff and TAs for the Mayor. I told him more than likely that was probably the direction the Mayor went.
I was in a discussion with Mr. Rotanz and I believe it was a representative from the Department of Buildings, but I'm not sure. Some engineer type person, and several
of us were huddled talking in the lobby and it was brought to my attention, it was believed that the structural damage that was suffered to the towers was quite significant and they were very confident that the building's stability was compromised and they felt that
the north tower was in danger of a near imminent collapse.
I grabbed EMT Zarrillo, I advised him of that information. I told him he was to proceed immediately to the command post where Chief Ganci was located. Told him where it was across the street from number 1 World Trade Center. I told him "You see Chief Ganci
and Chief Ganci only. Provide him with the information that the building integrity is severely compromised and they believe the building is in danger of imminent collapse." So, he left off in that direction.
Q. They felt that just the one building or both of them?
A. The information we got at that time was that they felt both buildings were significantly damaged, but they felt that the north tower, which was the first one to be struck, was going to be in imminent danger of collapse. Looking up at it, you could see that, you could see through the smoke or whatever, that there was significant structural damage to the exterior of the building. Very noticeable. Now you know, again, this is not a scene where the thought of both buildings collapsing ever entered into my mind.
I was there in 1993, 14 minutes after the bomb went off. I operated some 16 hours at the
building and with all the post-incident critiques and debriefings with various agencies. We were always told by everyone, the experts, that these buildings could withstand direct hits from airplanes. That's the way they were designed. They went through all of this architectural stuff, way beyond the scope of my knowledge.
It was hit by an airplane. That's okay. It's made to be hit by an airplane. I mean I think
everyone may have believed that. We were all told years ago it was made to be hit by an airplane.
Just moments before the south tower collapsed and, you know, when it happened we didn't know it was the south tower. We thought it was the north tower. There was a reporter of some sort, female with blond hair and her cameraman, an oriental fellow. They were setting up outside 7 World Trade Center, just east of the pedestrian bridge. I told them it would probably be better off to be set up under the bridge. At least it was protected. I was just about to enter a dialogue with her when I heard a sound I never heard before. I looked up and saw this huge cloud. I told him run. I grabbed the female, I threw her through the revolving doors of number 7. We were proceeding inside. She fell to the ground. I helped her out, I pushed her towards the direction of where we were all in the south corner and there was a little doorway behind that desk which led into the loading bays.
They proceeded to evacuate that group along with some secret service people.
Phil Parr, Battalion Chief, again he had no protective equipment whatever. I'm not sure how he ended up there. I think he was detailed here to headquarters and he made his way over there. He used to be a Deputy Director of OEM. So he made his way there. I didn't initially see him, but when it was all over, me and Phil found one another. We grabbed some hand lights from some Port Authority guys.
You know the level where the foot bridge connects, whatever. We found maybe a half dozen or so people out there. We told them to cover their heads and their faces with, you know, their shirts or clothes or whatever to help them breathe and to walk towards the Port Authority light. A few minutes after we were unable to see --
A. Correct, correct. We were walking underneath number 6 World Trade Center. If you have seen the pictures or are familiar with the way those buildings come, they come up and then they angle out so there is like a covered walkway path. We were there. We ran into a few firefighters. We told them that we were going to try to make a chain of people and if we found anybody we would get them out. There were lots of bodies on the plaza. A couple of firefighters and police officers that we saw in the rubble that we were able to get to and get out of the rubble and direct towards the people, they got out. There were a few people in the rubble that were dead, both firefighters and police officers and civilians that we knew we
couldn't do anything for.
Q. You had some alive, also?
A. Yes, we assisted them out. There were pockets of fire everywhere. At that point I noticed it
was unusually lit in the plaza, considering the event that happened. I looked up and saw this big gaping hole where the south tower used to be. That's the first point that I realized that the south tower had collapsed. Maybe ten or 15 stories high left of it. Probably most of it being a pile of rubble.
I ran into a former Fire Department employee who used to work with me, Nick Cagliuso, who used to work in the Office of Medical Affairs.
There were some people we saw more towards the center of the courtyard that appeared to be trapped. One of them looked like it may have been an Emergency Service officer. We directed two firefighters and an ESU cop to go and help them. The last I saw of them they were in the process of removing that person from the rubble. I then ran into James Basile, EMS 2 Division Chief. He was at the end of this group of people.
He indicated that he was in the lobby of number one and that there were some people still in the lobby, that there was a number of fire Chiefs in there. His aide was in there and that they were making their way out another way. He had made his way out from this location. He said you know we should not be here. We have to get out of here. I said there is no one else here. Let's do that, but on the way out, I said we are going through number 7 again. That's right on the way there. I explained to him the story. I said I'm sure the dust has settled somewhat. I just want to do another visual to make sure everyone that was with me and that was in that area downstairs was truly out.
So we went through the foot bridge again. At that point, I got separated from Phil Parr. Me and Jim proceeded over the pedestrian bridge back into number 7.
I started to make my way to the command post when I heard that horrible sound again, you know, that whining screeching jet engine.
Q. At this point the whereabouts of OEM were?
A. Everyone was scattered.
Q. Last they were by 7?
A. We were all in there. I knew that they all got out. All the people that were there with us.
I started making my way towards this Suburban vehicle. It was an EMS Suburban, the star of life was on the rear window. I ran into Mike Butler, Chief of Fire Prevention.
I don't know if that message got through, because after we got on Warren Street, we ran into Joe Farrell from the New York State Health Department, EMS Bureau.
At some point I heard an EMS Chief officer, later to find out that was J.P. Martin
They told me that there was a group of people up at Chelsea Piers with Kowalczyk and Pat
Scaringello.
I had John McFarland go down to Vesey and West Street, with a team of guys to do forward triage. I got a communication from John. He called me on his cell phone, indicating that they
found Ganci and Feehan's bodies.
Petrassi, Joseph Engine 65 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 1/13/02
At the north tower there was a Chief that directed the Lieutenant to take his men and work his way up, and that's pretty much what we did. We started heading up.
I'm not sure if it was at the 20th floor or 22nd, that's unclear, but we felt a shake, the building shake, and things just started getting like different. A little bit after that the Lieutenant said, well, we've got to make our way down, and we pretty much took whatever people were in the stairway, came down with them.
Q. Were there many people in the stairs?
A. Yes, the stairs were pretty full.
Q. Coming up and going down?
A. Going down. Well, when we were going up, people were coming down.
saw 2 Truck, Captain Ill.
Pfeifer, Joseph Battalion 1 Battalion Chief (F.D.N.Y.) 10/23/01
"I was working the night before in the 1st Battalion, and sometime about 8:15 or so in the morning we got a call to Lispenard and Church for a gas leak in the street."
"I went into the lobby. There were people injured. I went into the lobby and tried to gather information, where the plane hit, what floor, and the best we could get is somewhere around 80. As the units were coming in, we checked for the elevators to see if we had any elevator service. There wasn't any."
"Then what we did was I started to send people up to perform a rescue because we knew there were people trapped above the fire and we were getting reports in the lobby people were trapped in the elevators and people were trapped, and I believe we started sending units up."
"I briefed Chief Hayden on what I knew at the time, which was an approximate floor and we believe we had people trapped. Then we kind of went through a high-rise operation to try and get people up there. We paired the engines. I know I told engines, half the group to take hose, the other half not to, at least early on, and started their way up. Also, I saw my brother, who was a Lieutenant in 33, and we spoke a little bit and then he went up also."
"Then the plane hit the second tower, the south tower. At that point Chief Donald Burns and Battalion Chief Orio Palmer went into the second tower and I took command of that."
"Right before that we discussed the operation of the radio. Any time in a high-rise building, communications is difficult. We tried to get repeaters to work. The Trade Center had a repeater. We tried to get that to work. That did not work for some reason, and there were problems with the repeater in the car also. So communications from the onset was difficult and both Orio and myself tried to get that to work. We tried it numerous times and we couldn't get the repeaters to operate properly, so we had to rely just on handie-talkie communication, which is at best hit or miss in any high-rise."
"At one point I was asked to get the operations with the helicopter into motion. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I could not get a hold of the dispatcher to do that. One of the citywide radios got moved around and I couldn't grab that, and there were no phone lines. The phone lines were out and nobody was picking up or the lines were busy to the dispatcher, so I couldn't get through to them on a landline or a cell line."
"We weren't getting good reports from the police at all. There was one point there was a possibility of a second plane coming in and somebody said something and I turned around to try to confirm that and we couldn't confirm that. There was also later on the possibility of a third plane. Again, we just heard somebody say it and we tried to confirm it. We could not confirm it with any law enforcement people. We all ran out at that point. So that was the difficulty we had."
"At one point after the second plane hit, I think, I'm not positive of the time line, I know Chief Callen asked over the radio to come down to the lobby. But with difficulty with communications, that didn't happen. It didn't fully happen. I'm not too sure who heard that or how many people came down. There was no way of really telling at that point. But right before the south tower collapsed, I noticed a lot of people just left the lobby, and I heard we had a crew of all different people, high-level people in government, everybody was gone, almost like they had information that we didn't have. Some of them were moved across the street to the command post.
Q. Who were you with at this time?
A. You name them, they were there.
Q. With you?
A. Yes, in the lobby. They were moving the command post. So, I guess, after that companies were coming in and we were listing them on the command board so we had an account of everybody. Unfortunately, the command board is not around any longer."
"At one point the Fire Safety Director, Mike Hurley, asked us if we wanted the building evacuated. I'm not too sure if he meant both buildings or he was just talking about this. In either case, I believe he was talking about both buildings. I turned to Chief Hayden and said do you want to evacuate the buildings? He said yes. I turned to Mike and I told him evacuate the buildings. So there were definite communications back and forth that we wanted the buildings evacuated. I forget what stage that was at that time. Again, I can't put that on a time line. But it was before the second building collapsed for sure because Mike wasn't in the lobby with us. So it was sometime before that."
"Then in the lobby we heard the south tower is collapsing. I'm not sure, like I said before. I get mixed up with south and north and two and one. But right before the south building collapsed, we heard a loud rumbling noise, and those that were left in the area, we knew something was collapsing, and I noticed in the lobby area where you go around the corner to an escalator that leads up into the Customs Building, and as things were collapsing into the lobby of the north tower, I pushed everybody around the corner. I knew where I was so I pushed people around the corner. There was my aide, Chief Hayden, Chief Callen, an EMS Lieutenant, Father Judge, I think Chief Villani, and there might have been a couple other people, a Lieutenant, I don't know his name, a Fire Lieutenant, and maybe a couple other people. They were just pushed around a wall literally and then the whole area went black. We heard things collapse. There was debris falling in and everything was black. At that time I went around to Chief Hayden and said I'm going to evacuate the building. I got on the radio and I called up to the Battalion Chief upstairs, which I got an acknowledgment to evacuate the building for a number of times.
Q. Do you remember what Chief that was?
A. I don't know what Chief. But I did get acknowledgment, like I said, a number of times firefighters said they heard me and that's why they got out. And that was just in the blackness where at that point we didn't even know our way out. Then Father Judge was there and he was lying on the ground and I went over to him, took off his collar, I opened up his shirt, checked for a pulse, and I knew at that point that he didn't have any.
Q. Where was he?
A. He was with us in the lobby all the time.
Q. In the lobby?
A. Right. He was saying some prayers and he was very anxious in the lobby. I could watch him. He was very concerned, very different, Father Judge, as I know him. Apparently, what it was, it was a heart attack. We didn't know at the time it was a heart attack. We thought he was hit with debris.
Q. He didn't have any obvious injuries?
A. He didn't have any obvious injuries. Then again, we're in black with just a couple of flashlights. So at this time we had to figure out how to get out of here now. So I kind of had an idea where I was going in the building."
"So I went up the escalator and now some of the other guys are taking Father Judge and they're carrying the body up and out to the top, and then there was a bridge across, and I told them, I told Chief Hayden and a whole bunch of people, hey, listen, let me see if the bridge is still here, whatever, and let me go across and I'll let you know if we can get out this way. Again, I had no idea. At this point we had no idea that the whole south tower had collapsed. No idea. We didn't hear any reports. We knew something collapsed, part of the building came down, elevators
collapsed. We knew we had something but no idea.
MR. CASTORINA: Meanwhile, the building you were in was evacuating; you gave the word already?
MR. McCOURT: In other words, the firefighters and everybody were starting to come down?
A. Well, I gave an order to evacuate and it was acknowledged and there were reports that people heard that and they were coming down to the extent, again, communication was difficult. It was difficult. I was glad somebody heard it.
Q. Did you see Commissioner Feehan there at all?
A. He was there in the lobby earlier along with Commissioner Von Essen and OEM.
Q. And Chief Ganci?
A. I didn't see Chief Ganci myself. But everybody had to come there first.
Q. The bridge was intact, that footbridge going across?
A. The footbridge that went across, pretty much you couldn't see out of any of the windows and everything and it was like fire. Everything was smoky so you couldn't see anything. So I walked all the way across the bridge and found out that the bridge was intact. I radioed back to tell them that you can come across the bridge, that everything is intact, you can get out this way, and I was getting no answer on the radio. I called a number of times, a number of times. I went across with four guys. So the four guys I was with walked all the way back across the bridge again and I tried to contact them, and I was able to contact Chief Hayden, who took a bunch of guys out, like out a window onto the side plaza. So I knew they were out and it's not exactly the area I wanted to go because things were falling down and people were jumping. So I took the group I was with back across the bridge, my third trip across the bridge.
Q. Where did that lead you to? Where did that come out?
A. It came out to the World Financial Center. We got out there and then we were standing under the bridge trying to see what was going on. I couldn't see what was going on. Everything was covered with smoke."
"Then after a while it started to clear. Actually, I was with a civilian. Actually, I was laying over him because he had no helmet or anything. Then we got up and we couldn't see, but it started to clear to like a brown, cloudy smoke, and I hear pop, pop, pop, which sounded like gunfire to me. Then right after that I hear people screaming get down, get down. It's not normal. I worked in the ghetto long enough that you get down.
Q. Of course.
A. Because it sounded like gunfire and I've heard gunfire before. It could have been something totally different. I have no idea. I grabbed the guy I was with and told him, hey, we have to get down, we have to get some cover. Then it started to clear again a little better and we got up and I looked down the block and I saw some law enforcement taking a guy away in handcuffs and he was very agitated.
Q. Would that be on the other side of west?
A. On the west side of West Street.
Q. Towards the river?
A. Towards the river.
Q. Did you ever find out what he was --
A. No. But the cops were real agitated and it was early on. I couldn't imagine what they would arrest somebody for. Again, it could have been almost anything creating that sound. I have no idea. But I figured that was three strikes at that point. And then I came back to the scene and tried to figure out what took place here and what we had.
Q. Did your brother make it out?
A. No.
Q. I'm very sorry.
A. That's the toughest part. And that's the story."
Piambino, Thomas Engine 65 Lieutenant (F.D.N.Y.) 1/24/02
Thomas Piambino is in Marine 1 of the New York City Fire Department.
On 9/11, I was assigned to Engine 65,
"We went in through the west side of the building right off of West Street into the north
tower. We went into, I guess, the -- I think the windows were out already. They were already blown out when we got there, so I don't even think I went in through a door. I'm pretty sure I went in through a window into the west side of the north tower. There was no command post there, and they were just sending us up. I had no particular assignment. We had our roll-ups, Scott bottles and extra Scott bottles we were carrying."
"The south tower had fallen, but at that time I didn't know what it was. All I heard was a tremendous explosion. The tower I was in shook really bad. It really shook bad, and my opinion, I thought it was another aircraft that hit the building."
"...I thought it exploded, and I didn't realize it had collapsed. It looked to me like an explosion, and you could feel the -- you could feel it coming, and they were still running away from it. I mean, you weren't going to out run it. At that point, we all split up. I mean, it was like run, and each one of us took refuge behind something, and I wound up taking refuge behind an ESU truck, I believe it was, a Police Department ESU truck, I think, and I just rode it out until first there was the explosion or the concussion, and then there was very, very strong wind, and then there was the black...."
Picarello, John Battalion 40 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/6/01
Chief Henry, [no transcript]
Chief Stack, [no transcript]
"In about a second or two, you just heard like a ba-ba-ba-boom,
from 10 Truck was Georgie Bachman.
"The first person I actually saw was actually Father John Delendick. He had told me about Father Judge."
Piccerill, Steve ENGINE 204 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/12/01
Mike McKenna, [no transcript]
Lieutenant Healy, [no transcript]
Eddie Rodriguez, [no transcript]
"ALL OF SUDDEN I TURNED AWAY AND HEARD TREMENDOUS EXPLOSION AND TURNED AROUND THAT WAS THE SECOND PLANE HITTING THE TRADE CENTER SO
THAT'S WHEN THEY TOLD US TO RESPOND..."
"WE FINALLY GOT OUT OF THE TUNNEL, WE WERE DRIVING OUT OF THE TUNNEL UP WEST STREET AND WE'RE SEEING BODY PARTS IN THE STREET, TORSOS, CHUNKS OF FLESH, PARTS OF THE AIRPLANE LANDING GEAR, CAR FIRES EVERYWHERE. IT WAS LIKE WAR ZONE."
"AND LIKE IT SOUNDED LIKE THUNDER AND JUST SAW STUFF COMING DOWN"
"AND I'M LOOKING AT ONE OUR OF OUR GUYS GARY Z. He got hurt pretty bad at the time."
AND THIS GUY Mike McKenna
MET UP WITH THE GUYS FROM 224, 202. I HUNG WITH THEM FOR LITTLE WHILE THEN. WE WERE JUST HANGING OUT WATCHING THE BUILDING 7 READY TO GO
"our Lieutenant Healy"
"Eddie Rodriguez"
Picciotto, Richard 11th Battalion Battalion Chief (F.D.N.Y.) 11/27/01 Montel Williams Show, September 17, 2001
"RUSHED INTO THE LOBBY SEE THE COMMANDER, a CHIEF HIGHER THAN ME HES
GOING INSANE, HE'S OVERLOADED, SO THERE'S COMPANIES WAITING TO BE, YOU KNOW, WHAT DO WE NEED, WHAT DO WE NEED ,WE DON'T JUST RUN IN. IT LOOKS LIKE WE RUN IN, BUT IT IS COMMAND STRUCTURE AND I GET A COUPLE COMPANIES TO THE SIDE, GO TO THE CHIEF IN CHARGE, WHAT DO YOU NEED, AND HE TELLS ME WHAT HE NEEDS. I TAKE MY COMPANIES AND WE GO."
"CHIEF PICCIOTTO: THAT WAS MY INITIAL ASSIGNMENT PEOPLE TRAPPED ON THE 21ST AND 25 FLOOR"
"I WAS IN THE BUILDING WHEN IT CAME DOWN, AS FAR AS I KNOW THERE WERE ELEVEN SURVIVORS OUT OF BOTH BUILDINGS. I'M ONE OF THEM. WE WERE
TRAPPED FOUR HOURS."
"I'M UP IN APPROXIMATELY TOWER 1, SOMEWHERE IN THE 30S AND THIS RUMBLING STARTS HAPPENING. BY THIS TIME, ALL CIVILIANS, CIVILIANS STOPPED COMING DOWN WHEN I HIT ABOUT THE 16TH FLOOR 20TH FLOOR, AGAIN THAT'S GUESSTIMATIONS."
YOU TELL ME HOW LONG IT TOOK THAT BUILDING TO FALL?
MONTEL WILLIAMS: I'D SAY 30 SECONDS"
"THAT'S MY GUESSTIMATION 30, 40 SECONDS"
"SO ITS AN EERIE SILENCE. THE RADIOS STOP. WE HAVE DIFFERENT CHANNELS. THEY STOP AND EVERYONE IS, YOU KNOW WHAT WAS THAT?"
"MY THINKING WAS EITHER I THOUGHT A BOMB HIT THE OTHER BUILDING AND BROUGHT IT DOWN AND IF THERE'S A BOMB IN THAT ONE THERE'S A BOMB IN THIS ONE."
"AND I'M SAYING TO MYSELF, DID I DO THE WRONG THING HERE. SO ITS AMAZING THEY GIVE THE ORDER FROM THE COMMAND POST STAND BY...
MONTEL WILLIAMS: MEANING STOP THE EVACUATION?
CHIEF PICCIOTTO: STOP THE EVACUATION. I RELAY THAT ORDER AND AMAZING AS THAT IS THESE FIREMEN, I CAN'T SAY ENOUGH, WE BASICALLY STOP. EVERYONE IS WAITING TO FIND OUT WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO."
"CAR CHARLIE WHO I THINK I KNOW WHO THAT CHIEF IS, SAYS---TIME SPAN DON'T KNOW---CONTINUE THE EVACUATION. THIS IS LESS THAN 1 MINUTE THIS WHOLE THING HAPPENS PROBABLY LESS THAN 30 SECONDS AND SO THE EVACUATION CONTINUES AND NOW WE'RE GOING DOWN."
"AND THEN THAT NOISE, THAT FIRST-TIME-IN-HISTORY-ANYONE-HEARD-THAT
NOISE, AND I SAID IT WAS VERY UNIQUE NOISE IT."
"MONTEL, ABOUT TWO MONTHS AGO JUST A REAL QUICK STORY, TWO MONTHS AGO THREE FIREFIGHTERS IN QUEENS FROM RESCUE 4 WERE IN A BUILDING THAT COLLAPSED. THEY WERE IN TWO STORY BUILDING THEY WERE ALIVE IN THE BASEMENT WE HAD RADIO CONTACT. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU REMEMBER BUT THEY HAD THE FUNERALS. HARRY FORD, THEY WERE IN TWO STORY BUILDING THAT COLLAPSED AND WE COULDN'T GET TO THEM IN TIME. WE JUST COULDN'T GET TO THEM."
"AMAZINGLY ONE WHOLE COMPANY LADDER 6" [was entombed in the staircase with him and Josephine.]
"BELOW ME THERE WAS AN OFFICER FROM 16 AND A FIREMAN FROM ENGINE 39. ALSO THERE WAS JOSEPHINE, THE WOMAN I TOLD YOU ABOUT, AND THERE WAS A PORT AUTHORITY COP, I BELIEVE HIS NAME WAS DAVID LIM."
"THE PEOPLE IN OUR VOID WERE BANGED AROUND, SEPARATED SHOULDERS, CONCUSSIONS, BUT NO LIFE THREATENING INJURIES."
Montel: "THE FACT THAT YOUR CORNEAS WERE SCRATCHED, BURNED..." [he's wearing dark glasses for the interview]
"A VERY VERY GOOD FRIEND OF MINE, WE STUDIED TOGETHER, JAY JONAS, HE'S THE CAPTAIN OF TRUCK 6"
"...WHEN I HIT ONE CHANNEL, I'M HEARING A VOICE CALLING MAYDAYS. ALSO AND HES HURT I THINK SAID THAT..."
MONTEL WILLIAMS: YES
CHIEF PICCIOTTO: SO EVERY TIME I'M GOING THROUGH AND I HIT THAT CHANNEL I'M TRYING TO CALM HIM DOWN BECAUSE I KNOW HE'S NOT GOOD, AND JUST EVERY TIME I HIT THAT CHANNEL, I TALK TO HIM FOR MINUTE, CALM DOWN, I DON'T CALL ANYMORE. WELL, I CALL, HE WANTS ME TO COME GET HIM. ITS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO COME GET HIM, BUT I DON'T WANT HIM TALKING
MONTEL WILLIAMS: RIGHT
CHIEF PICCIOTTO: HE'S CONFIRMED, HE'S ONE OF THE CONFIRMED. THEY RECOVERED HIS BODY. I DON'T WANT TO SAY THE NAME.
