I got a guest today, Brian Smith. I worked with him and Narcotics and a couple other places. A really cool story originally from New York. I'm gonna let him talk about that a little bit. Uh, pretty quickly, we'll know that that's where you're from. So tell us a little bit about where you're from and just kind of what it was like to grow up in New York. Okay, So, born and raised in New York, the normal part of New York because you've got you know, the city, and you got the island and then everything else sort of north of west Chester is like Virginia, just with you know, people know how to speak English and and how to drive in. The foods decent, but the but it's very rural up there. But the but yeah, from from New York, born and raised there from the city right and just outside the city, so the the out of boroughs and the you know, Long Island and and you know, just you know what it was like growing up there. I don't know. I mean I lived in rough neighborhoods, grew up fighting all the time, and you know, not especially well off or anything like that. But you don't know, I mean when that's all, you know, That's what you know. So so what did like an average day in New York look like? So what did your parents do for a living. So my dad was a fireman, and you know he he'd be a work a lot, right, you know, sometimes he'd be at work for days you didn't see him. And then my mom, she had a lot of different jobs. You know, she always had like some interesting job people. I was like, how did you end up with this job? But you know, never really stuck with some of them. But anyway, the so you know, my dad used to my dad used to break at chops, you know, like all these jobs you get end up costing us more money than it ends up you know, generating. But so she was home, you know when she wasn't doing all the thing. But it was, uh, I wasn't exactly a stable house. My parents eventually got. Divorced, and uh it was chaotic. You know. The adolescence was out of control and you know, stayed in trouble but not enough where you know, it ended up me. And anybody gave him look for you, Oh yeah. People came to I told my dad one time, I said, you know, I had a bunch of my my buddy's over and you know, just kind of hanging out or whatever else, and like prank called some guy I don't even know who Ellie was, and you know, two o'clock in the morning. They were hell, we were probably fourteen fifteen years old, drinking and just carrying on. And next thing I know, somebody's beating on my front door. I'm like, what the hell is this guy? That kicks the door opens. Some man starts chasing me through my house. I'm like, what the hell is this guy? And he's yelling and carson at me. Tell him he's got you know, you know, uh, I'm making these threats, but he's you know, he's got all this pressure from the mob. And who do I think I am? And I remember I had a I found a utility knife. Me and this guy are hangled up in the closet. I'm holding the utility knife to this guy's throat like a maniac. And and eventually we got to this point. Yeah, And eventually we got to this point where we're like, all right, man, you know, let's let's just and then the guy just sort of like leaves right and he was like it turns out he was like he knew one of my friends who was another degenerate. And so I remember told my dad like the day too later, I said, he has a crack on the door. Some guy kicked the door in and it chased me around the house. He's like, Okay, you just didn't even phase him. You know, like not a lot. I could be honest with. My dad was very unflappable. Yeah, did the very little phase that man. But the But anyway, I grew up in a in a rough way. But you know it's it shapes you, you know, so helps. You to So you go through your childhood, what was it l like going to school? Like how many people were in your high school? I think my graduating class had eighteen hundred people. I mean it was it was pretty big. It was a lot of it. You said you didn't know everybody. No, I didn't know anybody. I mean I knew people, but yeah, it's not like here, God knows, I mean, everybody knows everybody's you know, it's like this weird interconnected web. So you did meet a stranger up there like a stranger. Yeah, yeah, No, you go through high school, you eventually went into service. What drove you into Service. So you know, I grew up around my dad, like I said, was uh, he was in the Marine Corps. Then he got into the Fire Service back in nineteen seventy eight Vietnam, so he was on the coast of Vietnam. He h. He joined the Marine Corps nineteen seventy two and left in seventy four. I think he was when he got into the Marine Corps, I think that he had this vision of what he thought that that was going to be. And at the time Marine Corps had some issues, I think, but I think that it just didn't meet the what he thought was. Yeah, and so he got out after a couple of years. And so he got out in seventy four, and he was a mechanic who was a mechanic in the UH in the Marine Corps, and and he, like I said, got in New York City. At the time was you know, they had they were just going through a bankruptcy and they laid off all these people and all this and including a public safety people. And so my dad was the first class they got hired that was not the pink slip rehires. So in nineteen seventy eight they rehired all the people they laid off, and then uh, in seventy eight, my dad got on and he ended up in a engine company in Brooklyn, And so it was always around that, you know, growing up. Do you ever just going to like firehouses? Oh yeah, oh yeah, I mean we grew up in a firehouse, you know, and every year on my birthday, you and my dad would would take me in. You know, get to spend the night at the firehouse. That's all, you know, got to sleep in the bunk room. There'll be a call. You get on the back of the truck. I mean I remember being a kid, you know, answering calls and people holding me while I'm holding on the sitting on the backstep of the fire truck. You know, we go to some fire and you know, eventually my dad got into it, into another company, which wasn't nearly as exciting, but he's still every year my birthday would take me in, you know, go answer calls next morning, get up, eat breakfast with the guys, and then go watch a Yankee game. And no, no, not at all. I like teams that win. Yeah, I'm a big fan of you know, I could talk about the Yankees forever. But the you know, my grandfather, so my grandparents on both sides, you know, they hit the they hit the mainland here in the twentieth century. You know, so we got nothing to do with the war or anything else that everybody's gets gets all wound tight about. But but my grandfather and my dad's side and everybody ended up in you know, around Brooklyn, and and so anyway, he went the Yankee games with his father watching you know, bab Rutu Luke Garrick. So my dad growing up, you know, go to Yankee games with my grandfather watching Mickey Mantle and you know, Roger Morris, Widdy Ford and all that, and so you know that tradition had kind of carried on. So I mean, you know, we're being ACU fans for one hundred years. So they schedule a game just for you on your birthday, now. You know the it would sometimes it would be around my birthday. Sometimes they do it like on the seventeenth instead of the fifteenth. But you know what, but but that was part of your ritual. Yeah, it was that was cool. You'd spend the night that was your birthday. Oh yeah, that was awesome. So, you know, to answer your question about you know what drove me to service. It was it was a natural fit for me. You know, I was around that you know, my dad. My dad and I had you know times, especially to my adolescence, was it was a strained relationship. And you know, of course I love my dad, and you know, it was just it was so much going on, and you know, you just kind of find your way through adolescence, which is never an easy journey for anybody. But the so I get to a point where in ninety five I ended up getting interested in volunteer fire service, you know, volunteer fire company. That was that was new where I lived, and I remember at that time it was like I had conversations with my dad on a level I never did before, because like, you know, we were talking about you know, like hey, you know if you stretch an inch and three quarter line for this kind of distance and you have this and like that dude was rattling stuff off and I was able to connect with him in a way that like I just never had before. You know, again, like I said, more relatable it was, you know, and so so I was very much drawn to that. Now I always wanted to get in a police work, even though my dad was a fireman. You know, I grew up on chips and starskin hutch and you know I just wanted to, yeah, you know, go out and chase bad guys, and you know it looked like a lot of fun. But but I always said, hey, if I got stuck in the fire service, it's not a bad gig, you know. I mean, everybody loves you. You show up. You know, it's a. Uh, three meals a day usually all the time. Get to hang out with your friends. I mean it's a uh, you know, it's a tough flight those guys got but the so so that initially, you know, drew me to that public service, you know, I mean it was something that was kind of it was ingrained in US. Okay, so what did it? When did you get hired by the Fire Department? Full time? Fire Department, New York. So I was working for a federal research facility in Plumb Island, which is off the coast of Long Island. It is run by the USDA and they do animal