Where were you on the morning of 9/11?

[Guest]

On Sept. 11 I was at work as a paid EMT in PA. I was sleeping on the couch in the rec. room of the department after a long night and I was doing a 36 hour shift. My partner that day tried to wake me up numerous times, with many failed attemts. After trying too many times, he decided to tip the couch over enough to wake me up. As we were sitting there watching the news with total amazement, we get dispatched to an auto accident with entrapment and ejection. The ironic part of this story is not that we got the call that we did, it was when we were transporting the ejected patient to the hospital, the last thing she said to me before she went into trauma arrest. She said, and I quote, "I have the utmost respect for you guys and what you do for a living. Not everyone can do what you guys do, and I thank you for it" Hearing those words from a patient at that time, meant so much to the paramedic and myself, knowing what was going on just 3 hours from us. Then as we were getting finished up at the hospital, my cell phone rings. It is my supervisor. He asked me if I wanted to go to NYC to help with the rescue efforts from the tradgedy. I agreed. not 5 minutes later, the chief of the fire department called me and asked me the same thing. At the time I was the EMS lieutenant for the department. Since the EMS Captian was on vacation, all EMS responsibilities were left to me. My supervisor gave us time to go home and get some stuff ready before going back to the office and loading up the 3 ambulances we were going to take up. I did not go home, I had to go to the Fire House and assign people to be placed on standby for possible responce to NYC. I called my fiance at the time and broke the news to her. Eventually we started to respond when we got close to the state border, we were cancelled. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I know I will never forget that day as long as I live.My thoughts and prayers go out to all NYC FF's and Police officers that sacrificed their lives that day.God Bless

[Guest]

I was in 5th Grade math class and our teachers would not let us go out of school for lunch time because the black smoke was visible from Pelham due to the most clear blue sky that day. But we were told what happend, we were all shocked as only 5th graders just like everybody else. And that was around the time I was getting more into Firefighting and Apparatus not just watching Pelhams apparatus back into the garage all the time when I was in the area of the firehouse in like 3rd and 4th grade.

NEVER FORGET 343

Edited March 2, 2006 by N.R.F.D.~TL-11

[ptwatson 82]

It was the second day of school and i had just started teaching. I was sitting in the classroom on a free period and one of the deans came in a said that a plane had hit the WTC. I thought it was a small Cesna or something. it was not until i looked on the net that isaw the amount of damage to the building and knew it was no Cesna that hit the building. My FD phone started to ring off the hook and I know i would never, ever forget that morning!

[Guest]

I was off from work, (still in bed when the first plane hit) after the first plane hit my mother woke me up and told me what happened. Our TVs didnt work, so I went to the Firehouse, and there was like 20 cars there, which was odd for a Tuesday. I went inside and all the guys were glued to the TV and the radios in our radio room were blaring, we had one on the FDNY citywide........ I know the chills were going up and down my back listening. I had a feeling we were going, so I got my gear together and called greg to get down here and told him what happened. By the time Greg got there, Half the county was enroute to the city or standing by to go there. I remember hearing somebody say before we got on to E-271 "today we will make history, hopefully we will be around to tell it" . So I was assigned to the crew to respond, along with 3 other guys in the rig and 2 chiefs.

On our way down to 60 I saw many people along the sides of the streets praying and makeing a sign of the cross as we past them. I was getting anxious to get there by now, we got asigned to respond about 10 minuets after we got to control with about 8 other dept.s in our "platoon" on the way down people we doing more praying, and some guys we clapping for us when we got to the bronx. We were stationed at 230th street & Bailey ave for most of the day, waiting anxiously to help. The most emotional part of the day was watching SQD 61 with some "brothers" come up the street to replenish and trun around with more people. After that we got sent to Yonkers raceway, the next day we were stationed with Yonkers Ladder 70 at Divison 7 HQ on webster ave in the bronx.

I found out latter that day a friend from middle school; Ron Bucca Jr father died at the Trade Center . He was teh first and only FDNY fire Marshal to die LODD. As for me( a Coast Guard reservist) I was activated and served on a cutter in NY harbor.

343 NEVER FORGET