MONTEL WILLIAM: SURE BECAUSE YOU JUST COULDN'T GET TO HIM."
"CHIEF PICCIOTTO: SO I'M DOING THE MAYDAYS AND FINALLY AT ONE POINT SOMEONE ANSWERS ME. BUT THEN IT GOES AWAY, I DONT HEAR HIM. ABOUT HALF HOUR LATER I'M GOING AGAIN THROUGH CHANNELS AND ANOTHER VOICE ANSWERS ME. THE FIRE DEPARTMENT IS VERY SMALL COMMUNITY, ESPECIALLY THE CHIEFS RANK. EVERY CHIEF JUST ABOUT KNOWS EVERY OTHER CHIEF. GUY ANSWERS ME, 12TH BATTALION, THE UPPER EAST SIDE , I RECOGNIZE THE VOICE IT'S A GUY I CONSIDER FRIEND OF MINE, GOOD FRIEND NOW, MARK FORAN. MARK THIS IS RICHIE..."
"I HEAR MARK TALKING AND HE SAYS I GOT A COMPANY, LADDER 43, HE TELLS
Pat McNally, PAT I GOT 43, I'M GOING TO GET RICHIE..."
"AND TWO HOURS, TWO-AND-HALF HOURS. I'M LAYING ON MY BACK."
"I see a little bit of light."..it's getting brighter and brighter." "What it was, it was a small opening." BUT THE DUST AND THE DIRT AND THE SMOKE WAS OBSCURING IT
"FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE RUBBLE FIELD WE'RE ABOUT, YOU KNOW, ITS GUESSTIMATE 30 40 FEET HIGH."
DEBBIE PICCIOTTO WHO IS RICH'S WIFE AND HIS CHILDREN LISA [student at Pace downtown.] AND STEVEN
CHIEF PICCIOTTO: SHE [Lisa] SAW THE SECOND PLANE HIT AND SAW BOTH BUILDINGS COME DOWN LIVE.
Steve: SOMEONE CAME TO THE DOOR AND SAID THAT YOUR FATHER IS OUT, AND HE'S OKAY AND HE DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ELSE, SO I WAS LIKE, WELL WHAT DO YOU MEAN HES OUT? HE'S OUT OF WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED? AND HE'S LIKE, WELL I DON'T KNOW THE STORY AND THIS IS AT LIKE 3:30 3:45, AND HE'S BEEN TRAPPED SINCE 9: 00 O'CLOCK. AND I GOT A PHONE CALL FROM MRS JONAS AND SHE TOLD ME THE WHOLE STORY.
LISA PICCIOTTO: WELL THE THING IS BEFORE WE WERE ABLE TO GET OUT OF STATEN ISLAND WE WERE SO ANTSY WE HAD TO DO SOMETHING SO MY ROOMMATES AND I, WE WANTED TO GO DONATE BLOOD BUT THE LINE WAS JUST PHENOMENAL ALREADY AND DOWNTOWN WAS BEING TOTALLY EVACUATED SO THEY KIND OF TURNED US AWAY AND THAT'S WHEN WE WERE PUSHED ON THE FERRY BOATS.
Pierce, Joel Battalion 57 Paramedic (E.M.S.) 1/23/02
Chief Tramontana
Bruce Hydock, EMT Battalion 57
Richardson, EMT Battalion 57
Jason Steele, EMT, Battalion 57
Lieutenant Soto,
Captain Olsen,
Chief McCracken,
JOEL DANIEL PIERCE PARAMEDIC 3927 35 ZEBRA BATTALION 57
[partner] ERIC RODRIGUEZ PARAMEDIC RODRIGUEZ SHIELD 2526
"I JUST STOOD THERE STARING, AND THEN I WATCHED EVENTUALLY THE SECOND
PLANE, I SAW IT. IT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS CIRCLING COMING SOUTH, THEN CAME BACK NORTH, STRIKING THE SOUTH SIDE OF TOWER NO 2."
"I JUST STOOD THERE LOOKING UP AT THE TWO TOWERS, AND I JUST WATCHED PEOPLE JUMPING. I MUST HAVE COUNTED ABOUT EIGHT PEOPLE, ONE OF THEM WAS ON FIRE AS HE HIT THE GROUND."
"I SAW THAT CHIEF MCCRACKEN, CHIEF GRANT, THEIR AIDES, AND SOME OTHER OFFICERS WERE AT THE CORNER OF LIBERTY STREET AND SOUTH END AVENUE."
"I FOUND CHIEF WELLS"
"I CAME BACK AND HE LOOKED EVEN WORSE, AND I WAS LIKE, YOU'RE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT AND HE STARTED ARGUING WITH ME. I SAID DON'T FUCK WITH ME YOU'RE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL. THEY HAD A PHYSICIAN COME OVER THAT WAS DOWN THERE VOLUNTEERING SO HE LOOKED AT HIM, LOOKED AT HIS EKG, DID SOMETHING. HE SAID YOU'RE GOING TO VINNY'S AND THATS FINAL."
"SO I SPOKE WITH ANOTHER LIEUTENANT SOTO." "HE BECAME THE TRIAGE LIEUTENANT AND I WAS HIS AIDE FOR THE DAY BETWEEN ONE LIBERTY PLAZA AND
ENGINE 10/LADDER 10."
"I REMEMBER AT ONE POINT I WAS BACK DOWN, I THINK I WAS DOWN BY IN FRONT OF ENGINE 10/LADDER 10. NO. I WAS IN FRONT OF LIBERTY PLAZA AND THEY SAID THEY NEEDED MORPHINE DOWN THERE. THEY FOUND SOMEBODY INSIDE AND THEY WERE GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE HIS LEGS OFF AND THEY NEED MORPHINE. THEY SAW ME AND THEY SAID ARE YOU MEDIC? I GO YEAH. YOU GOT MORPHINE? I
GO YUP. THE GUY WHO WAS WITH ME HE SAID YOU'RE COMING WITH ME AND THEY PHYSICALLY GRABBED ME. THEY SAID YOU'RE COMING WITH US. THEY SAID YOU'RE COMING WITH US, WE NEED YOU NOW, WE NEED YOUR DRUGS."
"AT THAT POINT I FOUND MYSELF ON THE PILE AND I DON'T KNOW IF---IT FELT LIKE I WAS HALLUCINATING, BECAUSE JUST LOOKING AROUND, I WAS UP ON TOP OF THAT PILE A GOOD WAY IN, IT WAS HOT AND I WAS LOOKING AT ALL THESE HOLES DOWN. IT WAS LIKE ONE WRONG STEP AND I'M DEAD. IF I FELL INTO THAT LITTLE HOLE, I'M DEAD AND THAT WAS IT, BECAUSE I COULD SEE THE FLAMES BELOW. YOU COULD SEE THE REDNESS. I KNEW IF WENT IN IT WAS LIKE THE PITS OF HELL. IT WAS LIKE DANTE'S INFERNO, I GUESS YOU COULD CALL IT. I WAS IN THE REMAINS OF THE SOUTH TOWER, BETWEEN THE SOUTH TOWER AND NEAR THE HOTEL, AND IT WAS SOMETHING, JUST BEING THERE, ALL THE WAY IN. I DON'T KNOW HOW FAR IN I WAS. I MUST HAVE BEEN GOOD 200 FEET IN WHEN I WAS GOING UP AND DOWN THESE PILES OF DEBRIS. THEN I GOT CALLED OUT AND I LEARNED THAT THEY MANAGED TO FREE THE GUY'S LEGS UP, SO THAT MADE ME HAPPY. I GOT OUT OF THERE. I CLIMBED ALL THE WAY BACK. I ASSISTED WITH THE HOSE PULLING BECAUSE THEY NEEDED LOT OF FIRE HOSE IN THERE. SO I WAS A PART OF THE HOSE LINE WITH LOT OF OTHER FIREMEN AND ALL THE RESCUE WORKERS."
"I SAW CHIEF TRAMONTANA."
"I WORKED THROUGH THE NIGHT. I MET UP WITH SOME OTHER PEOPLE, EMT BRUCE HYDOCK, BATTALION 57, EMT RICHARDSON, BATTALION 57, WHO ELSE, EMT JASON STEELE, BATTALION 57."
"CAPTAIN OLSEN, WHO ORDERED ME TO GO TO THE COMMAND POST."
Pilla, Steven EMG Division 6 Paramedic (E.M.S.) 10/17/01
I'm one of the ALS coordinators for Division 6 EMS
"I heard that there was an explosion -- I heard the radio on citywide in the office."
"Smoke coming out of the world -- I thought that it was a tape on. They said no, there was an explosion. We turned the TV on. Sure enough, the tower was on fire."
"It was myself; Neil Sweeney, who is vacation relief right now for the other coordinator who is out on refresher; Amedegnato, who is one of the chief's aides here, EMT; Lieutenant Cahill, who was the officer in charge in the division; and Chief Pascale herself."
"One of the firemen who now works as a medic for one of the private hospitals, he comes out and sees me.
Q. Do you know his name?
A. I'll give it to you later as soon as I --
Q. Okay."
"We set up a triage area in the lobby of the building. I'm still trying to figure out what building we were in. I believe it was the Winter Garden building. That's the only one I can think of. So we're in that building. People started coming in filled with ash and choking and respiratory problems. But no one was really hurt.....I popped out, went back into the same building, which wasn't as damaged, and did triage again. There were more and more people in there."
"There was a girl with a broken leg. She got blown just from the force of the ash. She kept
going down from the force of the ash. We ended up treating her. She was stable. There was a chief in there, a fire chief, with a broken shoulder and bloody nose. I was going down the line triaging people. They were upset, they were bent. People with no shoes on I guess from running out of the tower. A fire chief comes over to me and says, "Listen, son. There was a terrorist attack. This building's next, because they know they're going to start attacking other buildings." He had a very good point there, because you're always waiting for the next attack. This is a terrorist act. So I got my chief and decided to go into Stuyvesant High School. At that point I was going to get the fire chief out, to an ambulance..."
"At that point we're getting everything together, and now we're going to move to
Stuyvesant High School. Somebody comes in and says there's a gas leak, there's explosions going on, we have to evacuate. So now we're all running out of the building again. The 20 people I'm treating again beat me to the door. I have no idea where these 20 people are. Someone is running around with a triage cage around their neck. So we run out. You try not to hear the explosions in the background, things just blowing up; vehicles, I guess, that were on fire from the debris or if there were gas leaks. You could hear them getting closer and closer, so there was a good possibility there were gas explosions."
"A Port Authority cop came out. Their suits are dark blue. He was white. His whole suit was pure white. They set up their own triage area in another high school, one of the colleges."
"So strange we had all these triage areas set up and we were getting dribs and drabs. There were no real patients."
"We walked back. We didn't do any further because building number seven was coming
down. That was another problem, to wait for building seven to come down, because that was
unsecure. It was about 5:30 that building came down."
"We didn't do much, to tell you the truth. I was just walking around aimlessly, because there was nothing much to do. You sat there. You were amazed."
"I remember somebody saying to everybody, "Don't forget to fill out an exposure form when you get back." God only knows what was in that. You could feel the fiberglass on your arms. You knew it was like pulverized glass and fiberglass. Everything was pulverized."
Pinkus, Jace Command Center Captain (E.M.S.) 10/11/01
Q: AND YOUR ASSIGNED COMMAND AREA THE FIRE DEPARTMENT OF THE CITY?
A: METROTECH COMMUNICATIONS EMERGENCY MEDICAL DISPATCH
"AT THAT POINT COMMISSIONER GREGORY DIRECTED MYSELF EMT SAM HARRIS AND CAPTAIN DAMATO TO JOIN HIM AND WE WERE GOING TO RESPOND TO THE SCENE."
[parked at West and Vesey] WE ATTEMPTED TO GET OUR STUFF OUT OF THE VEHICLE AND AS WE LOOKED UP WE SAW A PLANE HIT THE SECOND BUILDING AND WE NOTICED THAT THERE WAS A LARGE BALL OF FLAME COMING FROM THE SECOND BUILDING."
"I MET UP WITH LIEUTENANT DAVILA."
A: "WITHIN MOMENTS I SAW CHIEF GANCI, COMMISSIONER GREGORY PROCEEDED ON WEST SOUTH
Q: COMMISSIONER?
A: GREGORY AND CAPTAIN DAMATO.
A: I SAW CHIEF NIGRO, WITHIN COUPLE OF MORE MINUTES, LIEUTENANT HOWIE HAHN ARRIVED, DR ASCEDA, DR CHERSON, AND THEN THERE WAS ANOTHER DOCTOR, I FORGET HIS NAME
Q: MALE FEMALE
A: MALE DOCTOR
"A FEW MORE MOMENTS, CHIEF GOLDFARB, I WAS IN CONTACT WITH."
A1 THERE WA LIEUTENANT BRAD MANN, LIEUTENANT JOHN NEVINS
LIEUTENANT MANN
"I HAD CONVERSATION WITH CHIEF GOLDFARB THAT IF NEEDED WE WOULD BE GOING TO---WE IDENTIFIED AMERICAN EXPRESS TO BE AN AREA OF TRIAGE."
"WE NOTICED AS WE WERE STANDING IN THE STREET---WE LOOKED UP. WE DID NOTICE THAT THERE WERE PEOPLE JUMPING FROM THE BUILDINGS. I PERSONALLY SAW ABOUT 20."
"AT SOME POINT I HAD BEEN TOLD THAT ONE OF THE MEDICS WAS MISSING. I FOUND OUT LATER THAT IT WAS CAROS LILLO. THAT WAS MISSING. I SAW HIS PARTNER ABRIEU, THATS A B R I E U."
"IT WAS CHIEF PERUGGIA THAT WE HEARD WAS MISSING. CHIEF MCCRACKEN IT WAS REPORTED THAT HE WAS MISSING."
"A COUPLE OF MINUTES GOES BY, CHIEF CARRASQUILLO, CHIEF GOLDFARB, AND BELIEVE THERE WAS ANOTHER CHIEF..."
"THERE WAS A PARAMEDIC SMILEY I HAD CONTACT WITH."
"I BELIEVE CHIEF MARTIN AT ONE POINT MIGHT EVEN HAVE EVEN SHOWED UP IN THE BUILDING, IN THE AMERICAN EXPRESS BUILDING."
"CHIEF GOMBO I HAD SEEN EARLIER."
LIEUTENANT TERRANOVA
"ENDED UP IN THE EMBASSY HOTEL. THERE WAS CHIEF GOLDFARB, LIEUTENANT TERRANOVA, CHIEF GOMBO, CHIEF PASCAL, CHIEF CARRASQUILLO, CHIEF BASILE, I SAW CAPTAIN SICKLES, LIEUTENANT YIORAS."
"AND AS WE HEADED TO CHELSEA PIERS WE WERE FLAGGED DOWN ON MAYBE
6TH STREET AND WESTSIDE HIGHWAY. THERE WAS A PEDESTRIAN STRUCK. TURNED OUT TO BE THE PATIENT WAS NOT PEDESTRIAN STRUCK BUT WAS ON THE
80TH FLOOR OF THE FIRST BUILDING."
"UNTIL WE GOT TO CHELSEA PIERS AND AT THAT POINT WE MET UP WITH CHIEF KOWALZYK AND THE DIRECTIONS THAT WERE GIVEN TO ME, ME AND KEVIN MAHON WAS UP THERE ALSO."
A: DR RICHMOND I BELIEVE I SAW ALSO
Q: WHERE WOULD YOU HAVE SEEN DR RICHMOND
A: WELL KNOW FOR SURE SAW HIM LATER ON IN THE EVENING, BUT I BELIEVE I SAW HIM, YOU KNOW, I STAND CORRECTED. I SAW HIM LATER ON IN THE DAY, LATER IN THE EVENING."
Pisano, Gerard Ladder 149 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/27/01
"We walked over the bridge and we assembled over, I think it's Broadway and I forget what block that is. Let me see. Probably, yes, it was Broadway and Vesey. Right over there by Saint Paul's Church."
"We were assigned to another officer and we were told to make a search somewhere, but we had no masks. We spent a good part of the day trying to find masks. There were no masks around."
"Then into the night, we were digging on the pile. Just free hand, you know, just going down there and doing whatever we could do."
Plover, Vincent Ladder 85 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/26/01
Worst interview out of 500. The man is serious sick if he thinks this constitutes professionalism.
Q. The fellow, from Engine 14, the firefighter from Engine 14 that you were with, do you have his name?
A. Yes, John Dilillo. Now, he responded with 14 engine.
Powers, James Engine 35 Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) 12/11/01
"I reported to Engine 35 and reported in to Lieutenant Whalen. Lieutenant Whalen put me in the Engine and said, "Right now you're going to be our fifth man in the engine."
"Myself, firefighters Lowrey, Billy Vanname "our chauffeur," Fischer, and Keith Schroeder were on the rig with
Lieutenant Whalen. We also had Lieutenant Patten [does he mean Lieutenant Hadden, whom he references later on?] and Battalion Chief Horan on 35's rig."
"We had heard on the radio the first tower collapsed. We heard somebody on the department radio calling for help, saying he was trapped. We were told that we were going to be going
into World Trade Center number 1, the north tower building, because it was still standing and there was still fire. When we got to the battalion chiefs that were on West and, I believe, Barclay, they said, "Okay. Make sure you've got everything, your roll-ups. We're still going into this tower number 1 or World Trade Center number 1."
"I was treated by a couple of EMT's and some firefighters and they took me back up the West
Side Highway to near Murray Street and we were sitting there and then somebody said that there was a major gas leak in one of the buildings and we had to run from there, so everybody started running again."
"So I was loaded onto a green golf cart and I was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital and I was in and out. I could breathe in, but I felt like I wasn't getting any air, and I was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital approximately 45 minutes to an hour after my arrival at the World Trade Center."
Prezant, Dr. David Fire Department Deputy Chief Medical Officer
"I believe I saw the Fire Commissioner's Assistant, Captain Goldbach."
I saw Commissioner Fitzpatrick there.
"After about five or so minutes, I realized that I was not being of any help to anybody. At that
time no firefighters had been injured. The building had not collapsed. I remember overhearing several Chiefs saying that a collapse was not possible."
"So the EMS Chiefs -- I forget his name. I can't remember whether it was Chief Gombo or Chief Goldfarb. I can't remember. They suggested that I report to Chief Welch, who was immediately outside the south tower on West Street, and set up another EMS triage site for civilians and firefighters that would be coming out of that tower."
"when Chief Welch -- it could be Chief Wells. I'm not certain how to spell or pronounce his name."
"We found to the left of us a civilian with a broken leg."
"To the right of us was a civilian with apparently an injured arm."
"We walked, Dr. Kelly, myself, Chief Nigro, his aide and the captain that had helped Dr. Kelly."
"As we did, we then made a decision that we, Dr. Kelly and myself, would set up a triage center. Interestingly enough, it was selected as being the UFOA headquarters, which I believe is 254 Broadway or 225 Broadway, something like that."
"it probably was within less than a half an hour, we were joined by several other medical officers, Dr. Garvey, Dr. Ortiz, Dr. Maloney, and within an hour, by Dr. Manner. These are all Fire Department Medical Officers."
"But happenstance would have it that there was a convention of surgeons a block away who
then joined us and we wound up with, you know, estimated numbers, six vascular surgeons, four orthopedic surgeons, four general trauma surgeons and nurses. So we had the staff to actually set up a true MASH unit..."
"Dr. Feirstein, the psychiatrist from the Fire Department, joined us shortly and he was in charge of the psychological area."
"It wound up that we didn't have many injuries at all and we, like many of the emergency rooms, all the emergency rooms, with the exception of the first few injuries, had no injuries."
"So we got everything up out of our building and out of the park and we moved into Pace University."
"We stayed there waiting for patients and very few showed up. Around 8:30 we closed up that area and then were available just going around in the car to see firefighters and et cetera."
"A. There were tons of firefighters and police officers and civilians, most of them coming in for an eye wash or to get out of the dust area for a while, but we didn't really deal with any wounded or any chest pain or any significant smoke inhalation. The same was true for the emergency room that was very nearby, which is...
Q. Downtown Hospital?
A. Downtown Hospital. They really were empty."
"Q. It sounds like a very good triage area you set up there.
A. Yes.
Q. It seems like you had everything going for you.
A. Yes. It's just...
Q. Unfortunately, there was nobody to treat."
Puma, Frank EMT Division 1 EMS
EMT Kevin McKeon
EMT Joe Torres, [Norberto?]
"After we heard the first plane hit and felt the ground shake, I ran down to the corner of Church and Park Place, looked up and I saw the plane shooting out of the top of the towers. That's when I grabbed for my radio and yelled over the air, "1 Adam. A bomb just went off in the Trade Center."
"Through that whole time before the second plane hit, we were treating anywhere
between 7 and 15 different patients. When the second plane hit, me and my partner were in the back of our ambulance."
"He then proceeded to get into the driver's seat, and we started making our way to NYU Downtown Hospital, Beekman, to drop off our first set of patients when we got flagged down for another lady who got hit by the landing gear of the first plane. We then proceeded to put her on a long board as best as we could, because we couldn't roll her because she had no back anymore. We put her on the long board and put her in the back of the ambulance, dropped off our first set of patients at Beekman Hospital."
"We then proceeded to go back to Vesey and Church where we originally were, but we were
stopped by the PD. We noticed other ambulances going into Battery Park City, so we followed
them. That's where we had our triage center set up, one of our many triage centers that day."
"We started walking back up towards West Street between Liberty and Vesey when we heard them start screaming over the radio that the first tower, the south tower, was ready to fall.
We started running because we looked up and we saw the part of the tower coming down. Me
and my partner started running, and I ran west down Vesey Street and almost jumped right into the Hudson River."
"I ran into a couple people that I work with: EMT Allen Cruz, who was working the LSU truck that day, EMT Joe Torres, EMT Mike D'Angelo and a couple other faces that I don't remember their names."
"Then we heard them screaming over the air that the second tower was ready to fall."
"Then after that we heard that we were starting to set our staging area up further near the Chelsea Piers."
"I finally ran into my partner, Orlando Martinez, after an hour and a half of being separated from him."
"Then we heard them screaming over the air again that there was a gas leak, everyone
keep pushing forward. We then proceeded to get back in our ambulance."
"we started running into more people from our station, EMT John Moritz, EMT
Kevin McKeon."
"A. I remember when we pulled up first, because we were the first emergency unit on the
scene there, I remember counting at least six bodies who jumped out from the 50th floor."
"I remember the F-16s and the F-18s flying overhead before the first tower collapsed that we all jumped on the floor because we didn't know what it was. We looked up and saw it was
our guys, and we were like, okay, we can stand up now and take control of this."
C Names: Firefighters Oral Histories
Cacciola, Grace Lieutenant Division 1
Captain Pineda [no transcript]
Lieutenant Scullion [no transcript]
Chief McFarland [no transcript]
Roger Moore [no transcript]
"We got out of the car, first thing we saw was a severed torso, like 10 feet in front of us. There was a cop guarding the torso."
"We went over to the command post and at the command post we saw Chief Gombo, Chief Kowalczyk, EMT Richie Zarrillo, Lieutenant Ross Terranova, Chief Ganci, Chief Sal Cassano, and all aides, chauffeurs and what have you from the fire side.