testing. And it used to be it's a decommissioned military base and that is where the government until like the nineteen fifties. Uh, that's where they did testing for biological and chemical weapons and stuff like that. So they shut all that down. Well there's still some remnants of what they did over there, and the place was it is really cool, I mean honestly, like it's there's there's like all these old bunkers and stuff from from World War two and they're on the ground bunkers with tunnels, but it's all overgrown with vegetation. So it's like it's like Indiana Jones, you know. So we get out, start walking around, check out all these cool things. And and but the had a slaughter like every item on the island, right because they had a had outbreaks and stuff out there, so everything that touched the island they had to kill. I never killed them. I'm not into killing animals. I don't mind eating them, but you know, the old killing part makes me sad. So the but they the only two things that they were allowed to live on the island with ospreys and seals, you know, seals that come up on the beach and but the but everything else never know it. But you know, deers can swim. They come they they'd swim right off the mainland and and you know those got the little hooks. But you know, they could they just float like barrels and you know across they go and they come over there and there's you know, there's no competition for foods, so that they were happy as can be. You know, raccoons, you name it. I mean all kinds of wild I didn't have to kill anybody, but the government did. Oh yeah. They would come in. They set up big piles of apples or salt or whatever else, and these guys would be sniping them ount in the trees in the middle of the night. And then and in the morning they'd have to neck crops all the animals. So they would come into the lab and there's you know, there's there's doors on the outside, and you know, they put them in closet and then the scientists will pull them in and make sure that they didn't have any diseases and all this. So it's this whole thing. And then they would burn up parts of the island. Man, it would be crazy things that would happen at that place. But anyway, I got talked. So one time, we're out there, and so one thing we would do is like lighter on fire, would have control burns. We had a flamethrower and you know, so you'd burn up a lot of this vegetation because if there's no vegetation, you don't have to worry about the animals or be easy to find the ones. I guess what you wanted to kill. So anyway, so we burned up all this vegetation and it's sandy and you look down on the ground and there's these vials. Pick it up. It's like a glass file and it's just unmarked, just some clear liquid, and I'm like, what the hell is this? I don't know, there's some more of it. Next thing, you know, it's all over the place. Joe, God knows what was in it. But we just start backing out real real quiet. Make sure you don't step on and break any vials, and you just call whoever, and you know, the EPA and somebody comes in and just does that thing and he if they go, oh yeah, I mean things like that all the time. But the but inside the lab, you know, they got all these animals they would experiment on, So you had animal handlers inside there, and you know, some guy goes in there breaks his hip, you know, like getting bumped against the wall by a pig. Well it's first of all, it's an island, So how do you get this guy out of there? Plus he's in he's in a BSL four lab. I mean, you can't just carry him out. So you go in and out of the lab naked, so you know, you take your clothes off, you go inside, you got clothes on the on the dirty side. You conduct business on there, and then you come out and you gotta get you gotta get scrubbed down. And then as you go so anyway, going there and get this oh yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah, you don't have a lot in no weig of dignity because there's there's no secrets there as far as that goes. So so anyway, you go in there and you gotta wheel this guy out and scrub him down, and you know, you're talking to the nurses on the dry side. We're all clothed of course, and you're out there, you know, like trying to get scrubbed self. And you know, then you come out and you got to get this guy in helicopter to fly him out. And then with this it's a it's a wild place, man. But anyway, so while I was there, I was, you know, put an application in civil service in New York is very different than it is down here Virginia. But you know, you gotta take a test, you're on a list. It's all processman, it takes a while, you know. I got a call and you got to a point where I was getting hired, and I was like, yeah, this sounds like fun, and so off to the academy. I got the academy for the fire department. That's in Randolds Island, So all of us stuff is at Reynolds Island and Fort Totten, uh, from where a lot of the training that I had, And so at that point I was I already had, you know, because of a lot of the trainings and stuff that I had. I had all kinds of hazmat training and you know EMS training and you know b L S, a LS, you name it, uh and some other things. That kind of kind yeah. And push me ended up pushing me into a special operations, you know when I first got out. So, so I finished the academy and like the day before you graduate, they tell you where you're getting where you're going, right, So at the time, I'm living on Long Island and you know, you have this list, your your wish list where you're gonna end up you know, you're gonna end up here there. So I wanted to go to Queen's because it was the shortest commute. You know. I had this list, it was seven choices, and the last choice on the list was the North Bronx because it was the furthest away from my house. And it was a captain that was in that was running the academy at the time, real ball breaker, and I didn't have any issues with the guy, but he hated the guy that I commuted with hated him just it was a shame the guy was. It was a good dale. He's a little goofy, but just rubbed this guy the wrong way. And then he used to talk about it. He's like, I will find out where you live and I will send you to the place furthest from and some of a bitch he did. And uh yeah. So I ended up in this battalion up in the North Bronx and first day I go in there, they showed me around. I said to the captain, I said, it's a beautiful firehouse. I said, I gotta be honest with you. I can't work here like I gotta fill out paperwork. I said, this is it was like ninety miles one way, you know, plus I had to pay tolls going over to white Stone Bridge. So I says, it's not gonna work. And I remember I called my dad and I said, you gotta know somebody. Yeah I had at that point. So my dad was working. Uh was he did he have rank or he just knew everybody? He knew everybody. So he So my dad got detailed to a company in Queen's called has Matt when it first started in nineteen eighty four. My dad's a charter member, and so he was in has Matt up until about ninety seven, and then he gets detailed to may at Giuliani's office. He works for Office Emergency Management. I keep going to work every day shooting huh people. Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, he knew people, and so I said, Dad, you got to help me out here, like this isn't gonna work. So he ended up he was in worked for Julia Giuliani's office for a couple of years and then he came eventually come back out to has Matt. But so he said, yeah, I call somebody. I said I could do. I said, all right. So I waited a little while and you call him up on like what did your contact ever call you back? Like what, I gotta make it, gonna make a decision here. And I had a buddy of mine called him up. He's like, yeah, let me get a phone call from Chief. He said, Hey, it's the chief goal far He said, I understand you want to come to Brooklyn. I said, yeah, I would love that. Chief. He's like, all right, done, And you know, just you know, a lot of that stuff was there who you know, And and then I ended up going down to Brooklyn. Thank God, cut my commute by twenty miles, no more tolls, you know, only took me an hour to get to work. I was like, this is wonderful, right, you know, compared to. What I got now. Was at the station, you didn't. Like not long come a few months, maybe that's still long down. It was a long time, and it was rough man. And the dude didn't like you just because of your body. Yeah, I had nothing to do with me. And then people at the station, everybody was nice whatever else. So anyway, I ended up in this battalion down in Brooklyn, in downtown Brooklyn, which was its ad Jason too. So it was Battalion thirty one and I worked out a special operations unit. It was called ATA. So we did you know, we did ems, we did als, BLS, types of intervention. We were also a support unit for the rescue companies, for hazmat for all the squads, and we were and we were a citywide response unit. So anything there was a one alarm fire in the burrow we would handle, you know, we get we get deployed to anything that was above a two alarm fire. We could get deployed city wide. Plus we were first line terrorists response unit. You know, we had the you know, the hazmat suits, the whole thing, like we can go in and and deal with all sorts of things like that. And so it was great. I mean it was so where we was stationed. You know where that station is is, it's pretty close to bepist Ivison Park Slope, which is a really nice part of Brooklyn, And then you go