"I screamed, oh my God, and my sister thought I was dead because she heard the rumble and the white cloud as the building came down, collapsed into---again 2 Financial Plaza. We were chased with the white cloud."
"We started running and we had to stop at one point because now the whole area filled with black smoke and the Winter Garden Atrium collapsed in front of us, because we were going to go into the Winter Garden to cut outside, but we couldn't do it, because we had the collapse of the front of 2 Financial Plaza into us and then the atrium coming at us from the other side."
"Then there was a gun shot across the street and supposedly, this is just what we were hearing over the PD radio, somebody had shot out one of the windows and I think it was Manhattan Borough Community---is that what is directly across the street? I'm so bad. Another school across---directly across the street. They had shot out one of the windows to open the door, to put people into there. So when the kids heard the gun shot everybody started stampeding back towards us so we had to calm them down and get them to start going north again."
Captain Stone and EMT Gregg Brady, and I think at one point it was Commissioner Gribbon.
"While we were walking they were removing Chief Ganci's body. Lieutenant Scullion was there, and we stood with him as they were removing Chief Ganci's body. They had just put him on the bus and now they were going to go remove Commissioner Feehan's body. They wanted him on the same bus."
We walked with---the bus drove around the corner and we followed the bus around the corner. When we got around the corner they said it was going to take a few minutes because he was still stuck in the hole. So they were trying to get him out. Father Delendic was there. Chief McFarland and I believe Captain Pineda."
Cachia, Edward Firefighter Engine 53
Michael Catalano Engine 53 [no transcript]
Danny Schofield Engine 53 [no transcript]
"As my officer and I were looking at the south tower, it just gave. It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit, because we originally had thought there was like an internal detonation explosives because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down."
"At that point in time, we're looking up at the north tower. I remember my officer saying, "I have a feeling this one is going to come down too." Just as he said that, that tower came down it looked like at the point of impact. We actually witnessed both towers coming down visually. We happened to be looking at that particular time. With that, the tower came down."
Cachia, Peter EMT Battalion 4
bad back
Cahill, Joseph Paramedic EMG Operations
"I remember seeing Frank Larkin from the Secret Service run by at a dead run. That just stuck in my head."
Chief Villani [no transcript]
Mitch Berkowitz, off duty EMT [no transcript]
Tommy Carlstrom, EMT [no transcript]
Jimmy Schrang, EMT [no transcript]
Lieutenant Ed Platt [no transcript]
Harold Watkins, fire cadet [no transcript]
John Clair EMT [no transcript]
Joe Fell "from the State" [no transcript]
Lieutenant Eppinger EMT [no transcript]
Lieutenant Cronin, EMT [no transcript]
Al Suriel, EMT [no transcript]
Cahill, Michael Lieutenant EMS Division 6
Arnedegnato, L . O . D . I . Limited [no transcript]
Lieutenant Jerry Santiago [no transcript]
Jerry Doyle, a former Chief's aide [no transcript]
Captain Musto [no transcript]
Lieutenant Trainer [no transcript]
That's when the second collapse started to come down. All kinds of noise. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, very loud. Nobody knew what it was. Everybody stopped when we heard it."
"She was following two police officers and some ATF guys and some non-uniformed personnel, but I wasn't sure who they were."
"I lost my watch when the ATF guy blocker tackled me."
Cain, Michael Fire Marshall DFI SOC command
Callan, Joseph Assistant Chief Citywide Tour Commander
One of the very worst oral histories. Only 7 pages long and obviously made under duress.
Hayden's and Pfeifer's superior in the north tower lobby, Says he gave a command to evacuate the building 10 minutes before the south tower collapsed.
Camacho, Fernando Firefighter Ladder 22
"There were about maybe five or six civilians around us. We tried to get them out, as we tried to make our way out."
Campagna, Frank Firefighter Ladder 11
Mike Kehoe [no transcript]
"the chief's aide in the Safety Battalion, Michael Bosco, sat in on this interview."
"I looked back. You see three explosions and then the whole thing coming down."
Q. What floor did you reach when you were climbing up? You said you were like on the 20th
floor and then you decided to come down?
A. 28th or 30th floor, the 30th, around there, because we were going like every two floors. So it was around there. I remember seeing 28 on the wall, and then I think we went up again. I think it was around the 30th floor, we made it up there. From there that's when we went down.
Then a chief came down and pretty much said everybody evacuate, because nothing was
coming over the radios, as far as everybody was still waiting. We were waiting with a bunch of
guys at that point in time. I saw one of the guys I knew from the academy. He was in 4 Engine. Another one I knew from academy, he was from 10-10. They were up there with us also. I don't know if you got details from someone else, but I'm pretty sure he was from there.
Q. What floor did you say you were on when you think the south tower fell down?
A. I would say about the 17th.
Q. You didn't have a radio that day. Did you have a handy talky?
A. Me? No.
Q. You were with the officer when you were climbing?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you remember what was on the handy talky when the south tower fell down? Was there
a lot of screaming? Do you remember radio messages or anything like that?
A. No, nothing like that.
Q. There were a lot of guys in the lobby, you said, when you came down to the lobby and hooked up. You don't remember anybody specific, companies or personal people, individual people?
A. No, like I said, it was real tunnel vision. I just wasn't being pretty much aware of anything around, who was around me and whatnot. Like I said, 4 and 18 are the only ones that stuck out in my head."
Canham, James Sergeant Fire Patrol 3
Fire Patrol 3 Chief Raymond Cowa [no transcript]
Fire Patrol 3 Captain Keegan [no transcript]
Sergeant John Sheehan [no transcript]
Patrolman Keith Roma [no transcript]
Lieutenant Ed D'Atri from Squad 1 [no transcript]
Captain Greco, another member of the Fire Patrol [no transcript]
Self-dispatched
"I was off duty, I had no radio, I had nothing."
"I told the chief I was off duty and that I would be going in. He said, "Watch your back."
"I had seen a couple of what I had thought were body parts in front of the building. I didn't pay it much mind."
"I started searching the elevators, when a woman said there was another woman trapped in
an elevator. I had gone over to the elevator with my tool and began to pop the door open. The
elevator was cantilevered, so it was very hard. But there was an occupant inside."
"When I came back out to the hallway, I saw the sergeant once again, that police officer.
He looked at me and he said, "Are you aware of what's going on?" At this time I did not. I
didn't have a radio, and I just assumed it was one plane. He said, "This was a hit. They hit
the Pentagon. They hit the White House. And we have another inbound coming at us now."
Is on the 11th floor when the first collapse happens with about 20 civilians. Gets them to chain up.
"After I cleared those people out -- it had to account for maybe 30, 35 people by the time the last one had gone by me."
"There were some firemen that were yelling "Bail out." They gave a bail out, everybody bail out, and they were making their way out of the building, down the stairs. Some civilians were panicking when they heard that, because they saw firemen leaving and saying bail."
"Going back down to the lobby level. I got down to the lobby level. There had to be six to what I believe were maybe ten companies in a staged area. They were standing there. They
were talking with one another. Once again, a very relaxed mode."
"An off-duty member from 105 Truck grabbed me and dragged me to a diner. There were
other members from the Fire Patrol there. They cleaned me up. It was air-conditioned."
"Q: ...When you went into the lower level of One World Trade Center, the sprinkler heads were going off.
A: Right, they were heads off.
Q: There was no fire; there was no heat. Their heads were off from a pressure surge like
from the pressure created by the falling of building two or what do you think?
A: What I believe set those heads off iswhen those elevators had dropped --
Q: Why did the elevators drop?
A: They were sheered.
Q: They were sheered. We didn't cover that. People told me, yeah, I think the elevators dropped and the doors were blown out and all that.
A: Right.
Q: The elevators were sheered?
A: They were sheered.
Q: What did the elevator doors look like?
A: They were buckled, cantilevered. The one woman was -- how she was standing up, I
didn't know.
Q: She was standing up? She was alive?
A: She was standing up and alive, as I popped it with my tool. I had a converted
officers tool. I made my own little. It's very good as far as leverage and so on and so forth.
I got the door open maybe six to eight inches. That's when the guys from -- once again, I believe they were 10 Truck. He had put his officer's tool, my tool and the Halligan. We
had both Halligans. But the door was so warped that we really couldn't get the strength to pop it open. But when the guy pulled up with the Port-A-Power, he was very confident. He was like, "Don't worry. I've got her." It seemed almost like he had done this before, like he was here working. Once again, I had come off duty. So this maintenance man had enough muster to get that tool and begin to work on the doors right away. It just led me to believe that he had things under control. So myself and the lieutenant from whatever company that was were confident he could do it, and we had moved on.
Q: I wonder where he is now.
A: Exactly."
Carletti, Richard Firefighter Engine 5
Paul Mitchell. He just got made out of Ladder 110. [no transcript] dead?
Tom Manley, sergeant at arms of the union. [no transcript]
Firefighter Jim Andruzzi,
Firefighter Manny Delvalle,
"I was coming up Allen, which turns into First. When I was crossing Delancey Street, I saw a jet in front of me, which was the first jet. He was pretty low. He was probably about 30
stories. Now I'm heading north and crossing Delancey Street on Allen and I see the jet make a move toward the Trade Center. It made a southwesterly turn from that point."
"To our right, there was a parking lot right on West and Liberty. There were about seven cars on fire." [This is in advance of either tower's collapse.]
As we passed that, we came into the debris field. It was jet parts and body parts. I distinctly
remember seeing a woman's hand. It was cut off at the wrist. She had wedding ring, so it had to be a left hand, and then I looked to the left and I just saw the rib cage with nothing in it and there was just debris. At that point we stopped for a second and we heard impacts, which I guess was jumpers hitting the pavement." [From the South Tower]
"I was trying to monitor more what was going on in the north tower with the radio, and they
were on three different channels at this point."
"When the north tower collapsed, I remember seeing the antenna do a little rock back and forth and I could just hear the floors pancaking. I heard it for about 30 pancakes, just boom, boom, boom, boom, and the dust blew up to us."
"...we went back down at 11:00 p.m. with 3 Truck, with the rest of the battalion. We went to 10 and 10 command post. We went to about the middle of the pile, but we were just -- at this point we extinguished fires most of the night almost in the center of the complex and just west of what was left of building No. 4. We were on the pile just with three hand lines putting out fires until 9:00 o'clock in the morning.
Q: So that was during the nighttime, then, you were putting fires out on the pile?
A: Yes. And that was it."
"A: About 10:15, 10:20, I finally heard the Maydays for the north tower, to evacuate the north
tower."
Q. There's a south walkway, though, that goes across West Street.
A. When we got past there, that's when we entered the debris field and you heard shotgun blasts, and when I looked -- I don't know if Tommy looked, but I could see what was lying on the ground. It was just a pile of meat, red. So I said to Tommy, let's get out of here. There's too many humans coming down from the building."
"Q: Okay, Rich. Anything else of significance that you'd like to add to this interview that you feel it's important?
A: No. Just that when we walked down Liberty, I found that we were the only ones there and that was odd to me. There was no observation on that side of the building.
Q: Okay.
A: When I got to the command post, what was I going to say? I mean, I've got seven years on the job. I remember telling the Chief I think this building is in dire need, it's going to collapse. There was one point at the command post, I mean, I don't know about the battalion, but I felt I could have just walked away and no one would have known, but I didn't."
Carlock, Owen Firefighter Ladder 122, detailed on the day of the incident to Engine 220.
John Jermyn, a straggler, from the -- he used to be here in 122. He works in the Fire Department Museum. [no transcript]
Eddie Plunkett [no transcript]
"After that we tried to take a window in the back of the bank. We did take a window, but
behind it was a steel wall, corrugated tin or whatever. We couldn't get into the window.
They followed me. I had the light. They followed me, and we went into Deutsche Bank into the side entrance, got our wits about us,"
Carlsen, Craig Firefighter Ladder 8
"I proceeded into One World Trade Center into the front lobby. Just making it into the door, I ran into 3 Truck, members of 3 Truck, which told us that there were numerous people
trapped in elevator cars and that they needed forcible entry saws. So the lieutenant and I went out to look for forcible entry saws."
"I guess about three minutes later you just heard explosions coming from building two,
the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions. At the time I didn't realize what it was. We realized later after talking and finding out that it was the
floors collapsing to where the plane had hit."
Carrasquillo, Pedro Chief Division 4
Jack Delaney with his medics from the New York Hospital, [no transcript]
"I parked a couple blocks before the World Trade Center just because I didn't want to go too much closer with my vehicle. I parked, got out. People were running. I got out, got my helmet, got my turnout coat. At that point, right there, there was some debris, and there were some body parts that were on the street."
"Then I decided to take a walk towards West Street just to see if in fact that tower, the whole tower, had come down, which confirmed, yes, that it was completely down." [th south tower]
Then I just worked as the liaison office with OEM,
Casaliggi, Joseph Firefighter Engine 7
Was with Chief Pfieffer on Church Street Near Canal 'operating a box' on an odor of gas in the area. He heard the first plane coming in and watched the plane crash into the north tower. He was outside when he saw the second plane hit the second building.
We were actually one of the first companies on the scene.
The lobby actually looked like the plane hit the lobby. From what I understand, I was told afterwards, that a fireball shot down the elevator shaft and blew out all the windows in the lobby and blew out the elevator doors.
I noticed there were several people sitting in the grass in front of the building burned head to toe, gray, just staring at us.
I stayed in the lobby. I didn't know at that point if he was getting me a partner or if he was getting -- I thought I was going to stay there, I wasn't going up. I didn't know what I was doing at that point. So I stayed around, waiting to be told what to do. I was in the lobby for about 40 minutes.
I saw another body crash down through the canopy.
As I was leaving the building, I heard them at the command post talking about moving the
command post to the other side of West Street. I suggested to the chauffeur we make our way back to the command post, let somebody know who we are and where we are and that we're okay.
They told me that they were looking for me and the chauffeur, that we were the only two from the company not accounted for.
Q: All the other guys got out?
A: Yeah, everybody from our company -- I don't know how. That's when I heard that Engine 7 got up to the 30th, 35th floor, somewhere in there, and they had gotten out just before the
building came down, before the north tower came down.
Casey, Gerard Firefighter Ladder 122, Firefighter Second Grade
Vinny Brunton [no transcript]
Koyles [no transcript]
We had spots in front of the rig where there were a lot of bodies and debris in front of us, body parts.
We couldn't go through the front of the north tower because there were too many bodies on the ground.
...proceeded to the overpass that is next to the Marriott, I believe, on West Street, and we had to go underneath the overpass to avoid debris falling from the south tower and bodies. People were jumping.
132, 105 and 101 I saw. When we were in the lobby, I saw them. We were standing fast in the Marriott lobby.
I believe 24 Truck was behind 131.
Q: From there where did you go? Did you go to EMS?
A: I came out. I came out of the crater. The street was gone, the restaurant and everything was gone. I saw Koyles and Vitiello. They were alive.
Casey, James Lieutenant Engine 91
WHILE THERE, IT WAS CALLED OVER THE COMMAND CENTER THAT THERE WAS A CIVILIAN EMPLOYEE, AN ENGINEER FROM TWO WORLD TRADE CENTER. HE SAID HE KNEW HOW WE COULD CONTROL THE VALVES TO INCREASE THE WATER PRESSURE IN THE BUILDING. SO WE WERE ORDERED TO GO OVER THERE. HOWEVER, WE DID NOT HAVE FORCIBLE ENTRY TOOLS. I SENT MY CHAUFFEUR BACK TO THE RIG TO OBTAIN THE FORCIBLE ENTRY TOOLS AND WHILE WAITING, TWO WORLD TRADE CENTER COLLAPSED.
Q: MAYDAYS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT
A: I'M TRYING TO THINK. I KNOW THERE WERE MAYDAYS ALL OVER THE PLACE THAT DAY. I CAN'T SAY FOR SURE.
Q: NO PARTICULAR COMPANY OR ANYTHING STICKS OUT IN YOUR MIND?
A: NO THERE WERE MAYDAYS THAT WERE COMING ALL OVER ALL THE TIME. BETWEEN THAT AND THE JUMPERS THAT WAS BASICALLY IT.
Casey, William Firefighter Engine 21
This asshole helps some guy down from the upper floors and then losses him on West Street when the second building comes down. Uses his face piece for oxygen for himself but forgets about the other guy. Assclown.
We walked into Tower 1, the north tower, and hung out in the lobby waiting for instructions on what to do. At that point, it was a lot of chaos. You were hearing jumpers. You were hearing different things going on. You saw different companies. We weren't told what to do really. So then we got our instructions, and we followed the captain by an elevator, one of the
elevator banks. Somebody told us there was somebody trapped in the elevator, so we opened up the doors. We had the rabbit tools, so we just pried it open a little bit, and then we pulled it open ourselves, and there was a lady in there, and we got her out.
We then went to another embankment, because we were with -- I believe the company -- I believe it was 13 truck. I'm not really sure at that time. We were going to go up the stairs, but we ended up -- there is an elevator would go up to the 24th Floor, which is what we took.
Cars were blowing up. I guess stuff hit it, and they started -- you know, it was pretty weird.
We thought maybe our captain was out. We found out he was the only one, of course, that didn't get out
Cassano, Salvatore Chief Command Center
Mike Canty, Battalion Chief [no transcript]
Donald Burns [no transcript]
Captain Walter Hynes, 13 Truck [no transcript]
Captain Dave Wooley, who is usually with engine 54 [no transcript]
when on the Department radio, there was a message blurted out that - something to the effect that the outside of the World Trade Center was on fire.
But inside the lobby of the Millennium [sic] it was very quiet. Very few civilians. In fact, I didn't see a civilian. All I saw were building employees. They were very calm. So I went into the lobby of the hotel. We saw 13 truck with Captain Walter Hynes, who I knew, and Captain Dave Wooley, who is usually with engine 54. I saw 11 truck in the lobby. Actually they were up on the mezzanine.
We got to get them out of there and that's when tower one came down, so I was on West
Street. I looked up. There was a jet plane. It sounded - I mean it sounded like another plane coming over and I said holy god, I hope it's one of ours. I looked up. It wasn't ours. There was a building coming down.
Q: Other than the ladder companies or engine companies you already delineated inside of the Millennium Hotel, other than the workers, how many civilians did you see in that restaurant?
A: I would say probably six or seven civilians in the restaurant.
Q: On Vesey Street when you first arrived there, what was the scene like? That was where the first plane that hit. Was there any debris on that street?
A: No, there was no debris on that street at all from the first plane. I drove right up there and then like I said, I had just opened my door and the second -- I thought it was the secondary explosion. I didn't know it was another plane in the south tower, because when I heard it, I looked up and I saw debris.
Q. You mentioned jumpers before. Did you see them?
A. Yes.
Q. Both towers?
A. I didn't see jumpers from the south tower. I saw jumpers from the north tower and it sounded like concrete falling, hitting the pavement. That's what I was concerned with, those people in the restaurant, to get them out and getting hit with either the jumpers or something falling, windows. I was worried about glass.
Q. You mentioned Father Judge. Where did you last see him?
A. I saw Father Judge as I was walking to the Millennium. He was on West Street. And I saw him come out and I walked up to him, gave him a smile. I told him Father Judge, we are going to need a lot of help here. You better get some more chaplains. He smiled and said something. I forget what he said. I don't remember what he said. That was the last time I saw
him.
Cassidy, Tiernach Firefighter ENGINE 3 FIREFIGHTER THIRD GRADE
Mickey Cross [no transcript]
I WAS RIGHT OVER AT 20 TRUCK AND SQUAD 18'S QUARTERS ON LAFAYETTE BETWEEN SPRING AND PRINCE.
STILL I WAS IN SHOCK. I WAS STANDING THERE, STANDING ON THE ROOF, NOT WATCHING THE TV, STANDING ON THE ROOF WATCHING. WE DON'T ACTUALLY SEE THE SECOND PLANE HIT, BUT WE SEE THE IMPACT. WE WERE ON, OF COURSE, THE NORTH SIDE, SO WE SAW THE HUGE EXPLOSION ENGULF THE WHOLE TOP OF THAT BUILDING.
MYSELF AND TEN OTHER MEMBERS THAT WERE THERE ON LIGHT DUTY WE ALL JUMPED ON TOP OF 47 TRUCK AND WE HEADED DOWN BROADWAY.
SO WE GOT DOWN TO CHURCH AND LIBERTY AND HE ASKED ME WHICH WAY SHOULD WE GO AND I DIDN'T KNOW. WE COULDNT WALK THROUGH 10 AND 10,
THE STREET WAS AT LEAST THREE STORIES HIGH OF DEBRIS COVERING 10 AND 10.
HE SAID HE FOUND HIM IT WAS THE GUYS FROM 36 THAT PORT AUTHORITY COP THREE CIVILIANS AND FRIEND OF MINE MICKEY CROSS.
A: SO THE PORT AUTHORITY COP COMES OUT FIRST. THERE WAS CHIEF, THERE TWO CHIEFS. I THINK . I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER.
Q: THESE GUYS WERE DOWN IN THE HOLE? WHERE WERE THESE GUYS? ALL THESE GUYS?
A: THE FOURTH FLOOR OF THE NORTH TOWER WHEN IT CAME DOWN.
I MEAN, I THOUGHT THAT DAY WE WERE GOING TO FIND HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WALKING OUT, YOU KNOW. WE'D JUST TAKE THEM OUT.
BUT THOSE 10 OR 11 WE FOUND RIGHT THERE THAT WAS IT FOR THAT DAY.
AT THIS POINT NOW THE OFFICER I WAS WITH WAS GIVING CALLS FOR THE STOKES BASKET BECAUSE THE CIVILIANS THAT WERE DOWN THERE WERE NOT WALKING OUT.
MICKEY WAS THE THIRD GUY TO COME OUT
THEN THE GUYS FROM 36 CAME OUT NEXT 36 TRUCK. THEN WE STARTED RUNNING CIVILIANS OUT
THEN LIKE I SAID BUILDING SEVEN WAS IN EMINENT COLLAPSE THEY BLEW THE HORNS THEY SAID EVERYONE CLEAR THE AREA UNTIL WE GOT THAT LAST CIVILIAN OUT WE TRIED TO GIVE ANOTHER QUICK SEARCH WHILE WE COULD BUT THEN THEY WOULDN'T LET US STAY ANYMORE.
SO YEAH THEN WE JUST STAYED ON VESEY UNTIL BUILDING SEVEN CAME DOWN THERE WAS NOTHING WE COULD DO THE FLAMES WERE COMING OUT OF EVERY WINDOW OF THAT BUILDING FROM THE EXPLOSION OF THE SOUTH TOWER, SO THEN BUILDING SEVEN DOWN WHEN THAT STARTED COMING DOWN YOU HEARD THAT PANCAKING SOUND AGAIN.
Castellano, Pete Firefighter Ladder 149
Tommy McGoff, Lieutenant [no transcript]
Vinnie Marsala (18 engine and rescue 3?) [no transcript]
Another chief asked us to search financial center Building 1, see if anybody was in the building. We started making a search of that building. We were ordered out of that building. We got -- like collapsed. We were ordered out of that building.
"...and we started working on a guy that was trapped on top of an elevator shaft, and I wound up working my way down to the elevator shaft."
Q. The lieutenant you said you saw, what unit was he from? Come up Broadway dazed?
A. Oh, like I seen Tommy McGoff, Lieutenant McGoff.
Q. From?
A. Downtown Brooklyn company. I found out later he was there when the first fireman was killed by a jumper, and he went to help the fireman, and half his company went into the tower, and they were lost, and he couldn't find them. That's why he was in the state he was in, but that was -- I heard that story later.
Ceriello, John Firefighter Ladder 20
Lieutenant Kerwin of 288 [no transcript]
Lieutenant Dowdell, Rescue 4 [no transcript]
Tony Castagna Hazmat 1 [no transcript]
Phil Latimer, proby originally in 35 Truck, now is in hazmat [no transcript]
Joey Hunter, from 288 and Rescue 4 [no transcript]
Ronnie Gies, from 288 and Rescue 4 [no transcript]
Bronco Pearsall, from 288 and Rescue 4 [no transcript]
John Ielpi, from 288 and Rescue 4 [no transcript]
So thinking that it was just prior to 9:00 there would be a ton of traffic, I jumped on my bicycle. I live in Carroll Gardens. I rode over the Brooklyn Bridge. When I was roughly in
the middle of the span, there was a massive explosion on the south tower. Again I didn't see a plane or anything, so I didn't know it was a plane that hit the tower. I think in my mind I just thought there was a massive explosion on one of the upper floors and now you had a real bad fire.
The south tower was down. You really couldn't tell it was completely down, but you could tell
most of it wasn't there.
At that point we took off climbing over debris and whatnot on West Street. We passed a
black woman with a broken leg with a firefighter on the sidewalk. We told them to stay put, that someone would come get them.
When we were in the American Express building, we did see some people jumping and
whatnot. We knew we had a bad scene on our hands.
I basically operated on West and Liberty until about 1:00 in the morning. I never really went much up Liberty, and I never really went much north on West Street. I stayed in that quadrant right by what was the Marriott Hotel, making entrances and then running out because the buildings were collapsing and going back in, all that stuff.
Charles, Jason EMT Battalion 13
Firefighter Anderson, an IC for the fire cadets [no transcript]
Naomi [last name] EMT out of Battalion 16 [no transcript]
Jerry Toyloy, of Battalion 13 [no transcript]
Salguera, EMT from 16 [no transcript]
AND NOW I'M PASSING THE POLICE ACADEMY WHICH I THINK IS ON 21ST
STREET, 21ST STREET BETWEEN SECOND AND THIRD, AND I SEE A COP STANDING WITH THE BARRICADES, NEXT TO THE BARRICADE, AND HES LOOKING LIKE HE WANTS TO GO
NOW WE'RE IN CHINA TOWN AS I RIDE BEHIND THEM, I GUESS THEY WERE LIKE SPECIAL FORCES FROM THE COURTS OR THE FBI BUILDING IN THAT AREA, FEDERAL COPS OR WHATEVER, JUMPED IN FRONT OF ME AND I YELLED AT HIM EMS EMS AND HE JUMPED OUT OF MY WAY AND KEPT I RIDING
I SAW ONE PERSON FALL OUT THE BUILDING
I SEE DETECTIVES AND FBI AGENTS RUNNING AROUND THE STREET LIKE THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.
I RAN BACK OVER TO FULTON AND CHURCH AND THE PA COP WAS STILL STANDING
THERE AND HE RUNS OVER TO ME AND I TELL HIM, YOU KNOW, STAY THE FUCK OVER THERE, AND HE'S LIKE, ALL RIGHT, THE FBI IS GOING TO STOP ME. SO AS I'M WALKING BY HIM THE FBI COPS LOOKED, THE FBI AGENTS, SORRY THEY'RE LOOKING AT ME, AND THEY'RE LIKE, YOU KNOW, THEY JUST LOOKED AT ME AND JUST LET ME GO THROUGH.
I SAW THE---IT LOOKED LIKE THE TOP MAYBE 70, 60 FLOORS COMING OFF THE BUILDING.
---THAT HORRIBLE TWISTING METAL SOUND OF A FREIGHT TRAIN OR WHATEVER---
MIND YOU BEFORE THAT, WHICH I FOUND A LITTLE WEIRD, BEFORE THE TOWERS FELL THERE WERE LOT OF PEOPLE FALLING OUT OF THE BUILDING, LIKE, YOU KNO
I DON'T KNOW. LIKE THEY WERE JUST THROWING THEMSELVES OUT, LIKE, THEY WERE JUST LINED UP AND GOING LIKE PARATROOPERS, AND AT ONE POINT RIGHT BEFORE THE TOWERS CAME DOWN THAT STOPPED. IT WAS LIKE THE PEOPLE THAT
WERE COMING OUT JUST STOPPED COMING OUT THE WINDOW FOR WHATEVER REASON. I FOUND THAT A LITTLE WEIRD/
AND THERE WAS THIS FEMALE FROM ENGLAND WHO WAS ON THE 90TH FLOOR OF TOWER 1 WHO TOLD ME SHE HAD JUST BARELY MADE IT OUT OF THERE WHEN THE TOWERS CAME DOWN SHE LOST BOTH HER SHOES
WE START WALKING BACK THERE AND THEN I HEARD A GROUND LEVEL EXPLOSION AND I'M LIKE HOLY SHIT AND THEN YOU HEARD THAT TWISTING METAL WRECKAGE AGAIN
I RAN OVER TO A HARDWARE SHOP THAT THE FIRE DEPARTMENT HAD BROKEN INTO TO USE A LOT OF THE MASKS THAT THEY HAD IN THERE
THE TRIAGE CENTER WE WERE IN HAD TO BE EVACUATED BECAUSE THEY WERE PRETTY SURE THAT BUILDING WAS GOING TO COME DOWN INTO IT
AT THAT POINT THERE WAS JUST NOTHING BUT COPS. I DON'T KNOW WHY THERE WERE COURT OFFICERS OVER THERE IT DIDN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE THAT THE COURT OFFICERS WERE THERE. THIS IS MY OPINION BUT THEY WERE THERE LIKE JUST MILLING AROUND
Chelsen, Roy Firefighter Engine 28, firefighter first grade
We reported to the command desk, the command post there, and we immediately started
going up. They just said, "28, start heading up."
I believe 4 Engine was with us, there was 28, and I believe 8 Truck was with us.
I know we were paired up with 4 Engine. 5 Engine was with us.
We got out and we got under the bridge. A couple bodies came down, flying down, just in
front of our guys. We just got under the bridge and like, okay, it's safe, it's good. All of a sudden we heard this huge explosion, and that's when the tower started coming down. We all
started running.
Cherrington, Andre Paramedic Battalion 31
So as I was pulling off, I’d say about half a block away, we heard a big boom, and we seen a whole bunch of ashes, everything just started coming towards us.
So another lieutenant came there and said well, they might need some paramedics at Ground Zero. They were saying something about there were amputated patients there who, once they
get them out of the rubble, they’re gonna need us to start lines, whatever and get them to the nearest hospital. So we went back to Ground Zero.
I mean, I did what I had to do, I took one patient, we took care of it and got him to the hospital. And you know, I did say, well I saved one person. I know I did save one person, and that’s all that matters. I was there for X Amount of hours and I did one good thing. And my partner too.
Chesney, William Firefighter Engine Company 309
we were notified by the dispatcher to I believe the Deutsche Bank, which had I believe been set afire or there was a collapse there. I'm not sure what the assignment was. I'm fuzzy on that.
We were assigned to put a fire out on the eighth or ninth floor of Gateway at the time. We went up there with hoses.
[Fuzzy indeed.]
Chiafari, Joseph Lieutenant Safety Command
firefighter Bob Crawford from the Safety Battalion [no transcript] dead
Lieutenant Tom McGoff, Engine 217,
I heard Chief of Department Ganci from his office yell out oh, shit, a plane just hit the Trade Center.
I was driving Chief Turi that day when we left the building and we headed over the Brooklyn Bridge.
We locked up the car, started heading across Church Street when we heard a roar of a jet engine, as if it was taking off in flight and we couldn't help but look into the sky to see exactly what it was and yes, it was a plane, just prior to striking the building and the engines were revved up fully. From that you saw it actually piercing the wall of the building with a large amount of fire coming from it.
...you could see the aftermath of what was in the street, along with some airplane parts, which were definitely very visible and identifiable what they were.
We kept, of course, looking up to see if anybody was possibly jumping down. Again, we didn't
see any jumpers at that point, but being aware of possibly people coming down. We came across some, again, some airplane parts that were actually smoking and it was very real to us what had happened. Still not believing what had happened, of course.
We were walking up the walkway to the front of tower one. We were met by a couple of firemen that said watch out, people are jumping, advised us that people were coming down the front of the building in the front of the building, and it was evident that at that point you could see body remains, not fully intact of course, they looked like hunks of meat, just laying
on the walkway and roadway itself.
There in the lobby command post there was Chief Hayden, who was in the Division that day and later we had Chief Cruthers there, along with the Fire Commissioner, Von Essen, Tom Fitzpatrick, Donald Burns was there.
When Chief Turi and I went into the building [lobby of one]
While we were in there, a pretty big concern was the condition of the elevator cars, whether they were operating or not, and that if the cables would fail, if they come crashing down into the lobby area and then blow out into the lobby where most people were congregating. They wanted to get everybody out of the lobby areas themselves.
I didn't know what it was at first. I thought it was guys venting from above, but it wound up
being the breaking of glass taking place and you didn't know what it was and it wound up being the glass canopy out in the front of the building there. There were actually people that were plunging through the glass as you actually were standing there hearing that taking
place.
Visibly from where we were standing, I estimate that I probably saw about a hundred people
jumping to their death. Some looked like they were in pairs, but most of them were singly, free falling, to such a degree that they were doing tumblesalts in the air and forcibly landing to the ground, or very impactly landing on top of that glass canopy, which seemed to be like almost like individual skylights that were -- they were breaking through. Very noticeably you could hear them like pounding, almost like a bomb going off, a small bomb, like paum, paum. And so there was a lot of glass breaking...
There was talk about not knowing the stability of the building. I heard that being mentioned and not knowing where that report came from. It's like somebody was questioning the stability of the building. In fact, that was coming from Steve Mosiello, the executive assistant for Ganci. I think somebody asked him and he mentioned to Ganci. Somebody mentioned about the stability of the building. That happened to be shortly before the building did come
down.
There was a time where he did -- actually standing there, you heard actually what sounded like another plane flying overhead. I remember even asking one of the guys from Con Ed that was happening to stand there. I didn't know if they were blowing off any steam from the building or blowing off any residual gas or anything, but it sounded like the roar of a plane, and most likely we learned that that was like military jets that may have been flying overhead to monitor what was going on in the harbor area. But that was very noticeable and you couldn't help but look up again to see what was going on.
I remember even seeing -- oh, here is another person I saw at the command post who
later did not survive, a guy I previously worked with, Ray York, who, from my understanding, he came from the fire zone over in mid Manhattan. I think he was on light duty. He saw me. I saw him. It was almost like a wave type of thing. I'm saying in my mind, what is he doing
here. I know he's not with a fire company, but I saw him there and then later on realizing that he didn't make it. It's amazing how you see a face and knowing their whereabouts afterwards, that they weren't there.
Q. You saw him at the command post?
A. At the command post on the West Street side.
Q. Not at tower one?
A. No.
Q. On West Street?
A. Yes
Chillemi, Salvatore Firefighter Engine 260
Weird little four-page transcript, interviewed by Chief Burns, of all people. Very difficult to get the pdf to open. Had to go to archive.org, and even then still had trouble. Of no account. Arrived between one and two's collapse--so what?
Chyriwski, Robert Firefighter Engine Company 3
Firefighter Adam Mazy [no transcript]
Was on the stairs in the north tower
So I tried further down West Street, which I'm probably right around across from the hotel, the Marriott, when I hear this loud noise, this crash. That's when the second plane hit Tower 2. So I managed to turn around and head back up north towards 1 World Trade, not knowing what had happened, that it was a plane that hit.
Another one of my members was detailed to 26 Engine. He was like an extra man. He jumped on a rig and he didn't have a mask. So he came up to me and I gave him my chauffeur's mask so he can go operate, and he ended up hooking with 12 Truck because he missed 26 Engine going in. His name was Adam Mazy.
by 3 World Financial Center, That was when 2 World Trade started to come down. People were just saying run, run. So I just took off. I started running north and then I head west
down Vesey Street, and I guess I ran down until I got to North End. There was another block and I started running north again, and luckily I was able to beat out the whole dust cloud. I didn't get enveloped in it.
Cifu, Ronald Firefighter Engine Company 16
That's when the first person jumped. I was on West Street. I backed up a little bit.
Then another person jumped. There had to be at least 15 people that just jumped in the amount of like ten minutes. The time was around 9:15, 9:20 at that point.
When I first got there, there were a lot of maydays and urgent messages. One of the messages I heard was we lost an elevator, and then there was a second message that we lost another elevator.
I got back up on my feet and went back to my rig. I pulled my rig a little closer. I hooked up.
We were trying to keep some of the dust down. We had a couple of the stangs going to try to keep some of the dust down. I wasn't really sure if there was a collapse. I thought it might have been a partial collapse, maybe just the top floors.
Cimillo, William Firefighter Ladder Company 49
We were walking down there. They're like, "You're going into tower two. Get up as
far as you can and help out." We're walking down the block. We get to about -- less than half a block away from tower two, and I just remember looking up and the top of the building just
teetered and I saw the radio tower wobble and the whole building just came down on top of everybody that was there.
Cira, David EMT Division 4
paramedic Adam Schriebman [no transcript]
Cirillo, Brian EMT Battalion 4
THE CHIEF WHO HAPPENED TO BE THERE WITH ME SAID TAKE THEM UPTOWN TO THE FURTHEST HOSPITAL CAUSE WHAT WAS AROUND WAS BASICALLY
JAM PACKED
Citarella, John Firefighter Lieutenant FDNY, of hazmat operations,
Survived the first collapse inside the lobby of the Marriott with all these people, who didn't make it out
Lieutenant Steve Turilli, from the rescue school,
Freddie Scheffold, Rescue 3, "Freddie wasn't even working that day."
Joe Marchbanks, Rescue 3
Larry Stack
Brian Meyers
Kerwin from 288
As we were walking down West Street, there were numerous people jumping out of the top
floors, the upper floors. They were landing right next to us. I remember them hitting my leg as they were landing, parts hitting the divider on West Street.
When we were walking down Liberty Street, there was I think a guy from 217. He was an officer. I think he was from 217. He was screaming at us. We came over, "What's going on?" He told us that a fireman just got killed, got hit by a body in that spot that we were walking.
Right as he said that, I heard a loud roar, "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom," and
it was getting louder.
We walked about maybe 10 feet to 15 feet up West Street. We ran into Joe Angelini. Joe said he was going to go back. He was going to try to go into the hotel because he thought there were more people in there.
Joe Angelini and I were out in West Street, and he starts walking towards the hotel. We tried to tell him, "Joe, they want everyone out of here. They think the other one is going to come down." He started walking over.
I turned, I took maybe a couple more steps, and then I heard another explosion, it sounded like. I looked up, and the north tower was starting to come down.
But that was pretty much all the guys that I saw in the street. I know Joe Angelini they found in the street and Ganci and Feehan they found in the street.
Claes, Marcel Firefighter Engine 24
Paul Keating, [no transcript]
when we got in there, we saw a lot of damage in the lobby around the elevator banks, and we found -- I found out that it was hit by a plane, thinking it was an accident.
So we proceeded up with other engine companies and truck companies in Stairwell A. After a dozen floors or so, we started to take breaks every four floors. We didn't realize it was hit by -- we didn't realize 2 World Trade was hit by an air plane, so we kept going up. It was single file, civilians going down and firemen going up. The civilians were orderly and blessing us and helping the injured down.
We made it up to the -- I believe the 35th story.
we were going to hook up with another engine company to make it up there -- easier to get up there. We were going to have some guys just take cylinders and the other guys take hoses,
we got separated because I found out later that one of our -- Richard Billy was on the 27th
story in the hallway with a woman in, I believe, a wheelchair, and the rest of the company went in to get him.
I saw building employees running around. There was a lot of debris in the lobby. I went out the same way I came in. That was on the northwest corner of tower -- 1 World Trade.
Q. On the map on there?
A. I went out a window that was taken out, because I knew my engine was parked on that side. I made it out to the -- I saw a man in the courtyard. He was waving me out, like come on out, get out of there. I didn't look up. I just went out to the street.
At one point, a rescue company came by, and they walked in to the -- you know, this is after the collapses. I they walked in. I guess they did their thing. I guess they were -- actually I don't know what they were doing. They must have got off. You know, they were off that day and went back to the company to gear up and made it there on their own.
All morning I was watching 7 World Trade burn, which we couldn't do anything about because it was so much chaos looking for missing members.
I walked to the firehouse, and I made it to Canal Street, and I saw another fireman, a messenger I believe he was, and he drove me to the firehouse, and I took a shower and talked to the guys for awhile,
I believe they took it to the Sanitation Department, and they power washed it, and we got it
back here. We had to hose the inside out, and we stocked it with whatever we had in the tool shed, and we went back in service around six o'clock that night. We didn't have many runs, but I think that was the only operating engine covering lower Manhattan, except for the one that was operating within the collapse zone, the ground zero.
We did go back Thursday night. Was it Thursday? I think yeah, we did go back. It was our turn to good back to ground zero, and all I did was fill buckets with dust and debris. It rained that night, so we went back to the -- after a number of hours, we went back to the firehouse.
So Saturday I came back to the firehouse, and I was due to work at my light-duty position at Rac 5 Sunday morning. I went home -- when I got home Monday morning, we started with wakes and funerals all that week, because they did recover guys from Ladder 5, so we were off.
Basically, I didn't come back to the firehouse until the following week. The following week
after Greg Sausito's memorial Mass, and then we were on -- when I was scheduled to come back to work. They went back to the regular schedule.
Clarke, Charles Captain Engine 211
By this time, it had to be 11:00 o'clock at night...Then we came back down and started walking down Church, and I was kind of amazed that one building was burning on 90 West, I noticed, but I was amazed that all the tenements on Cortlandt and Dey, Fulton, none of them were on fire. I figured there would be a lot of fire and there was none.
Cohen, Marc Paramedic Battalion 22, SHIELD 2093 EMS COMMAND
WE WERE ON THE 59TH STREET BRIDGE WHEN OUT OF THE CORNER OF OUR EYE WE SAW THE FIRST PLANE HIT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE 59TH STREET BRIDGE WE NOTICED THE SMOKE.
HE HANDED US KEYS TO VEHICLE AND WITH ABOUT FIVE ADDITIONAL OFF DUTY EMS MEMBERS DON'T KNOW THEIR NAMES THEY WERE WORKING ALSO AT THE LOCAL UNION THAT DAY WE GOT ON THE FDR SOUTHBOUND
Colon, John Firefighter Ladder 43
The officer, Glen Rohan, told Jerry Suden to put out car fires.
We climbed up a 35 foot portable ladder and we helped get the officer from Engine 1, who was deceased.
Congiusta, Frank Battalion Chief, Battalion 48
WHILE WE WERE ON THE PROSPECT EXPRESSWAY THE FIRST TOWER COLLAPSED. WHEN WE GOT ON THE GOWANUS I FIGURED THE TOP WOULD FALL OFF. ON THE RADIO THEY SAID THE TOWER COLLAPSED. WE WERE TRYING TO SEE WHAT WAS LEFT OF THE FIRST TOWER THAT COLLAPSED AND WE COULDN'T SEE ANYTHING BUT IT WAS HARD TO TELL THROUGH THE SMOKE.
WE SEARCHED THE EIGHT FLOORS OF THE CUSTOMS BUILDING ON THE WEST SIDE
THE WHOLE MIDDLE OF THE BUILDING WAS BLOCKED OUT BY COLLAPSE
WHILE WE WERE SEARCHING THE SUBBASEMENTS THEY DECIDED THAT SEVEN WORLD TRADE CENTER WHICH WAS ACROSS THE STREET WAS GOING TO COLLAPSE SO THEY CALLED US OUT.
Conlon, Paul Captain Engine 216
Ted Murray, Chauffeur, Engine 216 [no transcript]
"Chris" Engine 216 [no transcript]
Tony Sanseviro, "backup," Engine 216 [no transcript]
John Johnson, probie, Engine 216 [no transcript]
Danny Suhr's captain,
"DAN HAD THE CONTROL OR THE HOOKUP AS HE CALLED IT, TED MURRAY WAS THE CHAUFFEUR, CHRIS WAS THE NOZZLE, AND TONY SANSEVIRO WAS THE BACKUP, JOHN JOHNSON WAS A PROBIE,"
Connolly, Patrick Firefighter Ladder 16
Brian Connolly, Ladder 17, [no transcript]
Joe Brosi, Fire Marshal, [no transcript]
[Self-responds with his brother. Survives second collapse inside Building 7.]
My brother drove us -- my other brother drove us to the Midtown Tunnel.
There were some interior stairs and they were gonna go down to probably more like a bomb shelter area and I think when Joe looked, it looked like it was destroyed.
And as we came out we started to walk north and slowly but surely and up and over and under steel and cars were -- cars with tires and cars were popping and they were just starting to light up spontaneously and there was near zero visibility at this stage.
Constantine, Peter EMT Battalion 20
As we started heading down the West Side Highway, we saw the second plane, we saw both towers on fire.
At that time, I don’t know what time it was, we heard across the radio the tower’s gonna fall, the tower’s gonna fall.
Q: You heard that on the radio?
A: Oh yeah, it came across. And then all of a sudden, when you looked up, you froze for a couple of seconds, you saw these little pieces falling off. Then all of a sudden, everyone started to run. Then, you started to run, your helping people, helping them run. You saw it, it was amazing…like out of a movie, you know, the cloud’s just chasing you. As you look back, you see it engulf people.
Everybody ran again, then there was a gas leak they said, they pushed everybody way back to 23rd. So you had all these units, all these rescue people stationed at 23rd street, and you couldn’t do anything.
I’m too young though, I’m 23.
Conzo, Joseph EMT Battalion 26, SHIELD NUMBER 2577,
AS WE STAGED ACROSS THE STREET CHIEF CHARLIE WELLS GRABBED MY PARTNER AND I AND SAID WE ARE GOING INTO THE BUILDING
AS WE WERE ENTERING IN THERE WITH OUR EQUIPMENT WE HEARD WHAT SEEMED TO BE A THIRD PLANE HITTING BUT I FOUND OUT LATER IT WAS THE COLLAPSE OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER.
[Blacked out name, as he walks to the water with DeShore]
I STOOD THERE AND I WAS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO COMMANDEER A GOLF CART, A GATOR WHICH WAS THE ONLY THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY MANEUVER...
Cook, Louis Paramedic Division 2
Raoul Perez, medic [no transcript]
Joan Hill Gardner, "EMS people doing some election detail stuff," [no transcript]
Bill Haigney, "EMS people doing some election detail stuff," [no transcript]
Kevin Kelleher, paramedic [no transcript]
Felix Marquez, paramedic [no transcript]
Jerry Bacchus EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Roger Ahee EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Billy Olsen EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Mark Steffens EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Bobby Brown EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Billy Day EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Ron Pfeffer EMS/EMT [no transcript]
[Was associated with Chief Basile. Was on the North pedestrian bridge when the first collapse happened. Survived second collapse "shy"of Vesey Street. Meets back up with Basile near the water on Vesey shortly after the second collapse.]
We walked up West Street northbound to get to the command post, and there I remember
looking to my right and seeing an aircraft landing gear tire. I remember we were walking up, we were zigzagging through bodies and body parts. I just remember the smell of it being like a butcher shop with all the bodies around. I remember smelling that distinctly.