a few blocks further and then it starts to get pretty rough fast, and and you know where I worked, especially at the time as young as I was, it was wonderful, man. I mean it was hard. Uh, the hours were hard. The neighborhood was hard. The hours like for y'all. So, so I was at work all the time, and you could work like mutuals and stuff, so you can pick up all the people's shifts. And there were times I'd be at work for days, you know, or you know, I would sleep at work because I knew my next shift would be coming up, you know. And then there were times where you know, you're off and so so of course with our with where we worked, we were busy, man, all the time. And I went to the academy with people that used to get what were called no hitters. You know, they'd work a whole tour and they won't to get a single job. They're like, yeah, we won't. Just came to work and hung out and went on. So well, that must be nice because I could tell you we never had any no hitters. But to be honest with you, like I said, where I was at the time, I was happy, man, because I mean we were as soon as we were clear from a job, we had another one waiting for us. And so, you know, we saw a lot of work, a lot of trauma. D MS side of things were just so the trauma, I mean, I know, working in you know, and rural areas and things like that. The trauma you had was a lot of it's like car accidents and sit like that. What was the trauma like in New York violence? Man, Like, so people are getting shot stabbed all the time. I mean it was a it was a nightly occurrence. I mean, so you know, you go in there, and there were times we pull up on scenes and people would still be running around. It'd be somebody bleed in the middle of the street, which just kind of screw them up, and then you know, throw them in the back of a bus and off would go and and you know, and then you just wash up and move on to the next job. And you know, so a lot of that I had. You know, really you know, housing projects, you know, thirty forty stories high and it's just you know, housing projects and top of projects and top projects and not not nice areas, and you know, and because of the socioeconomic situation that we were in, you know that we were working in, you know a lot of the violence that kind of comes with that. Plus we'd see I mean I had in the time I was there, I had to live twenty one babies really and yeah, it was uh, you know again for the experienced part of it. It was great, man, Like you know, it just exponentially you know, compared to what I would have gotten in a place that was you know, slower as far as jobs experience. Wise, it was it was great, man. I mean, And like I said at that point, I was, you're young in your career. You're trauma junkie. You know that the more you get you'd be like, oh man, let me see the next one, and just couldn't get enough of me. Just just eat it up. And so here's the question. So you said earlier, like you did the counter terrorism stuff for anism stuff. So that would have been like right after the first World Trade Center bombing before. So I went through because of my connection with my dad and his connection with Giuliani. I had counter terrorism training, uh through the Fire Department and through the City of New York because they did different things and a lot of that background, you know, kind of led into where I eventually ended up on the Special Option Unit. So you know, and my dad, even when he was noem you know, they like they trained for terrorism, they expected terrorism. You know. Of course they were familiar with the first bomb in ninety three at the Trade Center. So when did you graduate from the Fire Academy? So I came out in two thousand. Okay, so you so you had the first World Trade Center bombing, like in the garage. So that was in nineteen ninety three. I was in high school a t time. Okay, yeah, that was it. So but but at that point they were like, hey there. I think New York had always thought like, hey, we're we're a legitimate target. Oh yeah, no question. But like that kind of to me, the limited knowledge I had that was kind of like a wake up call, like, hey, they really are trying to hit us. It was, but you know, not like September eleventh was, you know, and you know, the gravity I think the human nature. I mean, you think about the kind of wake up call that not eleven should have been, you know, and how you know, the years of progressing, you know, people just yeah, you know, and it just gets a point of like, well, okay, well I woke up, I'm fine today, everything was okay, So I guess tomorrow I'll be okay too. And and just the the blissful ignorance of the kind of evil that's out in the world that people just choose not to think about or just don't know about or. Whatever, but I guess if you're not prepared for it or you don't train for it, sure it's easier just stick your head and to say and hope for the best. Yeah, so you were having counter terrorism training. How long were you at that really busy station until I left until I came to Virginia? Okay, all right, so kind of just walk through, like what happened for you on September eleven? So you said you were picking up a bunch of different shifts, So like, what was it like to be So you you're saying wide open all the time, all the time, and everything else all the time. So from your fire station in Brooklyn to the World Trade Center, how far arrived was at? Five minutes? Okay? We're so we're in downtown Brooklyn. So we're right at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, and right on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge is downtown is you know, downtown Manhattan? Okay? Yeah, down by the Financial District, which is of course where the Trade Center complex is. So so you know, I say, five minutes depends on traffic. But you can but you can you can see it from where you're Ah, yeah. Oh, yeah, no, you can. You can see the you could see the whole part of the skyline down there. So when so, I'd worked a shift before and we were up all night, were running jobs whatever else, and you know, we ended up catching a late job that held us up a little bit. But anyway, we get back to the station and one of the guys I worked with, his name was Brian Gordon, and he was living in Manhattan at the time. But to get to the subway station where he would have to take to get back home, he'd either have to walk through the projects what you don't do, and so he'd have to either do that or I get my right. So I'll get my right. So we were walking out towards the parking lot and I heard the explosion from the North Tower. And when I heard, I looked up and I could see the you know, the fireball coming out of the building. I didn't see the plane go in and hear the plane. And what happened was I heard, I guess by the time the sound got across the East River to where I was, where I was, you know, at that point, you know, the explosion was still and I so I looked at Gordon and I said, hey, you know, someone just blew up the World Trade Center. And so we were making our way back to out the truck that we worked on. You know, the next shift was taken it over, so you know, you do different things to begin of the shift. You check your meters and make sure your gear was right, and you know there's a lot of equipment on the truck that you had to make sure it was good for the shift. So so your all stuff had already rotated off. Yeah. Yeah, I mean we were in civies and so we go running back and these guys were getting ready to go, you get ready to go on duty, and so we said, look, someone just blew up the World Trade Center, so that we knew that the unit was going to get deployed. And so we said the guys that were there, and I said, you want to to wait for you? I said, no, no, go go go We'll we'll catch up. You know, we'll just grab a spare unit. So we go running inside the station and the lieutenant that was on duty, his name is Chris McCarthy, good guy, big dude, and you know he's just kind of sitting at the desk or whatever, and we come running in. We're like loose so much, just blue the Trade Center up, you know, we need keys to a truck. And he's like, I'm sitting in front of the TV. I'm sitting next tot of radio. I think if someone blew up the trade Center and I would know about it. Like, if you guys need overtime, you don't need a story. And and no sooner does he say that to the you know, the the news footage of this gaping hole in the side of this building is close up, you know, just the paper and the smoke and the and you know that comes across the radio attention of Brooklyn North units and MCI has been announcing in a borough of Manhattan and they started pushing out mass casuallyan so, so at that point of course we knew we're going to go to work. And I grabed keys off the board and it was for a spare ambulance. They hadn't been putting the service, but had lights, had wheels. I said, this will get us there. We'll catch up with everybody when we get down range. And so I gave set of keys to Gordy grab radios, and Gordy side his uniform and stuff on because he would he would wear that to get on the subway, so I didn't have to pay the fare, but you know, I had to get a change. I had regular clothes and stuff on. So I was like, I got to grab my key and I said, Gordy, go out to the truck. I'll be out there in a minute. And so Lieutenant McCarthy said, hey, you guys, go out there. You know, let Central know that you're available for the job. If they deploy you switch over to city wide frequency. Be careful and stay out