So Basile gets told by Gombo to set up at the south ferry, and we just kind of take our stuff and we started walking out of the hotel and we start walking from North End Avenue. We
looked. From where we are you can kind of see the pit and you can see the debris and everything going on.
I remember Billy Olsen coming over on the ferry. He said he had a skating rink on the other side set up and iced over for a morgue. He set that up. I didn't know what to say about that. I just let it go. There was nothing I could tell him.
We went through Whitehall Street. We came south again from the towers. We tried to find the car. It was amazing to see just what was all over the place. Buildings burning without any fire suppression or anything going on. It was amazing. It was just chaos, just junk and cars crushed. The bodies that I remembered seeing on West Street when we were going up to the command post originally were just kind of like covered up. They were all covered. I remember just thinking where all the bodies are. I'm walking around now and I can't see them.
We got to Chambers and Greenwich, and the chief turns around and says, "There's number
Seven World Trade. That's the OEM bunker." We had a snicker about that. We looked over, and it's engulfed in flames and starting to collapse. We're kind of caught in traffic and people and things, and everything's going on. We hear over the fire portable, "Everybody evacuate the site. It's going to collapse." Mark Steffens starts yelling, "Get out of here! Get out of here! Get out of here! We've got to go! We've got to go! It's going to collapse." I turned around, and I piped up real loud and said, "Stay in the frigging car. Roll the windows up. It's pancake collapsing. We'll be find. The debris will quit and the cloud will come through. Just stay in the car." We pulled the car over, turned around and just watched it pancake. We had a dust cloud but nothing like it was before.
Cook, Robert EMT Battalion 31, Shield 3719
Lieutenant Lugo EMS [no transcript]
Well, we were getting fuel at
Ladder 118 when people were coming up to the firehouse,
it's right over on Midagh Street and Henry, telling us
that a plane hit the World Trade Center.
Once we got over the bridge, the second plane hit. There was an explosion. We didn't know it was a second plane. We thought it was just exploding from the first plane.
Cooke, Alan EMT Battalion 31
Victor Camile, EMT Battalion 31, [she] [no transcript]
Chris Jackson EMT [Curtis?] [no transcript]
AT THAT TIME WE STOPPED AND THAT'S WHEN I HEARD THE RUMBLE. I HEARD A RUMBLE. BOTH OF US LOOKED UP AND WE SAW A PART OF THE BUILDING, I SAW A PART OF THE BUILDING COMING DOWN. I HAD THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ONE PIECE OF THE BUILDING COMING DOWN. I DIDN'T IN MY IMAGINATION, I DIDN'T THINK
IT WAS THE ENTIRE BUILDING COMING DOWN.
WE GOT TO THE BEGINNING OF THE FDR DRIVE, BY THE FERRY, AND I GUESS BECAUSE OF THE WAY THE STREETS CHANNEL EVERYTHING, ONE OF THE FIRE BALLS OR WHATEVER, HAD TO HAVE MADE IT AS FAR AS THE SOUTH STREET SEAPORT, BECAUSE WHAT HAPPENED AT THAT TIME, IT SEEMED LIKE AN EXPLOSION WAS COMING FROM THERE. I THOUGHT AN EXPLOSION WAS COMING FROM THERE, THAT'S WHEN EVERYBODY STARTED RUNNING TOWARDS US FROM THE SEAPORT.
I KNEW AT THAT TIME THERE WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE ANY PLANES FLYING BUT I HEARD PLANES FLYING, AND AT THAT POINT I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE, I REALLY DID , I THOUGHT WHAT HAPPENED WAS THAT THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER, THEN I THOUGHT THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE AT THE SEAPORT. I THOUGHT THAT WAS A SECONDARY AND HERDING EVERYBODY TOWARDS THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE, BECAUSE EVERYBODY WAS ASKING ME WHERE
SHOULD WE GO, WHERE SHOULD WE GO. I JUST TOLD THEM TO GET ON THE HIGHWAY AND HEAD NORTH, OR TOWARDS BROOKLYN.
BEEKMAN NEEDED SOMEBODY WITH HEAD INJURY TRANSPORTED TO BELLEVUE. SO WE TRANSPORTED THAT GENTLEMAN TO BELLEVUE. HE DIDNT MAKE IT.
Coutsouros, Dean Firefighter 2nd Grade, Engine 220
Firefighter George Marsh [no transcript]
Firefighter Eddie Plunkett [no transcript]
Lieutenant John Orloff, Buffalo from 201
Dave Koyles, from Ladder 122, who was in the Marriott collapse.
AND WE GOT IN FRONT OF 90 WEST STREET. WE HELD UP THERE FOR FEW MINUTES UNDERNEATH THE SCAFFOLDING TO REASSESS THE SITUATION, HOW WE WERE GOING TO GET INTO THE BUILDING. THERE WAS ALL KINDS OF HUMAN DEBRIS, THE LANDING GEAR OF THE AIRCRAFT WAS IN THAT PARKING LOT THERE. IT WAS RIGHT NEAR US. THERE WAS ALL KIND OF STUFF ALL OVER THE FLOOR. OTHER COMPANIES NEAR US I THINK, WERE 205, AND THERE WAS A TRUCK COMPANY THERE, BUT I'M NOT REALLY SURE WHO IT WAS, IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 117.
I HAPPENED TO BE LOOKING UP AT IT, AND FROM THE FIRE FLOOR DOWN IT WAS JUST LIKE REALLY LOUD CRACKLING NOISE. IT SOUNDED LIKE A MILLION FIRECRACKERS AND JUST A WAVE, RIGHT FROM THE FIRE FLOOR DOWN, JUST A WAVE THAT STARTED TO COME DOWN.
OVER HERE THERE WAS A GAS LEAK. THE POLICE DEPARTMENT WAS TELLING EVERYBODY TO GET OUT OF THE AREA, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.
FROM THERE WE WOUND UP GETTING UP FROM THERE, WALKING AWAY, SOME GUY WITH GOLF CART TOOK US DOWN TO LIKE BATTERY PARK. FROM THERE TWO DETECTIVES THREW US IN THE BACK OF THEIR CAR AND THEY TOOK US TO THE STATEN ISLAND FERRY TERMINAL
Coyle, John Fire Marshall Brooklyn Base Squad 34
Joe Mazzarella [no transcript]
THERE WERE LOT OF PEOPLE JUMPING. THAT WAS HORRIBLE. I WAS SHOOK UP. I HAVE NEVER BEEN THAT SHAKEN UP BY ANYTHING BEFORE. I WASSTANDING THERE AND COULDN'T BELIEVE THAT. YOU COULD SEE PEOPLE APPARENTLY HOLDING THEIR COATS OUT TO TRY AND FLY OR SOMETHING AND THEN ADJUSTING TO THE LANDING. IT WAS FUCKING AWFUL.
THE TOWER WAS---IT LOOKED TO ME---I THOUGHT IT WAS EXPLODING ACTUALLY, THATS WHAT I THOUGHT FOR HOURS AFTERWARDS, THAT IT HAD EXPLODED OR THE PLANE OR THERE HAD BEEN SOME DEVICE ON THE PLANE THAT HAD EXPLODED BECAUSE THE DEBRIS FROM THE TOWER HAD SHOT OUT FAR OVER OUR HEADS IT WAS RAINING DOWN.
EVERYBODY THINK AT THAT POINT STILL THOUGHT THESE THINGS WERE BLOWN UP SO I WAS FULLY EXPECTING ANYTHING ELSE TO BLOW UP.
Coyne, Ronald EMT Battalion 44
[A real first-class looter.] [nearly four-pages blacked out.]
AND WAS LOOKING AT THE CAR GARAGES AND THE CARS IN THE STREET AND ME AND THREE BUDDIES OF MINE FROM STREET CRIME WERE BREAKING WINDOWS
IN THE CARS TO LOOK FOR INFANTS AND ADULTS UNCONSCIOUS ADULTS BECAUSE THERE WAS SO MUCH DUST ON THEM THAT WE COULDN'T SEE THROUGH.
I SEARCHED THE ENTIRE BUILDING TO MAKE SURE THERE WAS NOBODY IN IT THERE WAS NOBODY FOUND WHATEVER APARTMENT DOORS WERE OPEN I JUST TOOK PEAK IN TO SEE IF ANYBODY WAS ON THE FLOOR AND THEN AUTOMATICALLY
LOCKED THE DOORS AND LEFT THEN LEFT THE BUILDING AND WENT BACK TO TRY AND FIND MY PARTNER.
THERE WAS FRUIT PLACE OVER BY THE CORNER ON ONE OF THE CORNERS AND IT HAD ALREADY BEEN BLOWN APART BY THE BLAST AND THE COLLAPSE. I ENTERED IT, STARTED WASHING OFF FRUIT, HAD FIREMEN COMPLAINING OF CRAMPING IN THEIR STOMACHS AND IN THEIR LEGS AND I KNEW THEIR POTASSIUM WAS DROPPING SO I WAS BRINGING OUT BANANAS AND APPLES AND ALL SORTS OF FRUIT BASKETS OF THEM TO HAND THEM OUT TO THESE FIREMEN SO THAT THEY
COULD CONTINUE TO DO THEIR JOB.
I SAW HANDS AND LEGS AND I SAW A WOMAN IMPALED INTO WALL ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE BUILDING. I SAW PEOPLE JUMPING OUT OF THE WINDOWS
WHEN THEY WERE COLLAPSING, GOING THROUGH CARS AND HITTING THE PAVEMENT, AND THAT WAS ONLY EARLY IN THE MORNING.
Cronick, Kevin Firefighter Engine 3
Q. Where were you when the second tower collapsed?
A. When the second tower collapsed, we were just down by the river I think.
Q. Did the dust cloud get that far?
A. Not really, no. It never reached that point. That was pretty much where we remained until we moved back into the area.
Cruthers, Frank Chief Fire Department
[interview takes all of 15 minutes]
Chief Tom Haring from the Eighth Division, [no transcript]
And while I was still in that immediate area, the south tower, 2 World Trade Center, there was what appeared to be at first an explosion. It appeared at the very top, simultaneously from all four sides, materials shot out horizontally. And then there seemed to be a momentary delay before you could see the beginning of the collapse.
Early on, there was concern that 7 World Trade Center might have been both impacted by the
collapsing tower and had several fires in it and there was a concern that it might collapse. So we instructed that a collapse area --
Q. A collapse zone?
A. Yeah -- be set up and maintained so that when the expected collapse of 7 happened, we wouldn't have people working in it. There was considerable discussion with Con Ed regarding the substation in that building and the feeders and the oil coolants and so on. And their concern was of the type of fire we might have when it collapsed. They shut down the power, and when it did collapse, the things that they were concerned with would have been. That's about it.
Cruz, Allan EMT FDNY, SHIELD NUMBER 3361
AS EXITED MY VEHICLE SAW THIS HUGE FIRE UP ON THE BUILDING, YOU KNOW?
AS I WAS STANDING, THERE WAS BUNCH OF PEOPLE HIDING BEHIND AND AROUND
MY VEHICLE. AS WE WERE STANDING THERE, THIS ONE LADY TO MY LEFT GRABBED ME REALLY, REALLY TIGHT. MY FOREARM MY LEFT FOREARM. AND WE WERE BOTH LOOKING UP AT THIS FIRE. WE BOTH HEAR THIS RUMBLE AND FELT A VIBRATION. WE LOOKED SLIGHTLY TO THE LEFT ALL OF US THERE'S A WHOLE BUNCH OF US RIGHT NEXT TO MY VEHICLE AND HERE COMES THIS PLANE, HUGE PLANE. THE LADY NEXT TO ME SAYS, "OH MY GOD ITS GONNA HIT THE BUILDING!" I DIDN'T WANT TO GIVE HER FALSE INFORMATION, SO I SAID, "GEE, I DON'T THINK SO," WELL, I HOPE NOT, I MEAN WE'RE LOOKING AT IT SORT OF IN THREE DIMENSIONS
SO I'M THINKING ITS GONNA GO BEHIND THE BUILDING FROM WHERE WERE STANDING, IT'S GONNA GO RIGHT BEHIND IT BUT IT WAS TOO BIG AND FAR TOO LOW AT THAT MOMENT. I SAID ITS GONNA HIT ITS ACTUALLY GONNA HIT AND IT HIT, SHE SCREAMED, SHE SAID, "OH MY GOD!" AT WHICH POINT I SAID EVERYBODY JUST RUN, AND THERE WERE SOME CURSE WORDS. I TOLD EVERYBODY YOU GOTTA RUN RUN RUN THEY PROCEEDED TO RUN. IN TURN, I JUMPED INTO MY VEHICLE AND A WHOLE BUNCH OF DEBRIS JUST CAME CRASHING DOWN ON TOP OF MY VEHICLE AT WHICH POINT I SAID, NO I EXITED MY VEHICLE AND I TOO RAN BEHIND MY VEHICLE. UNBEKNOWNST TO ME THERE WERE STILL PEOPLE HIDING NOT
ONLY BEHIND BUT UNDERNEATH MY VEHICLE.
Culley, John Kevin Captain Office of Emergency Management
Was going to work area on 23rd floor at 7 World Trade Center on 9/11
"From the lobby we saw debris falling from above. We could not actually see the impact due to the view. When the debris stopped falling, I left the third-floor lobby, ran out onto the street, looked up, saw fire showing out of two, three floors, on two sides of the building, the north face and the east face of the building. There was no sign that it was a plane, at least not to me."
"what I'm supposed to do is liaison to any agencies other than Fire with the incident commander. So at that scene you had Port Authority, you had some other federal agencies, FBI is one that I recall, and you also had your building -- the World Trade Center Fire Safety
Director and his staff,"
"Q. What were you seeing in the lobby as you got there?
A. In the lobby, all the usual people, the 1st Division, 1st Battalion, reporting in units, I can't
remember specifically, the Fire Safety Director, who I recognized, FBI agents, people on the staff, building staff, particularly people that were involved with helping us read the elevator panels."
"There were no elevators in operation. What made it more of a problem is that all those elevators were shut down and there were people in them. So we were actually -- once I had staff that could operate the panel, they could speak to each individual elevator, ask how many people are in the elevator, what floor they were on, and if there's anyone injured, and I was passing that information on to the incident commander."
"Q. Can you describe what you visually were seeing around, like outside or on the concourse?
A. On the concourse? I don't remember on the concourse. In the lobby? As I said, the usual people that would show up. I saw at least three chaplains there."
"Also, I'd note that, once I arrived at the fire command station, I was told by someone who had
actually witnessed the plane hitting it that it was indeed a plane. Up until that point, I thought it was a bomb."
"Q. Were there any communications at that point; radios still working?
A. The radio that I carry is an 800 megahertz connected to the OEM channels. I was transmitting and receiving. All the Fire Department radios that I was aware of were transmitting, you know, you could hear all the conversations going on."
"It was also clear then that there wasn't any control of that building, no elevators, communications above. Except for that one conversation on the 51st floor, as far as I know, there were no other conversations. That doesn't mean I knew everything. We did have conversations with people stuck on elevators and that was it."
"Q. The first building came down. What was the operation line? What was going on?
A. Nothing really had changed. Like I said, all the elevators were still stuck. I think there were
elevators that were on the first floor, the doors closed. Not that I saw it. I looked at the panel and realized that some of these stuck elevators are right here on the lobby floor and people were assigned to go take care of that."
"A. We found an opening and ran what I thought was directly down a set of stairs. I found out later we actually were in a hallway for a while and then ducked into some stairs. My belief is that we actually ran out of the building enclosed. The stairwell we were in was probably inside of 6 World Trade."
"We stumbled upon Judge. He had no pulse. One of the Chiefs just said we're not going to leave
him here. We just picked him up and went up the stairs we came down. I can't tell you how we got outside. It was still dark. We ended up in front of-- we ended up on the west face of 6 World Trade Center, which happens to be up on a pedestrian walkway which is like three stories up. We had no way to get down. So we were still carrying the chaplain. We come around on the Vesey side of this pedestrian walkway. You really couldn't see more than about 60 feet in front of you at best. So I sort of ran ahead of the group to see if we could get over any obstructions, and if it became a dead end, we were going to have to turn around. So that's what I was doing.
We got to the end of 6 World Trade, there's a gap between 6 and 5. We really didn't know what had happened. We heard all this noise, but we didn't know what actually happened. There was a lot of debris out there. It was unclear. I looked to where 2 World Trade -- the south tower was. You really couldn't see through it. I figured it was a dangerous area. We were going to have to run this gap between 6 and 5. It didn't seem like anything was happening. We took Judge's body in a chair and we ran across that gap. We went down the escalator stairs right there and that gets us down onto the street. Now we can get away from the building."
"A. We get to the corner of Vesey and Church. We turn over Judge's body to some EMTs. I ran into two federal officers, I always think they're FBI, but there's a lot of federal badges, and they said they were going to be setting up -- or somebody had notice that there was going to be a command center set up on either Park Place or Murray, one of those streets just north of the area, and that's where I would normally be assigned."
"Q. So with the secondary collapse, the only persons with you were FBI agents? Were there any Fire Chiefs?
A. No. I was with a group. When we carried Judge's body out, I was with the 1st Division, a couple of Port Authority cops, one of the aides, one of the firemen. I couldn't tell you who else. I remember another OEM fellow who I had met on the way down.
Q. Is he a firefighter? Is he Fire Department personnel?
A. He was an EMT that works in OEM."
Cunniffe, Sean EMT Battalion 31
The second plane came in. It was the biggest noise I ever heard in my life.
Q. Did you see the plane?
A. Yeah. We saw it, we heard it, we felt the heat from it, the debris. We ducked under a
truck, Fire Patrol 3, I believe it was, parked right over here. Just before -- because we started running.
I remember seeing this woman. She was about maybe 5-5, close to 250. She was hobbling.
I looked at her. She had a broken leg. I wound up grabbing her, putting her arm around me and just dragging her out of the building, because she was slowing too many people up.
I guess we were standing right in the middle of West Street when we heard over the radio that tower one is leaning, everybody evacuate, evacuate, evacuate. We were just trying to get as many people out of there as possible just telling them to run. As soon as one started coming down, that's when we started running. I didn't stop until I got to the water.
There were a lot of firefighters that just dropped their packs. They were going around in a little golf cart.
Curran, Paul Fire Patrolman Fire Patrol number 3
Sergeant Kenny, [no transcript]
Sergeant Sheehan from Fire Patrol 2 [no transcript]
Keith Roma [no transcript]
Captain Greco, Fire Patrol 3 [no transcript]
Mike Angelini, [no transcript]
We reached luckily around John Street when the second tower was hit by the plane, another plane. At the time we didn't realize it was a plane. We just heard a massive explosion. Debris rained down on us.
We proceeded down to Vesey. Walking down Vesey, we noticed large pieces of what looked like possibly the fuselage from the plane. There was a caravan of motorcycle police coming up. We stopped them and we cleared the path of big O rings and pieces of fuselage of the plane. We threw it to the side, and we told the guys to go on. They went up towards Church.
At that time we heard the jumpers. A lot of jumpers were hitting right above our heads on the concourse plaza level. It was like one thump, another thump. I lost count about 19. I saw Father Michael Judge. We went up the escalator of the customs house, myself and Sergeant Kenny, to see what the situation was up there. It wasn't a pretty sight. There were numerous bodies. So we went back downstairs to the lobby, and Father Judge kind of like gave us a look. I remember telling Father Judge, "It's terrible up there, Father." I did see Father Michael go up the escalators of the customs house. I guess that's World Trade -- what would that be, seven, I imagine? The customs house. It's Eight World Trade Center.
Q. Eight World Trade. Okay.
A. He was up there for a period of time. We were staying in the lobby for about -- there were people hitting the deck up there. There were body parts -- at one point a body part flew right through the lobby. There was an ironworker in there, which he plays a part later on. With that, all a sudden the tower went completely -- a horrendous noise, a very, very tremendous explosion, and a very heavy wind came through the tower. The wind almost knocked you down. We were on the north side of the elevator banks, and they kind of broke up that wind.
While we were making our way to the World Trade Center, the customs house, to go up the escalators to go out, we were going to go out the other way, down West Broadway and down the staircase there. We found Father Judge. Father Michael was laying at the bottom of the escalators. He wasn't bleeding or anything like that; he was just unconscious.
Q. Tell me exactly where that was now.
A. This was in Eight World Trade Center, in the building --
Q. Outside the building?
A. -- in the building at the foot of the escalators, going up to the concourse level. He was laying there. The guys from the truck company, the whole patrol was there, some guys from the truck company, they opened up his coat and they started working on him. With that, the building was shaking. It got very dark. We had our lights on. It got very, very thick with dust.
I remember saying, "We've got to get out of here. We've got to get out of here. Let's pick up" -- They picked up Father Michael, and they carried him up on the escalator.
A lot of car fires erupted. All of a sudden cars were blowing up everywhere.
Q. Everybody tells me all these vehicles were on fire. What do you attribute all these vehicles being on fire to?
A. I believe it must have been from the debris falling and the heat just started hitting the cars and starting cars on fire. There were an awful lot of cars burning, an awful lot. It had to be radiated heat or just stuff falling on cars and setting them on fire. There were numerous cars burning, numerous.
Curran, James Firefighter Ladder Company 8
Lieutenant Halloran 8 Truck [no transcript]
John Tierney from Ladder 9 [dead]
Danny Murphy
Sal Butera
Kevin Dinkins
Wade from 33
Ladder 8, Ladder 1, and Engine 7 all respond to "odor of gas" on the corner of Church and Lispenard.
WE TRIED TO GET INTO THE TAXI INDENT BUT THERE WERE PEOPLE ON THE GROUND BURNT ON THE WEST SIDE HIGHWAY TO WHERE YOU WOULD HAVE
HAD TO RUN THEM OVER TO GET ANY CLOSER SO WE GOT OUT OF THE RIG WENT IN THE LOBBY. ENGINE PULLED UP RIGHT BEHIND US AND LADDER WAS BEHIND THEM.
WE WALKED ALL THE WAY AROUND AGAIN TRYING TO FIND A WORKING ELEVATOR. THERE WAS FINALLY ONE RIGHT NEAR THE COMMAND POST BY THE SILVER DESK IN THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF THE MEZZANINE LEVEL. IT WAS WORKING. LIEUTENANT HALLORAN MADE THE CALL HE WAS LIKE NO WE ARENT TAKING THE ELEVATOR IN THIS CASE WE WILL WALK I BELIEVE THATS THE ELEVATOR THAT 20 TRUCK AND SQUAD 1 WOUND UP CATCHING AND WENT TO THE 16TH FLOOR BELIEVE.
NO WE WERE ON THE 16 FLOOR WHEN IT WAS CONFIRMED THAT ANOTHER PLANE HIT TOWER TWO AT THAT POINT SOMEONE THAT WAS SUPPOSEDLY SECRET SERVICE, WHICH DISAPPEARED, WE NEVER KNEW WHERE HE WENT, HE SAID
THERE WAS THIRD INCOMING FLIGHT THAT WAS---
Q: HE WAS TELLING EVERYBODY THAT
Q: How long do you think it would have taken you to get to the 80th floor if you had gone to the 80th floor?
A: I'm guessing, probably 4 hours, 3 and a half hours. It took us just about an hour, maybe a little over an hour. to get to the 30th.
Captain Pineda [no transcript]
Lieutenant Scullion [no transcript]
Chief McFarland [no transcript]
Roger Moore [no transcript]
"We got out of the car, first thing we saw was a severed torso, like 10 feet in front of us. There was a cop guarding the torso."
"We went over to the command post and at the command post we saw Chief Gombo, Chief Kowalczyk, EMT Richie Zarrillo, Lieutenant Ross Terranova, Chief Ganci, Chief Sal Cassano, and all aides, chauffeurs and what have you from the fire side.
"I screamed, oh my God, and my sister thought I was dead because she heard the rumble and the white cloud as the building came down, collapsed into---again 2 Financial Plaza. We were chased with the white cloud."
"We started running and we had to stop at one point because now the whole area filled with black smoke and the Winter Garden Atrium collapsed in front of us, because we were going to go into the Winter Garden to cut outside, but we couldn't do it, because we had the collapse of the front of 2 Financial Plaza into us and then the atrium coming at us from the other side."
"Then there was a gun shot across the street and supposedly, this is just what we were hearing over the PD radio, somebody had shot out one of the windows and I think it was Manhattan Borough Community---is that what is directly across the street? I'm so bad. Another school across---directly across the street. They had shot out one of the windows to open the door, to put people into there. So when the kids heard the gun shot everybody started stampeding back towards us so we had to calm them down and get them to start going north again."
Captain Stone and EMT Gregg Brady, and I think at one point it was Commissioner Gribbon.
"While we were walking they were removing Chief Ganci's body. Lieutenant Scullion was there, and we stood with him as they were removing Chief Ganci's body. They had just put him on the bus and now they were going to go remove Commissioner Feehan's body. They wanted him on the same bus."
We walked with---the bus drove around the corner and we followed the bus around the corner. When we got around the corner they said it was going to take a few minutes because he was still stuck in the hole. So they were trying to get him out. Father Delendic was there. Chief McFarland and I believe Captain Pineda."
Cachia, Edward Firefighter Engine 53
Michael Catalano Engine 53 [no transcript]
Danny Schofield Engine 53 [no transcript]
"As my officer and I were looking at the south tower, it just gave. It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit, because we originally had thought there was like an internal detonation explosives because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down."
"At that point in time, we're looking up at the north tower. I remember my officer saying, "I have a feeling this one is going to come down too." Just as he said that, that tower came down it looked like at the point of impact. We actually witnessed both towers coming down visually. We happened to be looking at that particular time. With that, the tower came down."
Cachia, Peter EMT Battalion 4
bad back
Cahill, Joseph Paramedic EMG Operations
"I remember seeing Frank Larkin from the Secret Service run by at a dead run. That just stuck in my head."
Chief Villani [no transcript]
Mitch Berkowitz, off duty EMT [no transcript]
Tommy Carlstrom, EMT [no transcript]
Jimmy Schrang, EMT [no transcript]
Lieutenant Ed Platt [no transcript]
Harold Watkins, fire cadet [no transcript]
John Clair EMT [no transcript]
Joe Fell "from the State" [no transcript]
Lieutenant Eppinger EMT [no transcript]
Lieutenant Cronin, EMT [no transcript]
Al Suriel, EMT [no transcript]
Cahill, Michael Lieutenant EMS Division 6
Arnedegnato, L . O . D . I . Limited [no transcript]
Lieutenant Jerry Santiago [no transcript]
Jerry Doyle, a former Chief's aide [no transcript]
Captain Musto [no transcript]
Lieutenant Trainer [no transcript]
That's when the second collapse started to come down. All kinds of noise. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, very loud. Nobody knew what it was. Everybody stopped when we heard it."
"She was following two police officers and some ATF guys and some non-uniformed personnel, but I wasn't sure who they were."
"I lost my watch when the ATF guy blocker tackled me."
Cain, Michael Fire Marshall DFI SOC command
Callan, Joseph Assistant Chief Citywide Tour Commander
One of the very worst oral histories. Only 7 pages long and obviously made under duress.
Hayden's and Pfeifer's superior in the north tower lobby, Says he gave a command to evacuate the building 10 minutes before the south tower collapsed.
Camacho, Fernando Firefighter Ladder 22
"There were about maybe five or six civilians around us. We tried to get them out, as we tried to make our way out."
Campagna, Frank Firefighter Ladder 11
Mike Kehoe [no transcript]
"the chief's aide in the Safety Battalion, Michael Bosco, sat in on this interview."
"I looked back. You see three explosions and then the whole thing coming down."
Q. What floor did you reach when you were climbing up? You said you were like on the 20th
floor and then you decided to come down?
A. 28th or 30th floor, the 30th, around there, because we were going like every two floors. So it was around there. I remember seeing 28 on the wall, and then I think we went up again. I think it was around the 30th floor, we made it up there. From there that's when we went down.
Then a chief came down and pretty much said everybody evacuate, because nothing was
coming over the radios, as far as everybody was still waiting. We were waiting with a bunch of
guys at that point in time. I saw one of the guys I knew from the academy. He was in 4 Engine. Another one I knew from academy, he was from 10-10. They were up there with us also. I don't know if you got details from someone else, but I'm pretty sure he was from there.
Q. What floor did you say you were on when you think the south tower fell down?
A. I would say about the 17th.
Q. You didn't have a radio that day. Did you have a handy talky?
A. Me? No.
Q. You were with the officer when you were climbing?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you remember what was on the handy talky when the south tower fell down? Was there
a lot of screaming? Do you remember radio messages or anything like that?
A. No, nothing like that.
Q. There were a lot of guys in the lobby, you said, when you came down to the lobby and hooked up. You don't remember anybody specific, companies or personal people, individual people?
A. No, like I said, it was real tunnel vision. I just wasn't being pretty much aware of anything around, who was around me and whatnot. Like I said, 4 and 18 are the only ones that stuck out in my head."
Canham, James Sergeant Fire Patrol 3
Fire Patrol 3 Chief Raymond Cowa [no transcript]
Fire Patrol 3 Captain Keegan [no transcript]
Sergeant John Sheehan [no transcript]
Patrolman Keith Roma [no transcript]
Lieutenant Ed D'Atri from Squad 1 [no transcript]
Captain Greco, another member of the Fire Patrol [no transcript]
Self-dispatched
"I was off duty, I had no radio, I had nothing."
"I told the chief I was off duty and that I would be going in. He said, "Watch your back."
"I had seen a couple of what I had thought were body parts in front of the building. I didn't pay it much mind."
"I started searching the elevators, when a woman said there was another woman trapped in
an elevator. I had gone over to the elevator with my tool and began to pop the door open. The
elevator was cantilevered, so it was very hard. But there was an occupant inside."
"When I came back out to the hallway, I saw the sergeant once again, that police officer.
He looked at me and he said, "Are you aware of what's going on?" At this time I did not. I
didn't have a radio, and I just assumed it was one plane. He said, "This was a hit. They hit
the Pentagon. They hit the White House. And we have another inbound coming at us now."
Is on the 11th floor when the first collapse happens with about 20 civilians. Gets them to chain up.
"After I cleared those people out -- it had to account for maybe 30, 35 people by the time the last one had gone by me."
"There were some firemen that were yelling "Bail out." They gave a bail out, everybody bail out, and they were making their way out of the building, down the stairs. Some civilians were panicking when they heard that, because they saw firemen leaving and saying bail."
"Going back down to the lobby level. I got down to the lobby level. There had to be six to what I believe were maybe ten companies in a staged area. They were standing there. They
were talking with one another. Once again, a very relaxed mode."
"An off-duty member from 105 Truck grabbed me and dragged me to a diner. There were
other members from the Fire Patrol there. They cleaned me up. It was air-conditioned."
"Q: ...When you went into the lower level of One World Trade Center, the sprinkler heads were going off.
A: Right, they were heads off.
Q: There was no fire; there was no heat. Their heads were off from a pressure surge like
from the pressure created by the falling of building two or what do you think?
A: What I believe set those heads off iswhen those elevators had dropped --
Q: Why did the elevators drop?
A: They were sheered.
Q: They were sheered. We didn't cover that. People told me, yeah, I think the elevators dropped and the doors were blown out and all that.
A: Right.
Q: The elevators were sheered?
A: They were sheered.
Q: What did the elevator doors look like?
A: They were buckled, cantilevered. The one woman was -- how she was standing up, I
didn't know.
Q: She was standing up? She was alive?
A: She was standing up and alive, as I popped it with my tool. I had a converted
officers tool. I made my own little. It's very good as far as leverage and so on and so forth.
I got the door open maybe six to eight inches. That's when the guys from -- once again, I believe they were 10 Truck. He had put his officer's tool, my tool and the Halligan. We
had both Halligans. But the door was so warped that we really couldn't get the strength to pop it open. But when the guy pulled up with the Port-A-Power, he was very confident. He was like, "Don't worry. I've got her." It seemed almost like he had done this before, like he was here working. Once again, I had come off duty. So this maintenance man had enough muster to get that tool and begin to work on the doors right away. It just led me to believe that he had things under control. So myself and the lieutenant from whatever company that was were confident he could do it, and we had moved on.
Q: I wonder where he is now.
A: Exactly."
Carletti, Richard Firefighter Engine 5
Paul Mitchell. He just got made out of Ladder 110. [no transcript] dead?
Tom Manley, sergeant at arms of the union. [no transcript]
Firefighter Jim Andruzzi,
Firefighter Manny Delvalle,
"I was coming up Allen, which turns into First. When I was crossing Delancey Street, I saw a jet in front of me, which was the first jet. He was pretty low. He was probably about 30
stories. Now I'm heading north and crossing Delancey Street on Allen and I see the jet make a move toward the Trade Center. It made a southwesterly turn from that point."
"To our right, there was a parking lot right on West and Liberty. There were about seven cars on fire." [This is in advance of either tower's collapse.]
As we passed that, we came into the debris field. It was jet parts and body parts. I distinctly
remember seeing a woman's hand. It was cut off at the wrist. She had wedding ring, so it had to be a left hand, and then I looked to the left and I just saw the rib cage with nothing in it and there was just debris. At that point we stopped for a second and we heard impacts, which I guess was jumpers hitting the pavement." [From the South Tower]
"I was trying to monitor more what was going on in the north tower with the radio, and they
were on three different channels at this point."
"When the north tower collapsed, I remember seeing the antenna do a little rock back and forth and I could just hear the floors pancaking. I heard it for about 30 pancakes, just boom, boom, boom, boom, and the dust blew up to us."
"...we went back down at 11:00 p.m. with 3 Truck, with the rest of the battalion. We went to 10 and 10 command post. We went to about the middle of the pile, but we were just -- at this point we extinguished fires most of the night almost in the center of the complex and just west of what was left of building No. 4. We were on the pile just with three hand lines putting out fires until 9:00 o'clock in the morning.
Q: So that was during the nighttime, then, you were putting fires out on the pile?
A: Yes. And that was it."
"A: About 10:15, 10:20, I finally heard the Maydays for the north tower, to evacuate the north
tower."
Q. There's a south walkway, though, that goes across West Street.
A. When we got past there, that's when we entered the debris field and you heard shotgun blasts, and when I looked -- I don't know if Tommy looked, but I could see what was lying on the ground. It was just a pile of meat, red. So I said to Tommy, let's get out of here. There's too many humans coming down from the building."
"Q: Okay, Rich. Anything else of significance that you'd like to add to this interview that you feel it's important?
A: No. Just that when we walked down Liberty, I found that we were the only ones there and that was odd to me. There was no observation on that side of the building.
Q: Okay.
A: When I got to the command post, what was I going to say? I mean, I've got seven years on the job. I remember telling the Chief I think this building is in dire need, it's going to collapse. There was one point at the command post, I mean, I don't know about the battalion, but I felt I could have just walked away and no one would have known, but I didn't."
Carlock, Owen Firefighter Ladder 122, detailed on the day of the incident to Engine 220.
John Jermyn, a straggler, from the -- he used to be here in 122. He works in the Fire Department Museum. [no transcript]
Eddie Plunkett [no transcript]
"After that we tried to take a window in the back of the bank. We did take a window, but
behind it was a steel wall, corrugated tin or whatever. We couldn't get into the window.
They followed me. I had the light. They followed me, and we went into Deutsche Bank into the side entrance, got our wits about us,"
Carlsen, Craig Firefighter Ladder 8
"I proceeded into One World Trade Center into the front lobby. Just making it into the door, I ran into 3 Truck, members of 3 Truck, which told us that there were numerous people
trapped in elevator cars and that they needed forcible entry saws. So the lieutenant and I went out to look for forcible entry saws."
"I guess about three minutes later you just heard explosions coming from building two,
the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions. At the time I didn't realize what it was. We realized later after talking and finding out that it was the
floors collapsing to where the plane had hit."
Carrasquillo, Pedro Chief Division 4
Jack Delaney with his medics from the New York Hospital, [no transcript]
"I parked a couple blocks before the World Trade Center just because I didn't want to go too much closer with my vehicle. I parked, got out. People were running. I got out, got my helmet, got my turnout coat. At that point, right there, there was some debris, and there were some body parts that were on the street."
"Then I decided to take a walk towards West Street just to see if in fact that tower, the whole tower, had come down, which confirmed, yes, that it was completely down." [th south tower]
Then I just worked as the liaison office with OEM,
Casaliggi, Joseph Firefighter Engine 7
Was with Chief Pfieffer on Church Street Near Canal 'operating a box' on an odor of gas in the area. He heard the first plane coming in and watched the plane crash into the north tower. He was outside when he saw the second plane hit the second building.
We were actually one of the first companies on the scene.
The lobby actually looked like the plane hit the lobby. From what I understand, I was told afterwards, that a fireball shot down the elevator shaft and blew out all the windows in the lobby and blew out the elevator doors.
I noticed there were several people sitting in the grass in front of the building burned head to toe, gray, just staring at us.
I stayed in the lobby. I didn't know at that point if he was getting me a partner or if he was getting -- I thought I was going to stay there, I wasn't going up. I didn't know what I was doing at that point. So I stayed around, waiting to be told what to do. I was in the lobby for about 40 minutes.
I saw another body crash down through the canopy.
As I was leaving the building, I heard them at the command post talking about moving the
command post to the other side of West Street. I suggested to the chauffeur we make our way back to the command post, let somebody know who we are and where we are and that we're okay.
They told me that they were looking for me and the chauffeur, that we were the only two from the company not accounted for.
Q: All the other guys got out?
A: Yeah, everybody from our company -- I don't know how. That's when I heard that Engine 7 got up to the 30th, 35th floor, somewhere in there, and they had gotten out just before the
building came down, before the north tower came down.
Casey, Gerard Firefighter Ladder 122, Firefighter Second Grade
Vinny Brunton [no transcript]
Koyles [no transcript]
We had spots in front of the rig where there were a lot of bodies and debris in front of us, body parts.
We couldn't go through the front of the north tower because there were too many bodies on the ground.
...proceeded to the overpass that is next to the Marriott, I believe, on West Street, and we had to go underneath the overpass to avoid debris falling from the south tower and bodies. People were jumping.
132, 105 and 101 I saw. When we were in the lobby, I saw them. We were standing fast in the Marriott lobby.
I believe 24 Truck was behind 131.
Q: From there where did you go? Did you go to EMS?
A: I came out. I came out of the crater. The street was gone, the restaurant and everything was gone. I saw Koyles and Vitiello. They were alive.
Casey, James Lieutenant Engine 91
WHILE THERE, IT WAS CALLED OVER THE COMMAND CENTER THAT THERE WAS A CIVILIAN EMPLOYEE, AN ENGINEER FROM TWO WORLD TRADE CENTER. HE SAID HE KNEW HOW WE COULD CONTROL THE VALVES TO INCREASE THE WATER PRESSURE IN THE BUILDING. SO WE WERE ORDERED TO GO OVER THERE. HOWEVER, WE DID NOT HAVE FORCIBLE ENTRY TOOLS. I SENT MY CHAUFFEUR BACK TO THE RIG TO OBTAIN THE FORCIBLE ENTRY TOOLS AND WHILE WAITING, TWO WORLD TRADE CENTER COLLAPSED.
Q: MAYDAYS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT
A: I'M TRYING TO THINK. I KNOW THERE WERE MAYDAYS ALL OVER THE PLACE THAT DAY. I CAN'T SAY FOR SURE.
Q: NO PARTICULAR COMPANY OR ANYTHING STICKS OUT IN YOUR MIND?
A: NO THERE WERE MAYDAYS THAT WERE COMING ALL OVER ALL THE TIME. BETWEEN THAT AND THE JUMPERS THAT WAS BASICALLY IT.
Casey, William Firefighter Engine 21
This asshole helps some guy down from the upper floors and then losses him on West Street when the second building comes down. Uses his face piece for oxygen for himself but forgets about the other guy. Assclown.
We walked into Tower 1, the north tower, and hung out in the lobby waiting for instructions on what to do. At that point, it was a lot of chaos. You were hearing jumpers. You were hearing different things going on. You saw different companies. We weren't told what to do really. So then we got our instructions, and we followed the captain by an elevator, one of the
elevator banks. Somebody told us there was somebody trapped in the elevator, so we opened up the doors. We had the rabbit tools, so we just pried it open a little bit, and then we pulled it open ourselves, and there was a lady in there, and we got her out.
We then went to another embankment, because we were with -- I believe the company -- I believe it was 13 truck. I'm not really sure at that time. We were going to go up the stairs, but we ended up -- there is an elevator would go up to the 24th Floor, which is what we took.
Cars were blowing up. I guess stuff hit it, and they started -- you know, it was pretty weird.
We thought maybe our captain was out. We found out he was the only one, of course, that didn't get out
Cassano, Salvatore Chief Command Center
Mike Canty, Battalion Chief [no transcript]
Donald Burns [no transcript]
Captain Walter Hynes, 13 Truck [no transcript]
Captain Dave Wooley, who is usually with engine 54 [no transcript]
when on the Department radio, there was a message blurted out that - something to the effect that the outside of the World Trade Center was on fire.
But inside the lobby of the Millennium [sic] it was very quiet. Very few civilians. In fact, I didn't see a civilian. All I saw were building employees. They were very calm. So I went into the lobby of the hotel. We saw 13 truck with Captain Walter Hynes, who I knew, and Captain Dave Wooley, who is usually with engine 54. I saw 11 truck in the lobby. Actually they were up on the mezzanine.
We got to get them out of there and that's when tower one came down, so I was on West
Street. I looked up. There was a jet plane. It sounded - I mean it sounded like another plane coming over and I said holy god, I hope it's one of ours. I looked up. It wasn't ours. There was a building coming down.
Q: Other than the ladder companies or engine companies you already delineated inside of the Millennium Hotel, other than the workers, how many civilians did you see in that restaurant?
A: I would say probably six or seven civilians in the restaurant.
Q: On Vesey Street when you first arrived there, what was the scene like? That was where the first plane that hit. Was there any debris on that street?
A: No, there was no debris on that street at all from the first plane. I drove right up there and then like I said, I had just opened my door and the second -- I thought it was the secondary explosion. I didn't know it was another plane in the south tower, because when I heard it, I looked up and I saw debris.
Q. You mentioned jumpers before. Did you see them?
A. Yes.
Q. Both towers?
A. I didn't see jumpers from the south tower. I saw jumpers from the north tower and it sounded like concrete falling, hitting the pavement. That's what I was concerned with, those people in the restaurant, to get them out and getting hit with either the jumpers or something falling, windows. I was worried about glass.
Q. You mentioned Father Judge. Where did you last see him?
A. I saw Father Judge as I was walking to the Millennium. He was on West Street. And I saw him come out and I walked up to him, gave him a smile. I told him Father Judge, we are going to need a lot of help here. You better get some more chaplains. He smiled and said something. I forget what he said. I don't remember what he said. That was the last time I saw
him.
Cassidy, Tiernach Firefighter ENGINE 3 FIREFIGHTER THIRD GRADE
Mickey Cross [no transcript]
I WAS RIGHT OVER AT 20 TRUCK AND SQUAD 18'S QUARTERS ON LAFAYETTE BETWEEN SPRING AND PRINCE.
STILL I WAS IN SHOCK. I WAS STANDING THERE, STANDING ON THE ROOF, NOT WATCHING THE TV, STANDING ON THE ROOF WATCHING. WE DON'T ACTUALLY SEE THE SECOND PLANE HIT, BUT WE SEE THE IMPACT. WE WERE ON, OF COURSE, THE NORTH SIDE, SO WE SAW THE HUGE EXPLOSION ENGULF THE WHOLE TOP OF THAT BUILDING.
MYSELF AND TEN OTHER MEMBERS THAT WERE THERE ON LIGHT DUTY WE ALL JUMPED ON TOP OF 47 TRUCK AND WE HEADED DOWN BROADWAY.
SO WE GOT DOWN TO CHURCH AND LIBERTY AND HE ASKED ME WHICH WAY SHOULD WE GO AND I DIDN'T KNOW. WE COULDNT WALK THROUGH 10 AND 10,
THE STREET WAS AT LEAST THREE STORIES HIGH OF DEBRIS COVERING 10 AND 10.
HE SAID HE FOUND HIM IT WAS THE GUYS FROM 36 THAT PORT AUTHORITY COP THREE CIVILIANS AND FRIEND OF MINE MICKEY CROSS.
A: SO THE PORT AUTHORITY COP COMES OUT FIRST. THERE WAS CHIEF, THERE TWO CHIEFS. I THINK . I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER.
Q: THESE GUYS WERE DOWN IN THE HOLE? WHERE WERE THESE GUYS? ALL THESE GUYS?
A: THE FOURTH FLOOR OF THE NORTH TOWER WHEN IT CAME DOWN.
I MEAN, I THOUGHT THAT DAY WE WERE GOING TO FIND HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WALKING OUT, YOU KNOW. WE'D JUST TAKE THEM OUT.
BUT THOSE 10 OR 11 WE FOUND RIGHT THERE THAT WAS IT FOR THAT DAY.
AT THIS POINT NOW THE OFFICER I WAS WITH WAS GIVING CALLS FOR THE STOKES BASKET BECAUSE THE CIVILIANS THAT WERE DOWN THERE WERE NOT WALKING OUT.
MICKEY WAS THE THIRD GUY TO COME OUT
THEN THE GUYS FROM 36 CAME OUT NEXT 36 TRUCK. THEN WE STARTED RUNNING CIVILIANS OUT
THEN LIKE I SAID BUILDING SEVEN WAS IN EMINENT COLLAPSE THEY BLEW THE HORNS THEY SAID EVERYONE CLEAR THE AREA UNTIL WE GOT THAT LAST CIVILIAN OUT WE TRIED TO GIVE ANOTHER QUICK SEARCH WHILE WE COULD BUT THEN THEY WOULDN'T LET US STAY ANYMORE.
SO YEAH THEN WE JUST STAYED ON VESEY UNTIL BUILDING SEVEN CAME DOWN THERE WAS NOTHING WE COULD DO THE FLAMES WERE COMING OUT OF EVERY WINDOW OF THAT BUILDING FROM THE EXPLOSION OF THE SOUTH TOWER, SO THEN BUILDING SEVEN DOWN WHEN THAT STARTED COMING DOWN YOU HEARD THAT PANCAKING SOUND AGAIN.
Castellano, Pete Firefighter Ladder 149
Tommy McGoff, Lieutenant [no transcript]
Vinnie Marsala (18 engine and rescue 3?) [no transcript]
Another chief asked us to search financial center Building 1, see if anybody was in the building. We started making a search of that building. We were ordered out of that building. We got -- like collapsed. We were ordered out of that building.
"...and we started working on a guy that was trapped on top of an elevator shaft, and I wound up working my way down to the elevator shaft."