of trouble. Because Gordy and I were always in trouble, I want to say trouble. But whatever shit storm was blown through Brooklyn, we were always like the eye of that storm as it came and made its way through. And so we did go work. We were just notorious for having that that magnet attached to us. So yeah, a little extra. So so anyway, so we go out and we get on the radio, said, you know, we got a full house, had crew or a battle for the MCI and they said, yeah, proceed down to one world trade report to the command post for further assignment at the corner of Vessey and West. So okay, let's go and at that point they'd shut a hicula traffic going into the city, into Manhattan, but of course emergency vehicles could go. So you know, cops are there blocking regular cars from going across. We're driving on the sidewalk and you know, pushing people out of the way, and next thing you know, we're on a bridge. We're going across, and I said, I said, okay, I mean, obviously I could see a giant burning building here. I know my way around New York, like the main roads, but you know, once you get off them, you know, some of these off roads. You know, we used to have these things, they would call them maps, like we'd have to pull out this big map and you look at the grid and figure out how they get from place to place, you know. And everything's different now because of all the all the traffic and anything else. So we so I looked over Gordia, I said, hey, man, gotta let me know which way we go. When we're on inside the bridge, left, right, straight, like whatever. You know, I could see a big burning building on the bridge, you know. But once you're in the valley, it's not like you look up and look. I mean, you're looking at you're in the valley of giant buildings. So he said, I don't know. I said, well, you're looking at the map, man, like you got to tell me. And he's like, I can't see it. I can't see it. And Gordy, I remember thinking, on the way of that job, thank god I have this man with me, because I'm going to battle. And you know, Gordy was he was in the Marine Corps, did four years in the Marine Corps and then transferred to the Army for three because he was attached to a you know called Seabirth, which was a biological instead of response for us. And because of that, he was a hazmat specialist, which was a degree which was a level above where I was just as a technician. And so this is the guy like he literally retired from the military. The next day he starts the academy for the fire Department. And when he came out, because of especially, he was able to get tied to our unit. And so I'm like, thank god I got Gordy with me. He was a minium. He is a maniac, but like, that's the guy wanting to trench with me. And and he was just staring at the buildings like I can't see, man, like just getting you know, circuits were getting overwhelmed. And about that point there's an unmarked R and P coming up behind us, and I said, well, let's just follow this guy. He's either going on the same job we are, or it is something crazy going on somethingwhere else that you know, we'll follow him to something. And so anyway, we get off the bridge and we make our way down and we get into the complex or the trade center, and by that point it's pandemonium. I mean it's just thousands of people running down the street. Of course, there's all kinds of traffic on the radio, and in New York, you know, the way that the radios would work was that, you know, you could key up and start talking. Somebody can step on you. So you know, if you keep it up because you had something important to say, well, next thing, you know, that transmission is getting stepped on. And then that was constantly happening because everybody had something really important to say. Hey, someone just jumped out of window. Hey this is coming in, you know, like things have fallen off the building. So all this kind of stuff was going out. It was crazy, man, So you almost turned it off. So I ended up getting down to the corner of Church Street and Liberty Street, and there was a highway sergeant there for the police department, you know, like I said, looking like Pons and John got the helmet, the big black boots, the whole thing, you know. So I said, hey, serge, do you have any idea where we're getting deployed? You know where we're supposed to get stationed. I don't know where we're going, he said, Man, I have no idea. He's like, there's no on the radio. He's like, I'll tell you what, though, there's a bunch of people that are hurt, real bad down in the tenhouse. So I said, well, where's that? And what he was referring to was the quarters of Engine ten and a lout of ten, one of only two houses in the in New York City Fire Department that with a engine and the ladder have the same number. So it was just down Liberty Street. He said, there's a bunch of people hurt there, And we ended up going down there. So that fireuse treating people down there. Right, So that firehouse is directly across the street from the South Tower, which had not been struck, which gets struck as soon as we got there. So at that point, you know, we had gotten in and we talked to the captain of the house and were like, hey, man, like, we're at your disposed. We don't know where the hell we're supposed to go at this point. We're supposed to go to World Trade one. We're now across the street from World Trade two. And he said, look, all my CFR guys are on the engine, they're ready deployed around the corner. I don't have anybody. He's like, I have a house full of injured people here and some of them, some of them are hurt pretty bad. You know, a lot of trauma. And he's like, if you guys could do anything to mitigate this until we can get some extra resources here, this would be a great, great place to start. I said, okay, then, of course, so you'll start tri yes, pulling out MCI tags, the whole thing. Well, you know, it's strange with trauma and when you're in the high stress kinds of traumatic incidents like that, like the different things that you experience and you know, like the gaps in time or whatever else, auditory exclusion. I remember hearing people screaming, but I never heard the South Tower. Getting hit because you were in into your mode. And I was locked in. But I could hear and I could see everybody looking up. And I came out towards the front of the firehouse and I could see the fire, the explosion and all I'm like, oh man, you know, and really at that point and it changed for me because the whole time, I'm like, I'm going down to this job. It's gonna be huge, gonna be awesome, awesome in a gruesome way, you know, like you know, not to be. Morbid, but no, but you you trained for this, yeah, and you're like, all right. Like I'm prepared to go to this is this is this is the fight that I trained for. And but in the in fire and ems, you know, you're you respond to things. You know something's happened, and you get there and you go deal with what's happened. This was something that was continuing to happen, and at that point, you know, it was like, you know, like this thing is not done yet, like we're still under attack, you know. So we had put out to that point to our dispatch. We had to kick back over to one of our regular channel because the city of city wide channel is too crazy, And I said, hey, we you know, we're gonna try to set up some triage on the south side of the complex, direct all the ambulatory people to the tenhouse, and you know, get us some additional resources to be able to get people on the out and out of there. And it wasn't long after that there was a couple of firemen come running into the to the apparatus bay doors. They hollering and they said, help, help, help, we need a medic. A brother's been hurt up the street. And then they go take off. So I grabbed two other firemen and the stokes basket and I go out to go after these guys. Well, Gordy says, I'm coming with you, I said, Gordy waiting here. I'll be right back, I says, nobody else. Somebody's got to stay to take care all these people. Us. I don't worry, but I won't be long because really, at that point we had seen a lot of an initial you know, trauma from things falling off the building, hitting people whatnot. After the second plane hit, we saw a lot of burns, bad ones, I mean, you know, like skin falling off people's arms, kind of stuff. I mean it was it was pretty pretty gruesome, and I said, what do you gotta stay here? Man? Sell people back in a minute. So we end up going down the street and I remember, you know, several things from that point. The first thing was, you know, in my career in public service, I mean, it's coming up on thirty years now, I've been to all kinds of jumper calls, right and fire service, he'd be either jump up or jump down. That's how they get classed because if they would jump up, did somebody stand on the ledge thinking about it? You figure out what they're gonna do, and then you respond from there, jumped down meant that they made the decision, and of course you were never really going at a render aid. But in the in the city, the fire departments responsible for picking up dead people in public view. So you know, I've been to jumper calls, I've seen what you know, what the result of that is. But in all my time in emergency service, before or after, I've never had to worry about dodging them. And from the time that I left the firehouse to the time I eventually make my way back, I had seven jumpers land probably twenty thirty feet from me, and so, you know, we go out