Q. The lieutenant you said you saw, what unit was he from? Come up Broadway dazed?
A. Oh, like I seen Tommy McGoff, Lieutenant McGoff.
Q. From?
A. Downtown Brooklyn company. I found out later he was there when the first fireman was killed by a jumper, and he went to help the fireman, and half his company went into the tower, and they were lost, and he couldn't find them. That's why he was in the state he was in, but that was -- I heard that story later.
Ceriello, John Firefighter Ladder 20
Lieutenant Kerwin of 288 [no transcript]
Lieutenant Dowdell, Rescue 4 [no transcript]
Tony Castagna Hazmat 1 [no transcript]
Phil Latimer, proby originally in 35 Truck, now is in hazmat [no transcript]
Joey Hunter, from 288 and Rescue 4 [no transcript]
Ronnie Gies, from 288 and Rescue 4 [no transcript]
Bronco Pearsall, from 288 and Rescue 4 [no transcript]
John Ielpi, from 288 and Rescue 4 [no transcript]
So thinking that it was just prior to 9:00 there would be a ton of traffic, I jumped on my bicycle. I live in Carroll Gardens. I rode over the Brooklyn Bridge. When I was roughly in
the middle of the span, there was a massive explosion on the south tower. Again I didn't see a plane or anything, so I didn't know it was a plane that hit the tower. I think in my mind I just thought there was a massive explosion on one of the upper floors and now you had a real bad fire.
The south tower was down. You really couldn't tell it was completely down, but you could tell
most of it wasn't there.
At that point we took off climbing over debris and whatnot on West Street. We passed a
black woman with a broken leg with a firefighter on the sidewalk. We told them to stay put, that someone would come get them.
When we were in the American Express building, we did see some people jumping and
whatnot. We knew we had a bad scene on our hands.
I basically operated on West and Liberty until about 1:00 in the morning. I never really went much up Liberty, and I never really went much north on West Street. I stayed in that quadrant right by what was the Marriott Hotel, making entrances and then running out because the buildings were collapsing and going back in, all that stuff.
Charles, Jason EMT Battalion 13
Firefighter Anderson, an IC for the fire cadets [no transcript]
Naomi [last name] EMT out of Battalion 16 [no transcript]
Jerry Toyloy, of Battalion 13 [no transcript]
Salguera, EMT from 16 [no transcript]
AND NOW I'M PASSING THE POLICE ACADEMY WHICH I THINK IS ON 21ST
STREET, 21ST STREET BETWEEN SECOND AND THIRD, AND I SEE A COP STANDING WITH THE BARRICADES, NEXT TO THE BARRICADE, AND HES LOOKING LIKE HE WANTS TO GO
NOW WE'RE IN CHINA TOWN AS I RIDE BEHIND THEM, I GUESS THEY WERE LIKE SPECIAL FORCES FROM THE COURTS OR THE FBI BUILDING IN THAT AREA, FEDERAL COPS OR WHATEVER, JUMPED IN FRONT OF ME AND I YELLED AT HIM EMS EMS AND HE JUMPED OUT OF MY WAY AND KEPT I RIDING
I SAW ONE PERSON FALL OUT THE BUILDING
I SEE DETECTIVES AND FBI AGENTS RUNNING AROUND THE STREET LIKE THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.
I RAN BACK OVER TO FULTON AND CHURCH AND THE PA COP WAS STILL STANDING
THERE AND HE RUNS OVER TO ME AND I TELL HIM, YOU KNOW, STAY THE FUCK OVER THERE, AND HE'S LIKE, ALL RIGHT, THE FBI IS GOING TO STOP ME. SO AS I'M WALKING BY HIM THE FBI COPS LOOKED, THE FBI AGENTS, SORRY THEY'RE LOOKING AT ME, AND THEY'RE LIKE, YOU KNOW, THEY JUST LOOKED AT ME AND JUST LET ME GO THROUGH.
I SAW THE---IT LOOKED LIKE THE TOP MAYBE 70, 60 FLOORS COMING OFF THE BUILDING.
---THAT HORRIBLE TWISTING METAL SOUND OF A FREIGHT TRAIN OR WHATEVER---
MIND YOU BEFORE THAT, WHICH I FOUND A LITTLE WEIRD, BEFORE THE TOWERS FELL THERE WERE LOT OF PEOPLE FALLING OUT OF THE BUILDING, LIKE, YOU KNO
I DON'T KNOW. LIKE THEY WERE JUST THROWING THEMSELVES OUT, LIKE, THEY WERE JUST LINED UP AND GOING LIKE PARATROOPERS, AND AT ONE POINT RIGHT BEFORE THE TOWERS CAME DOWN THAT STOPPED. IT WAS LIKE THE PEOPLE THAT
WERE COMING OUT JUST STOPPED COMING OUT THE WINDOW FOR WHATEVER REASON. I FOUND THAT A LITTLE WEIRD/
AND THERE WAS THIS FEMALE FROM ENGLAND WHO WAS ON THE 90TH FLOOR OF TOWER 1 WHO TOLD ME SHE HAD JUST BARELY MADE IT OUT OF THERE WHEN THE TOWERS CAME DOWN SHE LOST BOTH HER SHOES
WE START WALKING BACK THERE AND THEN I HEARD A GROUND LEVEL EXPLOSION AND I'M LIKE HOLY SHIT AND THEN YOU HEARD THAT TWISTING METAL WRECKAGE AGAIN
I RAN OVER TO A HARDWARE SHOP THAT THE FIRE DEPARTMENT HAD BROKEN INTO TO USE A LOT OF THE MASKS THAT THEY HAD IN THERE
THE TRIAGE CENTER WE WERE IN HAD TO BE EVACUATED BECAUSE THEY WERE PRETTY SURE THAT BUILDING WAS GOING TO COME DOWN INTO IT
AT THAT POINT THERE WAS JUST NOTHING BUT COPS. I DON'T KNOW WHY THERE WERE COURT OFFICERS OVER THERE IT DIDN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE THAT THE COURT OFFICERS WERE THERE. THIS IS MY OPINION BUT THEY WERE THERE LIKE JUST MILLING AROUND
Chelsen, Roy Firefighter Engine 28, firefighter first grade
We reported to the command desk, the command post there, and we immediately started
going up. They just said, "28, start heading up."
I believe 4 Engine was with us, there was 28, and I believe 8 Truck was with us.
I know we were paired up with 4 Engine. 5 Engine was with us.
We got out and we got under the bridge. A couple bodies came down, flying down, just in
front of our guys. We just got under the bridge and like, okay, it's safe, it's good. All of a sudden we heard this huge explosion, and that's when the tower started coming down. We all
started running.
Cherrington, Andre Paramedic Battalion 31
So as I was pulling off, I’d say about half a block away, we heard a big boom, and we seen a whole bunch of ashes, everything just started coming towards us.
So another lieutenant came there and said well, they might need some paramedics at Ground Zero. They were saying something about there were amputated patients there who, once they
get them out of the rubble, they’re gonna need us to start lines, whatever and get them to the nearest hospital. So we went back to Ground Zero.
I mean, I did what I had to do, I took one patient, we took care of it and got him to the hospital. And you know, I did say, well I saved one person. I know I did save one person, and that’s all that matters. I was there for X Amount of hours and I did one good thing. And my partner too.
Chesney, William Firefighter Engine Company 309
we were notified by the dispatcher to I believe the Deutsche Bank, which had I believe been set afire or there was a collapse there. I'm not sure what the assignment was. I'm fuzzy on that.
We were assigned to put a fire out on the eighth or ninth floor of Gateway at the time. We went up there with hoses.
[Fuzzy indeed.]
Chiafari, Joseph Lieutenant Safety Command
firefighter Bob Crawford from the Safety Battalion [no transcript] dead
Lieutenant Tom McGoff, Engine 217,
I heard Chief of Department Ganci from his office yell out oh, shit, a plane just hit the Trade Center.
I was driving Chief Turi that day when we left the building and we headed over the Brooklyn Bridge.
We locked up the car, started heading across Church Street when we heard a roar of a jet engine, as if it was taking off in flight and we couldn't help but look into the sky to see exactly what it was and yes, it was a plane, just prior to striking the building and the engines were revved up fully. From that you saw it actually piercing the wall of the building with a large amount of fire coming from it.
...you could see the aftermath of what was in the street, along with some airplane parts, which were definitely very visible and identifiable what they were.
We kept, of course, looking up to see if anybody was possibly jumping down. Again, we didn't
see any jumpers at that point, but being aware of possibly people coming down. We came across some, again, some airplane parts that were actually smoking and it was very real to us what had happened. Still not believing what had happened, of course.
We were walking up the walkway to the front of tower one. We were met by a couple of firemen that said watch out, people are jumping, advised us that people were coming down the front of the building in the front of the building, and it was evident that at that point you could see body remains, not fully intact of course, they looked like hunks of meat, just laying
on the walkway and roadway itself.
There in the lobby command post there was Chief Hayden, who was in the Division that day and later we had Chief Cruthers there, along with the Fire Commissioner, Von Essen, Tom Fitzpatrick, Donald Burns was there.
When Chief Turi and I went into the building [lobby of one]
While we were in there, a pretty big concern was the condition of the elevator cars, whether they were operating or not, and that if the cables would fail, if they come crashing down into the lobby area and then blow out into the lobby where most people were congregating. They wanted to get everybody out of the lobby areas themselves.
I didn't know what it was at first. I thought it was guys venting from above, but it wound up
being the breaking of glass taking place and you didn't know what it was and it wound up being the glass canopy out in the front of the building there. There were actually people that were plunging through the glass as you actually were standing there hearing that taking
place.
Visibly from where we were standing, I estimate that I probably saw about a hundred people
jumping to their death. Some looked like they were in pairs, but most of them were singly, free falling, to such a degree that they were doing tumblesalts in the air and forcibly landing to the ground, or very impactly landing on top of that glass canopy, which seemed to be like almost like individual skylights that were -- they were breaking through. Very noticeably you could hear them like pounding, almost like a bomb going off, a small bomb, like paum, paum. And so there was a lot of glass breaking...
There was talk about not knowing the stability of the building. I heard that being mentioned and not knowing where that report came from. It's like somebody was questioning the stability of the building. In fact, that was coming from Steve Mosiello, the executive assistant for Ganci. I think somebody asked him and he mentioned to Ganci. Somebody mentioned about the stability of the building. That happened to be shortly before the building did come
down.
There was a time where he did -- actually standing there, you heard actually what sounded like another plane flying overhead. I remember even asking one of the guys from Con Ed that was happening to stand there. I didn't know if they were blowing off any steam from the building or blowing off any residual gas or anything, but it sounded like the roar of a plane, and most likely we learned that that was like military jets that may have been flying overhead to monitor what was going on in the harbor area. But that was very noticeable and you couldn't help but look up again to see what was going on.
I remember even seeing -- oh, here is another person I saw at the command post who
later did not survive, a guy I previously worked with, Ray York, who, from my understanding, he came from the fire zone over in mid Manhattan. I think he was on light duty. He saw me. I saw him. It was almost like a wave type of thing. I'm saying in my mind, what is he doing
here. I know he's not with a fire company, but I saw him there and then later on realizing that he didn't make it. It's amazing how you see a face and knowing their whereabouts afterwards, that they weren't there.
Q. You saw him at the command post?
A. At the command post on the West Street side.
Q. Not at tower one?
A. No.
Q. On West Street?
A. Yes
Chillemi, Salvatore Firefighter Engine 260
Weird little four-page transcript, interviewed by Chief Burns, of all people. Very difficult to get the pdf to open. Had to go to archive.org, and even then still had trouble. Of no account. Arrived between one and two's collapse--so what?
Chyriwski, Robert Firefighter Engine Company 3
Firefighter Adam Mazy [no transcript]
Was on the stairs in the north tower
So I tried further down West Street, which I'm probably right around across from the hotel, the Marriott, when I hear this loud noise, this crash. That's when the second plane hit Tower 2. So I managed to turn around and head back up north towards 1 World Trade, not knowing what had happened, that it was a plane that hit.
Another one of my members was detailed to 26 Engine. He was like an extra man. He jumped on a rig and he didn't have a mask. So he came up to me and I gave him my chauffeur's mask so he can go operate, and he ended up hooking with 12 Truck because he missed 26 Engine going in. His name was Adam Mazy.
by 3 World Financial Center, That was when 2 World Trade started to come down. People were just saying run, run. So I just took off. I started running north and then I head west
down Vesey Street, and I guess I ran down until I got to North End. There was another block and I started running north again, and luckily I was able to beat out the whole dust cloud. I didn't get enveloped in it.
Cifu, Ronald Firefighter Engine Company 16
That's when the first person jumped. I was on West Street. I backed up a little bit.
Then another person jumped. There had to be at least 15 people that just jumped in the amount of like ten minutes. The time was around 9:15, 9:20 at that point.
When I first got there, there were a lot of maydays and urgent messages. One of the messages I heard was we lost an elevator, and then there was a second message that we lost another elevator.
I got back up on my feet and went back to my rig. I pulled my rig a little closer. I hooked up.
We were trying to keep some of the dust down. We had a couple of the stangs going to try to keep some of the dust down. I wasn't really sure if there was a collapse. I thought it might have been a partial collapse, maybe just the top floors.
Cimillo, William Firefighter Ladder Company 49
We were walking down there. They're like, "You're going into tower two. Get up as
far as you can and help out." We're walking down the block. We get to about -- less than half a block away from tower two, and I just remember looking up and the top of the building just
teetered and I saw the radio tower wobble and the whole building just came down on top of everybody that was there.
Cira, David EMT Division 4
paramedic Adam Schriebman [no transcript]
Cirillo, Brian EMT Battalion 4
THE CHIEF WHO HAPPENED TO BE THERE WITH ME SAID TAKE THEM UPTOWN TO THE FURTHEST HOSPITAL CAUSE WHAT WAS AROUND WAS BASICALLY
JAM PACKED
Citarella, John Firefighter Lieutenant FDNY, of hazmat operations,
Survived the first collapse inside the lobby of the Marriott with all these people, who didn't make it out
Lieutenant Steve Turilli, from the rescue school,
Freddie Scheffold, Rescue 3, "Freddie wasn't even working that day."
Joe Marchbanks, Rescue 3
Larry Stack
Brian Meyers
Kerwin from 288
As we were walking down West Street, there were numerous people jumping out of the top
floors, the upper floors. They were landing right next to us. I remember them hitting my leg as they were landing, parts hitting the divider on West Street.
When we were walking down Liberty Street, there was I think a guy from 217. He was an officer. I think he was from 217. He was screaming at us. We came over, "What's going on?" He told us that a fireman just got killed, got hit by a body in that spot that we were walking.
Right as he said that, I heard a loud roar, "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom," and
it was getting louder.
We walked about maybe 10 feet to 15 feet up West Street. We ran into Joe Angelini. Joe said he was going to go back. He was going to try to go into the hotel because he thought there were more people in there.
Joe Angelini and I were out in West Street, and he starts walking towards the hotel. We tried to tell him, "Joe, they want everyone out of here. They think the other one is going to come down." He started walking over.
I turned, I took maybe a couple more steps, and then I heard another explosion, it sounded like. I looked up, and the north tower was starting to come down.
But that was pretty much all the guys that I saw in the street. I know Joe Angelini they found in the street and Ganci and Feehan they found in the street.
Claes, Marcel Firefighter Engine 24
Paul Keating, [no transcript]
when we got in there, we saw a lot of damage in the lobby around the elevator banks, and we found -- I found out that it was hit by a plane, thinking it was an accident.
So we proceeded up with other engine companies and truck companies in Stairwell A. After a dozen floors or so, we started to take breaks every four floors. We didn't realize it was hit by -- we didn't realize 2 World Trade was hit by an air plane, so we kept going up. It was single file, civilians going down and firemen going up. The civilians were orderly and blessing us and helping the injured down.
We made it up to the -- I believe the 35th story.
we were going to hook up with another engine company to make it up there -- easier to get up there. We were going to have some guys just take cylinders and the other guys take hoses,
we got separated because I found out later that one of our -- Richard Billy was on the 27th
story in the hallway with a woman in, I believe, a wheelchair, and the rest of the company went in to get him.
I saw building employees running around. There was a lot of debris in the lobby. I went out the same way I came in. That was on the northwest corner of tower -- 1 World Trade.
Q. On the map on there?
A. I went out a window that was taken out, because I knew my engine was parked on that side. I made it out to the -- I saw a man in the courtyard. He was waving me out, like come on out, get out of there. I didn't look up. I just went out to the street.
At one point, a rescue company came by, and they walked in to the -- you know, this is after the collapses. I they walked in. I guess they did their thing. I guess they were -- actually I don't know what they were doing. They must have got off. You know, they were off that day and went back to the company to gear up and made it there on their own.
All morning I was watching 7 World Trade burn, which we couldn't do anything about because it was so much chaos looking for missing members.
I walked to the firehouse, and I made it to Canal Street, and I saw another fireman, a messenger I believe he was, and he drove me to the firehouse, and I took a shower and talked to the guys for awhile,
I believe they took it to the Sanitation Department, and they power washed it, and we got it
back here. We had to hose the inside out, and we stocked it with whatever we had in the tool shed, and we went back in service around six o'clock that night. We didn't have many runs, but I think that was the only operating engine covering lower Manhattan, except for the one that was operating within the collapse zone, the ground zero.
We did go back Thursday night. Was it Thursday? I think yeah, we did go back. It was our turn to good back to ground zero, and all I did was fill buckets with dust and debris. It rained that night, so we went back to the -- after a number of hours, we went back to the firehouse.
So Saturday I came back to the firehouse, and I was due to work at my light-duty position at Rac 5 Sunday morning. I went home -- when I got home Monday morning, we started with wakes and funerals all that week, because they did recover guys from Ladder 5, so we were off.
Basically, I didn't come back to the firehouse until the following week. The following week
after Greg Sausito's memorial Mass, and then we were on -- when I was scheduled to come back to work. They went back to the regular schedule.
Clarke, Charles Captain Engine 211
By this time, it had to be 11:00 o'clock at night...Then we came back down and started walking down Church, and I was kind of amazed that one building was burning on 90 West, I noticed, but I was amazed that all the tenements on Cortlandt and Dey, Fulton, none of them were on fire. I figured there would be a lot of fire and there was none.
Cohen, Marc Paramedic Battalion 22, SHIELD 2093 EMS COMMAND
WE WERE ON THE 59TH STREET BRIDGE WHEN OUT OF THE CORNER OF OUR EYE WE SAW THE FIRST PLANE HIT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE 59TH STREET BRIDGE WE NOTICED THE SMOKE.
HE HANDED US KEYS TO VEHICLE AND WITH ABOUT FIVE ADDITIONAL OFF DUTY EMS MEMBERS DON'T KNOW THEIR NAMES THEY WERE WORKING ALSO AT THE LOCAL UNION THAT DAY WE GOT ON THE FDR SOUTHBOUND
Colon, John Firefighter Ladder 43
The officer, Glen Rohan, told Jerry Suden to put out car fires.
We climbed up a 35 foot portable ladder and we helped get the officer from Engine 1, who was deceased.
Congiusta, Frank Battalion Chief, Battalion 48
WHILE WE WERE ON THE PROSPECT EXPRESSWAY THE FIRST TOWER COLLAPSED. WHEN WE GOT ON THE GOWANUS I FIGURED THE TOP WOULD FALL OFF. ON THE RADIO THEY SAID THE TOWER COLLAPSED. WE WERE TRYING TO SEE WHAT WAS LEFT OF THE FIRST TOWER THAT COLLAPSED AND WE COULDN'T SEE ANYTHING BUT IT WAS HARD TO TELL THROUGH THE SMOKE.
WE SEARCHED THE EIGHT FLOORS OF THE CUSTOMS BUILDING ON THE WEST SIDE
THE WHOLE MIDDLE OF THE BUILDING WAS BLOCKED OUT BY COLLAPSE
WHILE WE WERE SEARCHING THE SUBBASEMENTS THEY DECIDED THAT SEVEN WORLD TRADE CENTER WHICH WAS ACROSS THE STREET WAS GOING TO COLLAPSE SO THEY CALLED US OUT.
Conlon, Paul Captain Engine 216
Ted Murray, Chauffeur, Engine 216 [no transcript]
"Chris" Engine 216 [no transcript]
Tony Sanseviro, "backup," Engine 216 [no transcript]
John Johnson, probie, Engine 216 [no transcript]
Danny Suhr's captain,
"DAN HAD THE CONTROL OR THE HOOKUP AS HE CALLED IT, TED MURRAY WAS THE CHAUFFEUR, CHRIS WAS THE NOZZLE, AND TONY SANSEVIRO WAS THE BACKUP, JOHN JOHNSON WAS A PROBIE,"
Connolly, Patrick Firefighter Ladder 16
Brian Connolly, Ladder 17, [no transcript]
Joe Brosi, Fire Marshal, [no transcript]
[Self-responds with his brother. Survives second collapse inside Building 7.]
My brother drove us -- my other brother drove us to the Midtown Tunnel.
There were some interior stairs and they were gonna go down to probably more like a bomb shelter area and I think when Joe looked, it looked like it was destroyed.
And as we came out we started to walk north and slowly but surely and up and over and under steel and cars were -- cars with tires and cars were popping and they were just starting to light up spontaneously and there was near zero visibility at this stage.
Constantine, Peter EMT Battalion 20
As we started heading down the West Side Highway, we saw the second plane, we saw both towers on fire.
At that time, I don’t know what time it was, we heard across the radio the tower’s gonna fall, the tower’s gonna fall.
Q: You heard that on the radio?
A: Oh yeah, it came across. And then all of a sudden, when you looked up, you froze for a couple of seconds, you saw these little pieces falling off. Then all of a sudden, everyone started to run. Then, you started to run, your helping people, helping them run. You saw it, it was amazing…like out of a movie, you know, the cloud’s just chasing you. As you look back, you see it engulf people.
Everybody ran again, then there was a gas leak they said, they pushed everybody way back to 23rd. So you had all these units, all these rescue people stationed at 23rd street, and you couldn’t do anything.
I’m too young though, I’m 23.
Conzo, Joseph EMT Battalion 26, SHIELD NUMBER 2577,
AS WE STAGED ACROSS THE STREET CHIEF CHARLIE WELLS GRABBED MY PARTNER AND I AND SAID WE ARE GOING INTO THE BUILDING
AS WE WERE ENTERING IN THERE WITH OUR EQUIPMENT WE HEARD WHAT SEEMED TO BE A THIRD PLANE HITTING BUT I FOUND OUT LATER IT WAS THE COLLAPSE OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER.
[Blacked out name, as he walks to the water with DeShore]
I STOOD THERE AND I WAS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO COMMANDEER A GOLF CART, A GATOR WHICH WAS THE ONLY THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY MANEUVER...
Cook, Louis Paramedic Division 2
Raoul Perez, medic [no transcript]
Joan Hill Gardner, "EMS people doing some election detail stuff," [no transcript]
Bill Haigney, "EMS people doing some election detail stuff," [no transcript]
Kevin Kelleher, paramedic [no transcript]
Felix Marquez, paramedic [no transcript]
Jerry Bacchus EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Roger Ahee EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Billy Olsen EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Mark Steffens EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Bobby Brown EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Billy Day EMS/EMT [no transcript]
Ron Pfeffer EMS/EMT [no transcript]
[Was associated with Chief Basile. Was on the North pedestrian bridge when the first collapse happened. Survived second collapse "shy"of Vesey Street. Meets back up with Basile near the water on Vesey shortly after the second collapse.]
We walked up West Street northbound to get to the command post, and there I remember
looking to my right and seeing an aircraft landing gear tire. I remember we were walking up, we were zigzagging through bodies and body parts. I just remember the smell of it being like a butcher shop with all the bodies around. I remember smelling that distinctly.
So Basile gets told by Gombo to set up at the south ferry, and we just kind of take our stuff and we started walking out of the hotel and we start walking from North End Avenue. We
looked. From where we are you can kind of see the pit and you can see the debris and everything going on.
I remember Billy Olsen coming over on the ferry. He said he had a skating rink on the other side set up and iced over for a morgue. He set that up. I didn't know what to say about that. I just let it go. There was nothing I could tell him.
We went through Whitehall Street. We came south again from the towers. We tried to find the car. It was amazing to see just what was all over the place. Buildings burning without any fire suppression or anything going on. It was amazing. It was just chaos, just junk and cars crushed. The bodies that I remembered seeing on West Street when we were going up to the command post originally were just kind of like covered up. They were all covered. I remember just thinking where all the bodies are. I'm walking around now and I can't see them.
We got to Chambers and Greenwich, and the chief turns around and says, "There's number
Seven World Trade. That's the OEM bunker." We had a snicker about that. We looked over, and it's engulfed in flames and starting to collapse. We're kind of caught in traffic and people and things, and everything's going on. We hear over the fire portable, "Everybody evacuate the site. It's going to collapse." Mark Steffens starts yelling, "Get out of here! Get out of here! Get out of here! We've got to go! We've got to go! It's going to collapse." I turned around, and I piped up real loud and said, "Stay in the frigging car. Roll the windows up. It's pancake collapsing. We'll be find. The debris will quit and the cloud will come through. Just stay in the car." We pulled the car over, turned around and just watched it pancake. We had a dust cloud but nothing like it was before.
Cook, Robert EMT Battalion 31, Shield 3719
Lieutenant Lugo EMS [no transcript]
Well, we were getting fuel at
Ladder 118 when people were coming up to the firehouse,
it's right over on Midagh Street and Henry, telling us
that a plane hit the World Trade Center.
Once we got over the bridge, the second plane hit. There was an explosion. We didn't know it was a second plane. We thought it was just exploding from the first plane.
Cooke, Alan EMT Battalion 31
Victor Camile, EMT Battalion 31, [she] [no transcript]
Chris Jackson EMT [Curtis?] [no transcript]
AT THAT TIME WE STOPPED AND THAT'S WHEN I HEARD THE RUMBLE. I HEARD A RUMBLE. BOTH OF US LOOKED UP AND WE SAW A PART OF THE BUILDING, I SAW A PART OF THE BUILDING COMING DOWN. I HAD THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ONE PIECE OF THE BUILDING COMING DOWN. I DIDN'T IN MY IMAGINATION, I DIDN'T THINK
IT WAS THE ENTIRE BUILDING COMING DOWN.
WE GOT TO THE BEGINNING OF THE FDR DRIVE, BY THE FERRY, AND I GUESS BECAUSE OF THE WAY THE STREETS CHANNEL EVERYTHING, ONE OF THE FIRE BALLS OR WHATEVER, HAD TO HAVE MADE IT AS FAR AS THE SOUTH STREET SEAPORT, BECAUSE WHAT HAPPENED AT THAT TIME, IT SEEMED LIKE AN EXPLOSION WAS COMING FROM THERE. I THOUGHT AN EXPLOSION WAS COMING FROM THERE, THAT'S WHEN EVERYBODY STARTED RUNNING TOWARDS US FROM THE SEAPORT.
I KNEW AT THAT TIME THERE WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE ANY PLANES FLYING BUT I HEARD PLANES FLYING, AND AT THAT POINT I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE, I REALLY DID , I THOUGHT WHAT HAPPENED WAS THAT THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER, THEN I THOUGHT THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE AT THE SEAPORT. I THOUGHT THAT WAS A SECONDARY AND HERDING EVERYBODY TOWARDS THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE, BECAUSE EVERYBODY WAS ASKING ME WHERE
SHOULD WE GO, WHERE SHOULD WE GO. I JUST TOLD THEM TO GET ON THE HIGHWAY AND HEAD NORTH, OR TOWARDS BROOKLYN.
BEEKMAN NEEDED SOMEBODY WITH HEAD INJURY TRANSPORTED TO BELLEVUE. SO WE TRANSPORTED THAT GENTLEMAN TO BELLEVUE. HE DIDNT MAKE IT.
Coutsouros, Dean Firefighter 2nd Grade, Engine 220
Firefighter George Marsh [no transcript]
Firefighter Eddie Plunkett [no transcript]
Lieutenant John Orloff, Buffalo from 201
Dave Koyles, from Ladder 122, who was in the Marriott collapse.
AND WE GOT IN FRONT OF 90 WEST STREET. WE HELD UP THERE FOR FEW MINUTES UNDERNEATH THE SCAFFOLDING TO REASSESS THE SITUATION, HOW WE WERE GOING TO GET INTO THE BUILDING. THERE WAS ALL KINDS OF HUMAN DEBRIS, THE LANDING GEAR OF THE AIRCRAFT WAS IN THAT PARKING LOT THERE. IT WAS RIGHT NEAR US. THERE WAS ALL KIND OF STUFF ALL OVER THE FLOOR. OTHER COMPANIES NEAR US I THINK, WERE 205, AND THERE WAS A TRUCK COMPANY THERE, BUT I'M NOT REALLY SURE WHO IT WAS, IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 117.
I HAPPENED TO BE LOOKING UP AT IT, AND FROM THE FIRE FLOOR DOWN IT WAS JUST LIKE REALLY LOUD CRACKLING NOISE. IT SOUNDED LIKE A MILLION FIRECRACKERS AND JUST A WAVE, RIGHT FROM THE FIRE FLOOR DOWN, JUST A WAVE THAT STARTED TO COME DOWN.
OVER HERE THERE WAS A GAS LEAK. THE POLICE DEPARTMENT WAS TELLING EVERYBODY TO GET OUT OF THE AREA, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.
FROM THERE WE WOUND UP GETTING UP FROM THERE, WALKING AWAY, SOME GUY WITH GOLF CART TOOK US DOWN TO LIKE BATTERY PARK. FROM THERE TWO DETECTIVES THREW US IN THE BACK OF THEIR CAR AND THEY TOOK US TO THE STATEN ISLAND FERRY TERMINAL
Coyle, John Fire Marshall Brooklyn Base Squad 34
Joe Mazzarella [no transcript]
THERE WERE LOT OF PEOPLE JUMPING. THAT WAS HORRIBLE. I WAS SHOOK UP. I HAVE NEVER BEEN THAT SHAKEN UP BY ANYTHING BEFORE. I WASSTANDING THERE AND COULDN'T BELIEVE THAT. YOU COULD SEE PEOPLE APPARENTLY HOLDING THEIR COATS OUT TO TRY AND FLY OR SOMETHING AND THEN ADJUSTING TO THE LANDING. IT WAS FUCKING AWFUL.
THE TOWER WAS---IT LOOKED TO ME---I THOUGHT IT WAS EXPLODING ACTUALLY, THATS WHAT I THOUGHT FOR HOURS AFTERWARDS, THAT IT HAD EXPLODED OR THE PLANE OR THERE HAD BEEN SOME DEVICE ON THE PLANE THAT HAD EXPLODED BECAUSE THE DEBRIS FROM THE TOWER HAD SHOT OUT FAR OVER OUR HEADS IT WAS RAINING DOWN.
EVERYBODY THINK AT THAT POINT STILL THOUGHT THESE THINGS WERE BLOWN UP SO I WAS FULLY EXPECTING ANYTHING ELSE TO BLOW UP.
Coyne, Ronald EMT Battalion 44
[A real first-class looter.] [nearly four-pages blacked out.]
AND WAS LOOKING AT THE CAR GARAGES AND THE CARS IN THE STREET AND ME AND THREE BUDDIES OF MINE FROM STREET CRIME WERE BREAKING WINDOWS
IN THE CARS TO LOOK FOR INFANTS AND ADULTS UNCONSCIOUS ADULTS BECAUSE THERE WAS SO MUCH DUST ON THEM THAT WE COULDN'T SEE THROUGH.
I SEARCHED THE ENTIRE BUILDING TO MAKE SURE THERE WAS NOBODY IN IT THERE WAS NOBODY FOUND WHATEVER APARTMENT DOORS WERE OPEN I JUST TOOK PEAK IN TO SEE IF ANYBODY WAS ON THE FLOOR AND THEN AUTOMATICALLY
LOCKED THE DOORS AND LEFT THEN LEFT THE BUILDING AND WENT BACK TO TRY AND FIND MY PARTNER.
THERE WAS FRUIT PLACE OVER BY THE CORNER ON ONE OF THE CORNERS AND IT HAD ALREADY BEEN BLOWN APART BY THE BLAST AND THE COLLAPSE. I ENTERED IT, STARTED WASHING OFF FRUIT, HAD FIREMEN COMPLAINING OF CRAMPING IN THEIR STOMACHS AND IN THEIR LEGS AND I KNEW THEIR POTASSIUM WAS DROPPING SO I WAS BRINGING OUT BANANAS AND APPLES AND ALL SORTS OF FRUIT BASKETS OF THEM TO HAND THEM OUT TO THESE FIREMEN SO THAT THEY
COULD CONTINUE TO DO THEIR JOB.
I SAW HANDS AND LEGS AND I SAW A WOMAN IMPALED INTO WALL ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE BUILDING. I SAW PEOPLE JUMPING OUT OF THE WINDOWS
WHEN THEY WERE COLLAPSING, GOING THROUGH CARS AND HITTING THE PAVEMENT, AND THAT WAS ONLY EARLY IN THE MORNING.
Cronick, Kevin Firefighter Engine 3
Q. Where were you when the second tower collapsed?
A. When the second tower collapsed, we were just down by the river I think.
Q. Did the dust cloud get that far?
A. Not really, no. It never reached that point. That was pretty much where we remained until we moved back into the area.
Cruthers, Frank Chief Fire Department
[interview takes all of 15 minutes]
Chief Tom Haring from the Eighth Division, [no transcript]
And while I was still in that immediate area, the south tower, 2 World Trade Center, there was what appeared to be at first an explosion. It appeared at the very top, simultaneously from all four sides, materials shot out horizontally. And then there seemed to be a momentary delay before you could see the beginning of the collapse.
Early on, there was concern that 7 World Trade Center might have been both impacted by the
collapsing tower and had several fires in it and there was a concern that it might collapse. So we instructed that a collapse area --
Q. A collapse zone?
A. Yeah -- be set up and maintained so that when the expected collapse of 7 happened, we wouldn't have people working in it. There was considerable discussion with Con Ed regarding the substation in that building and the feeders and the oil coolants and so on. And their concern was of the type of fire we might have when it collapsed. They shut down the power, and when it did collapse, the things that they were concerned with would have been. That's about it.
Cruz, Allan EMT FDNY, SHIELD NUMBER 3361
AS EXITED MY VEHICLE SAW THIS HUGE FIRE UP ON THE BUILDING, YOU KNOW?
AS I WAS STANDING, THERE WAS BUNCH OF PEOPLE HIDING BEHIND AND AROUND
MY VEHICLE. AS WE WERE STANDING THERE, THIS ONE LADY TO MY LEFT GRABBED ME REALLY, REALLY TIGHT. MY FOREARM MY LEFT FOREARM. AND WE WERE BOTH LOOKING UP AT THIS FIRE. WE BOTH HEAR THIS RUMBLE AND FELT A VIBRATION. WE LOOKED SLIGHTLY TO THE LEFT ALL OF US THERE'S A WHOLE BUNCH OF US RIGHT NEXT TO MY VEHICLE AND HERE COMES THIS PLANE, HUGE PLANE. THE LADY NEXT TO ME SAYS, "OH MY GOD ITS GONNA HIT THE BUILDING!" I DIDN'T WANT TO GIVE HER FALSE INFORMATION, SO I SAID, "GEE, I DON'T THINK SO," WELL, I HOPE NOT, I MEAN WE'RE LOOKING AT IT SORT OF IN THREE DIMENSIONS
SO I'M THINKING ITS GONNA GO BEHIND THE BUILDING FROM WHERE WERE STANDING, IT'S GONNA GO RIGHT BEHIND IT BUT IT WAS TOO BIG AND FAR TOO LOW AT THAT MOMENT. I SAID ITS GONNA HIT ITS ACTUALLY GONNA HIT AND IT HIT, SHE SCREAMED, SHE SAID, "OH MY GOD!" AT WHICH POINT I SAID EVERYBODY JUST RUN, AND THERE WERE SOME CURSE WORDS. I TOLD EVERYBODY YOU GOTTA RUN RUN RUN THEY PROCEEDED TO RUN. IN TURN, I JUMPED INTO MY VEHICLE AND A WHOLE BUNCH OF DEBRIS JUST CAME CRASHING DOWN ON TOP OF MY VEHICLE AT WHICH POINT I SAID, NO I EXITED MY VEHICLE AND I TOO RAN BEHIND MY VEHICLE. UNBEKNOWNST TO ME THERE WERE STILL PEOPLE HIDING NOT
ONLY BEHIND BUT UNDERNEATH MY VEHICLE.
Culley, John Kevin Captain Office of Emergency Management
Was going to work area on 23rd floor at 7 World Trade Center on 9/11
"From the lobby we saw debris falling from above. We could not actually see the impact due to the view. When the debris stopped falling, I left the third-floor lobby, ran out onto the street, looked up, saw fire showing out of two, three floors, on two sides of the building, the north face and the east face of the building. There was no sign that it was a plane, at least not to me."
"what I'm supposed to do is liaison to any agencies other than Fire with the incident commander. So at that scene you had Port Authority, you had some other federal agencies, FBI is one that I recall, and you also had your building -- the World Trade Center Fire Safety
Director and his staff,"
"Q. What were you seeing in the lobby as you got there?
A. In the lobby, all the usual people, the 1st Division, 1st Battalion, reporting in units, I can't
remember specifically, the Fire Safety Director, who I recognized, FBI agents, people on the staff, building staff, particularly people that were involved with helping us read the elevator panels."
"There were no elevators in operation. What made it more of a problem is that all those elevators were shut down and there were people in them. So we were actually -- once I had staff that could operate the panel, they could speak to each individual elevator, ask how many people are in the elevator, what floor they were on, and if there's anyone injured, and I was passing that information on to the incident commander."
"Q. Can you describe what you visually were seeing around, like outside or on the concourse?
A. On the concourse? I don't remember on the concourse. In the lobby? As I said, the usual people that would show up. I saw at least three chaplains there."
"Also, I'd note that, once I arrived at the fire command station, I was told by someone who had
actually witnessed the plane hitting it that it was indeed a plane. Up until that point, I thought it was a bomb."
"Q. Were there any communications at that point; radios still working?
A. The radio that I carry is an 800 megahertz connected to the OEM channels. I was transmitting and receiving. All the Fire Department radios that I was aware of were transmitting, you know, you could hear all the conversations going on."
"It was also clear then that there wasn't any control of that building, no elevators, communications above. Except for that one conversation on the 51st floor, as far as I know, there were no other conversations. That doesn't mean I knew everything. We did have conversations with people stuck on elevators and that was it."
"Q. The first building came down. What was the operation line? What was going on?
A. Nothing really had changed. Like I said, all the elevators were still stuck. I think there were
elevators that were on the first floor, the doors closed. Not that I saw it. I looked at the panel and realized that some of these stuck elevators are right here on the lobby floor and people were assigned to go take care of that."
"A. We found an opening and ran what I thought was directly down a set of stairs. I found out later we actually were in a hallway for a while and then ducked into some stairs. My belief is that we actually ran out of the building enclosed. The stairwell we were in was probably inside of 6 World Trade."
"We stumbled upon Judge. He had no pulse. One of the Chiefs just said we're not going to leave
him here. We just picked him up and went up the stairs we came down. I can't tell you how we got outside. It was still dark. We ended up in front of-- we ended up on the west face of 6 World Trade Center, which happens to be up on a pedestrian walkway which is like three stories up. We had no way to get down. So we were still carrying the chaplain. We come around on the Vesey side of this pedestrian walkway. You really couldn't see more than about 60 feet in front of you at best. So I sort of ran ahead of the group to see if we could get over any obstructions, and if it became a dead end, we were going to have to turn around. So that's what I was doing.
We got to the end of 6 World Trade, there's a gap between 6 and 5. We really didn't know what had happened. We heard all this noise, but we didn't know what actually happened. There was a lot of debris out there. It was unclear. I looked to where 2 World Trade -- the south tower was. You really couldn't see through it. I figured it was a dangerous area. We were going to have to run this gap between 6 and 5. It didn't seem like anything was happening. We took Judge's body in a chair and we ran across that gap. We went down the escalator stairs right there and that gets us down onto the street. Now we can get away from the building."
"A. We get to the corner of Vesey and Church. We turn over Judge's body to some EMTs. I ran into two federal officers, I always think they're FBI, but there's a lot of federal badges, and they said they were going to be setting up -- or somebody had notice that there was going to be a command center set up on either Park Place or Murray, one of those streets just north of the area, and that's where I would normally be assigned."
"Q. So with the secondary collapse, the only persons with you were FBI agents? Were there any Fire Chiefs?
A. No. I was with a group. When we carried Judge's body out, I was with the 1st Division, a couple of Port Authority cops, one of the aides, one of the firemen. I couldn't tell you who else. I remember another OEM fellow who I had met on the way down.
Q. Is he a firefighter? Is he Fire Department personnel?
A. He was an EMT that works in OEM."
Cunniffe, Sean EMT Battalion 31
The second plane came in. It was the biggest noise I ever heard in my life.
Q. Did you see the plane?
A. Yeah. We saw it, we heard it, we felt the heat from it, the debris. We ducked under a
truck, Fire Patrol 3, I believe it was, parked right over here. Just before -- because we started running.
I remember seeing this woman. She was about maybe 5-5, close to 250. She was hobbling.
I looked at her. She had a broken leg. I wound up grabbing her, putting her arm around me and just dragging her out of the building, because she was slowing too many people up.
I guess we were standing right in the middle of West Street when we heard over the radio that tower one is leaning, everybody evacuate, evacuate, evacuate. We were just trying to get as many people out of there as possible just telling them to run. As soon as one started coming down, that's when we started running. I didn't stop until I got to the water.
There were a lot of firefighters that just dropped their packs. They were going around in a little golf cart.
Curran, Paul Fire Patrolman Fire Patrol number 3
Sergeant Kenny, [no transcript]
Sergeant Sheehan from Fire Patrol 2 [no transcript]
Keith Roma [no transcript]
Captain Greco, Fire Patrol 3 [no transcript]
Mike Angelini, [no transcript]
We reached luckily around John Street when the second tower was hit by the plane, another plane. At the time we didn't realize it was a plane. We just heard a massive explosion. Debris rained down on us.
We proceeded down to Vesey. Walking down Vesey, we noticed large pieces of what looked like possibly the fuselage from the plane. There was a caravan of motorcycle police coming up. We stopped them and we cleared the path of big O rings and pieces of fuselage of the plane. We threw it to the side, and we told the guys to go on. They went up towards Church.
At that time we heard the jumpers. A lot of jumpers were hitting right above our heads on the concourse plaza level. It was like one thump, another thump. I lost count about 19. I saw Father Michael Judge. We went up the escalator of the customs house, myself and Sergeant Kenny, to see what the situation was up there. It wasn't a pretty sight. There were numerous bodies. So we went back downstairs to the lobby, and Father Judge kind of like gave us a look. I remember telling Father Judge, "It's terrible up there, Father." I did see Father Michael go up the escalators of the customs house. I guess that's World Trade -- what would that be, seven, I imagine? The customs house. It's Eight World Trade Center.
Q. Eight World Trade. Okay.
A. He was up there for a period of time. We were staying in the lobby for about -- there were people hitting the deck up there. There were body parts -- at one point a body part flew right through the lobby. There was an ironworker in there, which he plays a part later on. With that, all a sudden the tower went completely -- a horrendous noise, a very, very tremendous explosion, and a very heavy wind came through the tower. The wind almost knocked you down. We were on the north side of the elevator banks, and they kind of broke up that wind.
While we were making our way to the World Trade Center, the customs house, to go up the escalators to go out, we were going to go out the other way, down West Broadway and down the staircase there. We found Father Judge. Father Michael was laying at the bottom of the escalators. He wasn't bleeding or anything like that; he was just unconscious.
Q. Tell me exactly where that was now.
A. This was in Eight World Trade Center, in the building --
Q. Outside the building?
A. -- in the building at the foot of the escalators, going up to the concourse level. He was laying there. The guys from the truck company, the whole patrol was there, some guys from the truck company, they opened up his coat and they started working on him. With that, the building was shaking. It got very dark. We had our lights on. It got very, very thick with dust.
I remember saying, "We've got to get out of here. We've got to get out of here. Let's pick up" -- They picked up Father Michael, and they carried him up on the escalator.
A lot of car fires erupted. All of a sudden cars were blowing up everywhere.
Q. Everybody tells me all these vehicles were on fire. What do you attribute all these vehicles being on fire to?
A. I believe it must have been from the debris falling and the heat just started hitting the cars and starting cars on fire. There were an awful lot of cars burning, an awful lot. It had to be radiated heat or just stuff falling on cars and setting them on fire. There were numerous cars burning, numerous.
Curran, James Firefighter Ladder Company 8
Lieutenant Halloran 8 Truck [no transcript]
John Tierney from Ladder 9 [dead]
Danny Murphy
Sal Butera
Kevin Dinkins
Wade from 33
Ladder 8, Ladder 1, and Engine 7 all respond to "odor of gas" on the corner of Church and Lispenard.
WE TRIED TO GET INTO THE TAXI INDENT BUT THERE WERE PEOPLE ON THE GROUND BURNT ON THE WEST SIDE HIGHWAY TO WHERE YOU WOULD HAVE
HAD TO RUN THEM OVER TO GET ANY CLOSER SO WE GOT OUT OF THE RIG WENT IN THE LOBBY. ENGINE PULLED UP RIGHT BEHIND US AND LADDER WAS BEHIND THEM.
WE WALKED ALL THE WAY AROUND AGAIN TRYING TO FIND A WORKING ELEVATOR. THERE WAS FINALLY ONE RIGHT NEAR THE COMMAND POST BY THE SILVER DESK IN THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF THE MEZZANINE LEVEL. IT WAS WORKING. LIEUTENANT HALLORAN MADE THE CALL HE WAS LIKE NO WE ARENT TAKING THE ELEVATOR IN THIS CASE WE WILL WALK I BELIEVE THATS THE ELEVATOR THAT 20 TRUCK AND SQUAD 1 WOUND UP CATCHING AND WENT TO THE 16TH FLOOR BELIEVE.
NO WE WERE ON THE 16 FLOOR WHEN IT WAS CONFIRMED THAT ANOTHER PLANE HIT TOWER TWO AT THAT POINT SOMEONE THAT WAS SUPPOSEDLY SECRET SERVICE, WHICH DISAPPEARED, WE NEVER KNEW WHERE HE WENT, HE SAID
THERE WAS THIRD INCOMING FLIGHT THAT WAS---
Q: HE WAS TELLING EVERYBODY THAT
Q: How long do you think it would have taken you to get to the 80th floor if you had gone to the 80th floor?
A: I'm guessing, probably 4 hours, 3 and a half hours. It took us just about an hour, maybe a little over an hour. to get to the 30th.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)