and initially, you know, just looking up because it's like the building is so tall you can't see the top of it until you're back a couple of blocks, you know, And it's hard for people to understand if you've never been near a high rise like that. But you know, I remember this, yeah, you know, and in fire school they teach you that the collap zone of a building is one and a half times it's height. Ok, well, how do you calculate one and a half times the high of a building you can't see the top of. And I remember thinking, God, if this building falls down, hope falls down like a big tree in the other direction, right, because I was like, I mean it's huge. I mean it was. It was an acre for every floor of that building. There's one hundred and ten of them, you know. I mean it's it's hard for people, I think, to digest the actual size of those buildings. Anyway, So we're looking up because of course you have things constantly falling off the building, steel, glass, concrete, people, and you know, looking not to get hit by anything. So could you I don't know this sounds morbid, but could you hear him coming, scream the whole way down, Scream the whole way down. It's horrible. And then you know, you almost I don't know if it's you get conditioned by you know, looney tunes, you know the you know, the road runner and the coyote. You know, you just they hit the ground, you know, kind of Yeah, people are like water balloons, you know, from that height at that speed, you know, just hit the ground and it's just just I don't know, explode. I mean, it's it's and obviously you got, you know, a person one hundred and fifty two hundred pounds coming at you a terminal velocity. You don't want get hit by that. And and there were guys that got killed by people falling off the buildings, jumping out of the buildings. Was the chaplain or the chaplain for the judge. So so we're kind of walking out like this, and you know, as we're getting down to where this guy was, I remember at one point I had I was kind of looking for what I expected to see. You know, my initial anticipation was gonna go out there, it was just gonna be stuff everywhere, and it really wasn't. At first A lot of smoke, things on fire. But you know, I didn't really see that, you know, the biological debris. So I started walking a little bit more and then I slipped. And when I went to see what I slipped on, and it was that's when I started to get to you know, that biological debris, and it was it was somebody's head. And I remember I stopped. I kind of paused, and I looked, and I mean that it was just carpeted. It wasn't like you know, sort of walking through the minefield hoping out to squish do something. It was like you gotta walk through it. And and I remember. That's is that from jumpers or a combination? That was from the plane in the building. And the reason why I know that for sure, other than the mass of it, you know, the actual volume of it was, uh, there's you know, there's one point where I stopped and I looked, and it felt like a long time. It was probably just a second or two where I thought, what could do that? You know, It's one thing, you know, I kind of expected to see an arm And I mean I've been by that point, I've been involved in, you know, responding to all kinds of stuff. And you know, I've seen all manner of trauma, but not on that scale. And like I said, there's things you expect to see, but you know, I was looking at stuff and I'm like, what could do that to a person? And and there's there's one child that ended up getting killed down there, and and I tell you it's it's strange because you know, in hindsight, you think about like what would I do, what I do different in all this and just the weird kind of things you think about and entertain. But there was a there's a child's foot, and you know, of course in hindsight, you know, doing the research, like I know whose foot that is? Everything else is sort of indiscriminate. You know, it could be anybody, and you know, odd enough, like you know, like one of my regrets is like I didn't grab a foot and like put it in my pocket, you know, because I don't know that that family ever had a chance to to you know, to bury that kid. And but anyway, so we're in this mess and like all right, we got to keep trudging through because I mean, we're out that we're on a mission. I mean, we just and I remember thinking, like I'm not to think about this later, because this is this is crazy. But kept pushing through and we got to hell, I don't know, we were maybe thirty feet from where this guy was and he got hit in the head with something from the building and a fireman, yeah, it was a fireman, and he I could see the other firemen that were around him, and they picked him up on a like a long board, and they were carrying him away from where we were. And when they picked him up, I could see that he had received a mortal wound to his head. They were taking a body away, and so I knew that there was nothing that I could do. And I remember to the two guys I was with, I said, let's just let's just get back outside. I woudn't get killed out of here like this shit was constantly just raining off the building, you know. And so we did and we started making our way back and we got back probably about halfway and it was one of those little carts, you know, they sell coffees and butter rolls, all kinds of stuff, and it was locked up, and we broke the lock off. I said, look, man, we're gonna be here probably twenty four hours, who knows when when he gets relief, let's just get some waters and stuff like that. We're like, we're gonna need to start rehabbing people. So we took out a milk cart, chunk out all the mud, the milk and the butter and all that, filled it up with like waters and snapples. Give it the one guy. He runs it into the firehouse, start doing a second thing, and I was probably, hell, I don't know, three or four bottles of water into that thing, and I heard this sound and it's it's hard to describe, honestly, you know. I mean, it was like as gifted a wordsmith as I could be at times. The closest thing I could think is if you imagine standing on a runway of an airport, and so you're at LaGuardia and then there's a seven forty seven dive bombing you, and as it's coming straight to wherever you're standing, they're pulling back on the thrusters towards you. That's what it sounded like. And in my mind, I never looked up. I mean, I'm standing from here to the wall to the building that's about to, you know, collapse down on top with me, and I never looked up. I just looked at the other guys with and it was just run. And the two of us started to run. And you know, one of those other you know, trauma type of responses was that time slows down. You know sometimes people say time will speed up, sometimes just saying to slow down. You know, I think that your processor, it just starts getting overwhelmed with so much information that you know you're perceiving that processing at a different speed. And I remember running like I was running through oatmeal, like just you know that dream we're trying to run away from somebody but you can't get your legs to work, like it felt like that, but in real life, and we ran towards this firehouse, and inside this firehouse, all the other people that could got up and ran away from this horrible sound too. And the guy that was in front of me, I don't know who he was, so I don't mind embarrassing him. So it was just some random vironment. But he runs and there's a there's a Chinese guy that's on the floor and he has a fracture of pelvis, so he can't get up and run, so he's kind of dragging his his bottom half like he was a you know, like an animal that gets hit on the side of the road, you know, and he hurtled him and I'll never forget that. As soon as he heard him, the first thing I thought was, oh shit, and I not gonna pick him up. And so I'm running and I kind of grab a hold of this dude. His name is Fou. So I grab a hold of Foo. And you know, we had put this they call it a k D. It's an extra extracation device. Well, if you turn it over, it's meant for taking people out of a car. But if you turn it over you can actually use it the stable as a pelvic fracture. It's not what it was designed for, but it works. So anyway, we would put this thing on him, and I grabbed him by the KD and I grabbed him by his shirt or jacket and just kind of went to pull back like this. And as soon as I did, I get I mean, I get hammered. And you know, when you're at the beach and you get hit by a wave you see coming and then you're just going along for the ride, you don't know which way is up and down. So I'm no physicist or engineer But as that building comes down from the south tower, the top portion of the building falls south towards where we are, and the rest of it comes straight down. And as it's coming straight down to the ground, it's just releasing this wave of energy and pressure. And it hit me. Hit, rips food out of my hands. I go deeper into the firehouse, hit my head, I hit the ground, and I could feel it pressing me down against the ground. And did you how so how big is that firehouse? Is it big enough where its size of the gymnasium or something? No? No, no, I mean it's it was wide enough to put you know, an engine and ladder. I mean it's it wasn't a big building. No, no, it's but it would shove. So did it shove you all the way to the other wall or probably? No? Probably, I don't know, fifteen twenty feet into the deeper into the firehouse. I know I was standing near the rear wheelwell of the ambulance that we drove there, and I got I got pictures I'll send you. I mean, the thing is completely crushed, it's just destroyed. And you know, I ended up deeper into the firehouse in the apparatus bay, and I could feel a pushing me down, I could feel things coming past me. I get hit in the face. You know, I'm bleeding and I ended up breaking my nose and and you know, had all kinds of soft tissue injuries and just the roar of it, you know, it just kind of riding it out and then all of a sudden it just stopped. It was complete silence. You know, it was complete blackness. And you know the old days in the fire surface what they would do before it had Scott packs and all that. You know, the old school guys who you know all died young because they had love cancer and god knows what. You know, they would they would breathe one of two ways, either through the through their armpit or down at the at the ground they go in they be fighting a fire, and then when it had to breathe, they just get real close to the ground and you know, being an inch or two of air that was breathe a boy, I guess, and you go down and hold their breath and come back up again. I mean, hardcore dudes, and I'm against the ground and there was no inch of anything. Of course, unbeknownst to me, you know, all alow. Manhattan now is covered in this thick dirt dust cloud. Now my mind, A plane just crashed out in front of the firehouse, and you know, like I'm just in the Hollywood black smoke of it, and I'm just waiting for it to go up, and i just gotta get out of the building and get a fresh air from outside. And I remember thinking, I got a two hot I said, I have one breath that I need to take advantage of, and I need to use that breath to find fresh air. So I remember thinking, all right, I got to get to a scott pack. I got to get to my truck. But then I realized when I had my truck, I got an an ambulance. I don't think I have band aids in it had nothing. It's all right, I'm in a firehouse. But the engine in the ladder, you know, the truck is around the corner, and the and the pump is around the corner. So I realized, like there's no option with that, and I'm like, I gotta breathe. And I tried to breathe through my jacket, but it was like someone took a shovel at dirt and put it right down my throat and then as soon as I, of course, you breathe that in and your response says then, which draws an ex breath, And by about that point, everybody else in that firehouse was in the exact same situation, complete terror. Can't breathe can't see, and you know, you hear the screaming, and I said, I gotta get out of this building. I just gotta again my mind, my mind's eye, just gotta find the back door outside, the sunshine and fresh air. And of course there was none. So how much debried did you have on top of you pushing you down? So a lot of that I think was the was the pressure. What ends up happening is is debris fills the front part of the firehouse, and so I'm in the firehouse. So that's structure. You know, we saved my life. Now that the firehouse itself ended up sustaining a lot of structural damage. In fact, that firehouse didn't reopen until like November of two thousand and three. But it saved me, you know, structurally, it kept. You know, all the other solid debris started filling up, and yeah, and. It was it was everybody else jew it that was that was on the street, you know, when I was looking back, just instantly snuffed out. They're all gone. And so, you know, I get up and I start trying to move, and I ended up falling behind. It was a port authority guy. It was a boss, and I knew he was a boss because if I get real close, I could see a shirt. It was white. In New York, you know, the boss's wet white shirts because they don't get thirty. You know, they're busy telling everybody else what to do. So I had no falling behind this guy and he's moving and I'm like, maybe he knows where I don't know. I've never been in this fire house before, and I'm like, I don't know where I'm going. But this guy's in motion, I said, is a man with a plan? Follows my lead blocker. And I'm moving and I imagine what hell is like, and I feel like I got a taste of it because the terror, you know, that comes with not being able to breathe. I could feel people that I was walking on screaming, grabbing at me, everybody yelling for help. And I remember thinking to myself, does anybody know the way out of here? You know, just like, all right, you know, let me go out, let me regroup, and then I'll come back to help. You know, well, we ended up stopped and he turns around, it's like starts walking into me because the back portion of the firehouse was damaged and there was no way out. And then I heard Gordy come over the radio with a may Day, you know, santral help help. You know, we've been you know, we have heavy casualties, we can't breathe send help and all these sorts of putting out this blood curdle on may Day. And I said, god, I got fud Gordy and I start kind of making my way back through the firehouse and end up bumping into him. And when I did, I remember he came up and you know, of course he gives me a big barrel hug and he's like, holy shit, dude, I thought you were dead. And I said, yeah, me too, And I said, look, dude, we need to come up with a game plan because like we're not in a good situation here. So kind of describe what it was like. So you you had like once you stood up, you had room, but it was still dirty, dirty. Hardly see a thing you couldn't see. Yeah, I mean it was almost like being in a fire without oh yeah. Yep, exactly without the heat, but you couldn't see anything. And you know, eventually, like we had like streamline flashlights, and I remember it was like a lightsaber because you get like a two two and a half foot beam off that thing, but it couldn't penetrate that the air quality was so it was so thick with this dirt smoked dusk. God only knows what else. And so I remember, you know, Gordy and I were close, and I said, look, man, we need to come up with a game plan. You know, we gotta dig our way out of this thing and in mega run for Brooklyn or like like whatever we need to do. We need to be on the same page. And he said there is only one option. He I remember he grabbed me by my jacket and he said, I'm not dying here with these people today. I said, that's fair. I said, but go down. What are we gonna do? I mean, we can't leave everybody in here, And so, you know, we kind of made a pack and I remember at the time there were people I remember yelling. I could hear them yelling. Madic medical, help, help, And I'm like, hold on a second, and I said, Gordy, we're the last two people out of this building. Whatever comes of it, Like, we're the last two guys out. And I said I could live with that, and and that's what we did, and we we just went back into into treatment mode. I remember one point, you know, I was setting it was a fireman's leg. He had an open tip, fifth fracture. And I remember as I was setting it, of course, he's screaming, and he leaned up and he looked at me and he said, brother, you okay. I said, yeah, I'm okay. He's like, were you bleeding really bad? And at that point we had found some paper masks and and I pulled it off and it was full of blood, and like I said, I broke my nose. And I said, look, man, it doesn't hurt yet. I'll worried about it when it hurts. Let's get you square away and we'll we'll take care of it then, and we did. We ended up making contact with a team on the outside of the building able to pass that guy through. Oh, so you did went, you found an escape route? We did, okay, And so it was on the back side of the building, away from the complex, and so we started directing ambulatory people out of there. In fact, we had gotten to a point where there were four people left in that building. It was me, Captain of the House, Captain Kelty, Gordy and Fu. Right, this poor Chinese guy I couldn't get up, like there was nothing. There was no way for us to get him out of there. That hurdle, the hurdle, and poor food could hardly speak English, and he, you know, I begging for us, the guy. I said, pooh, I'm worry guy. You're my number one guy. Used to you're my number one guy. First Amuel, who gets here? You're out of here? And you know, meanwhile, this poor bassard is on the floor just in all kinds of pain. You know, he's got The only schmuck that can talk to him is tell him, yeah, you're my number one guy. And we just keep walking past him. Anyway, So we get to this point and we I remember walking back out towards the apparatus bay it it got a little bit easier to see. I could see this debris from the remains of the of the South Tower, and I remember shouting into that wall of debris. Is there anybody in there? Can anybody hear us? You know, like, if there's anything we could do to help extricate somebody out, we would, But got no response. Remember yelling at a couple of times, and then I heard this sound and it was the North Tower collapsing, and it was the same sound that I heard before. And as soon as I heard it, my first thought was, I fucked up. I have my shot. I had an opportunity to go, and I just I stayed too long. And so the three of us, me and Gordy and Kelty, we ended up running into a bathroom and the three of us get on the floor in the corner of this bathroom and Captain Kelty was to my left, and he was an older guy, but he was holding my hands and I had fire gloves on and he was holding my hand so tight I thought he was gonna break every bone in my hand. And Gordy's kind of wrapped up around my legs, and you know, I remember, I remember my head against the wall and I thought, if this building comes down like this, helmet's not gonna protect me, and I tilted it back and the very next thought was if I die in here and someone sees me with my helmet on like this, They're gonna think I was retarded. So I kind of fixed it. And I remember just kind of being huddled up together with them and praying and just waiting, just waiting, you know. And it was different than the first go through because the first time, I'm in motioned the whole time, like I don't have time to stop and think, like things are happening. That's when I'm waiting and you already knew what it did, and I know what's coming, and and it gets loud. It's terrifying. I mean, it felt like it went on forever. I don't know how long it was, but eventually stops, same silence, like it's just nothing. And I said, you guys, hear that? And they said, what I said, someone's taking a piss in here. And they said what I said, someone's Here's someone taking a leak in here. You know, I don't pretend to be like, you know, some ultrue, you know, brave anything, you know, but like this is pretty calamitous. And I'm thinking to myself, who the hell is stopping in the middle of this thing for a potty break, Like it's like blowing my mind, you know, And and I got up and what happened was we were in the corner of this bathroom under a sink, and I guess the vibrations from the buildings coming down and shut loose one of the faucets and it was just dribbling into the sink. And I remember I had to get real close to see what it was. And I turned it off. And as soon as I did, there were no trumpets from heaven. There was no neon signs. But I could tell you with a much clarity. It was like this message in my brain and it was you still have work to do, And it was amazing. It was like a slap in the face for me just to get back into reality. And you know, I've told people that that message is what carried me through everything else for the remainder of that incident. That message is what carried me out of bed in the days and weeks and months that followed. You know, when I would lay there and think, boy, bother, you know, like you know, the you know that the survival, guilty and all the rest of that kind of stuff that goes with you know, that kind of experience, and you know, I'm a firm believer. When it's your time to go, it's your time to go. But the reason why I had to get out of bed, the reason why I had to go back to work and do what never needed to be done for that day, is because that's not work to do. And when the day comes, I got no more work to do, you know, then that's the day I'll hang it up. And so what so what you kind of describe what happened for you? How long was it? I know you lost your dad that day? Correct? Yeah? How long was it that you figured out what had happened to him? And I think people people, I know, when you have somebody and you're looking for a missing person and stuff like that. What was I mean, I don't know the story, So what was the story with what happened with your father? So I ended up eventually, it's probably about four o'clock in the afternoon. Afternoon by the time I get down to the to the piers. I ended up getting a ride from NYPD back to Brooklyn. From there, I get back to the station. Of course, get back over there, and everybody's been recalled to work. I get in there. You know, my lieutenants are in there. My lieutenant that had sent me over to this job, McCarthy come back and just just crying. He's like, you know, I thought I sent you guys to your death. And I said, no, we're good, lou And you know, my captain came in, you know, kind of grizzled, the old dude, and just he's like, you know, he boys good and I'm like, yes, sir, we're good. And he's like, where's my where's my truck? I said, I think, I said I got the keys. I said that's about all that made it. And so he's like, now it's fine, we'll take it out of your paycheck. And they ended up calling for ambulances for us to go to the trauma center because we were in bad shape by that point. And honestly, like I had some I had some plan. I was gonna get back to the station, get my car, and then just drive out to the island or something, but I realized my keys were buried in the trade center, and so I couldn't even drive if I wanted to, and I couldn't have. I mean, I was done. No more adrenaline, no more blood sugar. I mean, I was up. I'd worked the whole night before, and I mean I was tapped out. I was a victim, and I said okay. So they ended up calling for two ambulances. Well, Gordy, here's this, and you know this maniacs like no, no, no, no no. Because the agreement was was that whatever we were going to do, we were not getting separated from that point forward. We were going to be attached at the hip. And Gordy was true to that pact. So they ended up sticking to both of us in the back of one ambulance and you know, squeeze both of our big asses in that thing. And then of course get to the hospital. So we get sent to King's County King's County Medical Center, which is a King's County hospital as a trauma center in Brooklyn. And I've been in them many times taking other people, treating other people. First time, I first and only time, thank god, I've been in there as a victim. And I will tell you what the ass kick and I took in Low Manhattan was a close contest between who kicked my ass even worse because you know, they sent me through the whole. Trauma regiment and I'll hold to check you out. Oh yeah, you know, I got to do all this stuff. And I'm here to tell you, if you've never had the experience of a foudy catheter while you're awake, I don't recommend it. It was this guy sweet talked me into it. He said, I said, man, I think I'm good. He's like, now we're pumping you for a lot of pain meds. Man, like, you got to get this in and you got all these tests. I said, a man, I think I'm good. He's like, listen, you don't understand like magic with this thing. He's like, you're not even going to know. I was there and he seduced me, and he sweet talked me into this procedure. And I remember, and maybe I'm maybe I'm being dramatic, it is the way I remembered it. But I remember screaming, and I remember the guy coming up on from on the sheet and he was sweating and he said, and I said, what the hell happened? I reached down in his blood and I'm like, what happened. He's like, Oh, it's like this traumatic insertion and this whole thing. I'm like, God, but less so after this, you know, eventually gotta run me through all these tests with this thing, and you know, again, like I said, if you've never experienced it, I don't recommend it. Unconscious people do your thing. You know, they don't know. They're no worse for the wear. But I go through this, and eventually I said to the x ray tech. So they pulled in. At the time, they were expecting waves of injured people. So every hospital had all these people come in and they just weren't injured people. And so I had some medical student that was in with me. I'm talking to the X rayt tech. He's kind of behind the screen or whatever else, and I said, hey, man, we've been at this for a while. I said, can I take this? Can we get this thing out? Like it's really uncomfortable. He said yes, he tell was a med student, go ahead and take it out. So these things, you know, they stick it in as a little and they pump up a little balloon and they keep it from backing out. We got to deflate this thing. At least you're supposed to go ahead and rip this thing out. I thought I was gonna die right there on the table screaming. So there was a fire captain that was it was outside the room and came in and like, what the hell are you guys doing in here? And I'm like, i've i've I had it. And by that point they admit me to the hospital. I go up to my room and for the first time, it was about I don't know, maybe eight nine o'clock at night, for the first time, I found out that the buildings came down shute. I had no idea I thought they I thought they were planes. You know, It's not like I look up. It was nothing I could see and the sound, I thought they were planes. So I thought there were four planes that crashed. They all just happened to land and right around me. And because what happened was they had a little arm like this with a TV attached it to the bed and I swing it over and I'm looking at the screen and I'm watching this unfolding as bad as I thought it as it. Was, I was like, this is the worst. Day of my life. And right about that point, to answer your question, two of my lieutenants come in with my load paperwork and I had the phones were all messed up in New York, so the hospital had been trying to call my family to let them know that I was hospitalized. They ended up leaving like an answer machine message or something back when we had answer machines. So they ended up calling in and I had I had somebody from my family call and called the room and they're like, hey, what's going on. I said, Hey, I'm in the hospital. I said, I got to get out of here. It's terrifying. They had opened the windows. All the smoke from manhatt was coming in the hospital. Fighter jets were flying over the hospital, you know, so as you can imagine, like the noise of jet engines were terrifying me. You know, I want to jump onto the bed every time they fly over. And it was constant. So it was this torture. And so I said, ye I'm gonna get out of the first thing I can. In the morning and I said, okay, Well, have you talked to your dad? I said no, he's probably busy telling someone where to go or what to do whatever. I'm sure he's busy. And so everyone's over your stepmother's house. Nobod's heard anything from us this morning. He went to this, he went on this job. I said, okay, So I called down to his firehouse and I got through, and you know, the guy that was on house watch. Answered, He's like, you know, has Matt two eighty eight And I said, uh yeah, I keep telling me what the status has mat one is. So he says, who's calling? I said, what it was? Brian smith Kevin Smithson said, you know, I'm on the job. I got was down at the trade center and that got me up at k H right now. But I was just trying to find out what's going on. And he just started screaming, you know, they're gone, They're all gone. He just like screaming. And I remember how the phone away from my head, and that's about the tam at the time. My lieutenants came in, and I remember they just kind of standing and looking at me, and I said, look, man, I don't know who put you in charge. Answer in the phone, I said, but somebody else probably needs to. I'm gonna come by the fire house in the morning. You know, we'll see if we can sort all this out. You know, hung up the phone, and honestly, I didn't. I wasn't really worried, you know. And these guys, remember my lieutenants looking at me, and I said, yeah. They said, my dad's miss them, and I said, you know, he's fine. Like everybody, Gordy was missing. Everybody's missing. Nobody knows what that was going on right now. Guys went to be academy with they were on a missing list and they show up. And so that night I didn't sleep up the whole time. Thank god it was a little bed like this, because otherwise Gordy would have crawled up in there with me, just pulled his chair up next to me, and you know, the two of us snuggled up as best we could and get released. In the morning. My lieutenants get me back to the station. I could put clothes on because they cut they cut all my clothes off, and so I ended up getting clothes. And then I got arrived from Brooklyn to Queen's by Dad's firehouse and I went in and I said, I talked to the captain. It was on duty. I said, a captainN you give me the I mean, what's the scoop? He said, Brian, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be honest with you, because I told him. I was like, look, I'm not just family, I'm I'm on the job. I'm obviously you know you don't have to give me the water down version. He said, Brian, honestly, there's not a lot I could tell you. He said, I have a lot of guys that are on accounted for at this point, he said, the last radio transmission we had from your dad and the group that he was with was on the eleventh floor of the North Tower. He said, right after that transmission, the building came down. He said, you know, your dad's dad's a tough guy, man, he's you know, they got all these pockets, cell phone signals and all the rest. And I said, I mean I knew. I knew at that moment, you know what my dad's fate was. And of the seventy houses that lost personnel and nine eleven from the fire department, my dad's firehouse had the single greatest loss of life. The two companies that were in their squad two eighty eight has Met one has Matt had eleven guys that were killed and the squad had eight, so nineteen guys between the two companies out of that house. And of course my dad being one of them, and so so yeah, and you know, they never recovered anything from my dad. You know, we did the DNA stuff and hoping to get something. And I'll be honest with it, like it never. I'm not a cemetery guy. I gotta go to cemeteries to go visit people, So it never, it didn't seem that important to me. But as time went on, you know, it was like, oh, maybe there'll be a funeral this weekend, maybe the funeral next month, maybe, you know, I mean all the time, and you know, at work, you know, I was on a list that if they recovered anybody from either of those companies, I would get called down to the trade center and we'd go down and do the removal. And that's when I wasn't working regular shifts down at the trade center. You go down there and you'd have different jobs. You'd you'd work the morgue for two hours, then you go down and doing and removals, and you go down you're doing digging, or you'd be a spot or you know, there's different jobs and you kind of rotate you through them all and you just be digging in this muck looking for human remains. And you know, most of the time, especially as time went on, you'd kind of dig through until you can start to smell something, or you'd find clothes, you know, which you kind of give you an indication that you were near something. And you know, I just remember the whole time that I was down there, and really want to my bigger regrets in hindsight, it was just that I didn't pull more time down there, because you know, I thought if the roles were reversed, you know, I know, my dad would be down here and the so you know, just went down and dealt with the more vivid, more morbidness of the way that that whole thing was unfolding. But I will tell you, man, it was therapeutic as nasty as all that stuff was at times, you know, and really to people that are not in the business, it's hard for them to understand like I was doing something at least, you know, towards conclusion. Yeah, you know, and I was, rather than just kind of sitting through and just trying to process my trauma, you know. So so anyway, that was that and the you know, I was there until the very end when they you know, the last day of the the official last day of recovery in in May of two thousand and two, and then you know, and then eventually wrapped up my career in fireing MS when h came down to Virginia in you know, November two thousand and two, ended up getting a job at a municipality down here, and you know, I've been down here, it was twenty three years. So just to kind of wrap it up, I just I don't think people. I think the thing I struggle with the most when I hear stories like yours is how little the general public just respects the amount of you've sacrificed personally and your family has gone through because of nine to eleven and just service in general. And I mean, I just think if people would have to live to just just like a second of what you had to experience, would they look at things the same? You know, It's amazing to me. You know, right after nine to eleven they stopped showing jumpers. It was like a day or two after. It's too insensitive for viewers. We don't want to upset people. And I remember thinking at the time, people need to be upset, like these people died horrible deaths. You know. One of the one of the most compelling things I think at the at the nine eleven Museum, there's a little section in there and it's kind of blocked off. You got to go around a little curtain and say, you know, sensitive whatever else. And his pictures are jumpers. And his quote from somebody that was talking about observing somebody was getting ready to jump. It was a female jumper and right before she went, you know, like the wind blew a skirt up a little bit and she he pointed out how she you know, just kind of straightened out her skirt and the you know, and how in that moment that they weren't just jumpers. There were people, you know, human beings with dignity and and you know, and even though they made that the you know that that jump and you know, the terror that I felt paled in comparison. They looked down. It wasn't like anybody's thinking they were gonna make it. And it wasn't a quick flight down, man. So you know, to me, those people who don't have a voice, you know, the even the language we use, like you watch news footage today and we'll talk about the three thousand people that were lost on September eleventh, as if they were wandering through the woods and just couldn't figure out how to get home, just in the simple language that we use. You know, my dad's death Certiket says homicide. He was murdered. Those people weren't just a victim of circumstance. They were murdered people intended to murder them. And I think that when we start to I don't call it sugar coating, but you know, just make it a little bit more palatable for people to digest how bad something like that really was. I think you do a disservice and the dishonor to the people that did make that ultimate sacrifice, you know, the ones that don't get to go home and tuck the kids in, you know, don't get to go home and you know, walk their kid down the aisle or whatever the case, you know, wherever the whatever station they were in life like that's it. It's over. And you know, and I don't know, it's you know, to your point, I think that I think that most people just kind of you know, floating on through life. Just maybe it's blissful ignorance, maybe it's maybe it's just easier to live life not thinking about the evil that was surrounded by. But but it's reality, you know. And of course in law enforcement we see it every day and and and you know, it's hard to you know, not let that chew you up or or see the rest of the world through that lens, because of course it's not all evil, it's not all broken, h but there's a lot of it out there. And we see the broken. I mean that's the that's the I think that's the rough part is we don't see it. You really have to dig to find the good, and I think maybe that's what people are trying to stay away from. So yeah, brother, I appreciate your time, man, appreciate your service. Well, thank you you. It's high praise. Buddy Mo
