I stopped at a stoplight in front of the towers and saw a father walking with his daughter. She had a knapsack on, and I thought how great it must be for a father to be so close to his daughter’s school while he is at work. All was as it was.
Finally, I arrived at the firehouse. I was relieving Firefighter Charles Early, who was waiting for me so that he could go home. I put on my uniform and walked into the kitchen. The guys where fooling around and talking about things that happened the day before. Then we all looked up at the TV screen. I remembered seeing the smoke blowing out of Tower 1. The house alarm went off.
Then the second plane hit Tower 2. The second house alarm went off, this time calling us, Ladder 24. I felt a rush. OK, it’s our turn to go. We drove toward the towers on the West Side Highway looking out the window in disbelief. All I saw was the smoke filling up the sky. What were we going to do when we got there, I wondered.
We stopped two blocks from the towers and got off the truck. Each man took two air cylinders and proceeded toward the command post, which was positioned directly across from Tower 1, in front of two large garage bays. I looked over to my right and noticed Mayor Rudy Giuliani walking beside us, he went out of his way to speak to Father Mychal Judge. He was asking him to pray for us. Once we got to the command post we grouped together and tried to size up the situation. Looking up at the towers, I saw a person dropping out of the sky and then another–and another, and another. I began reciting the Our Father for each person jumping from the towers and asking the Lord to please help their souls. Their bodies made a loud, terrifying sound when they hit the floor and overhang. I couldn’t believe this what was happening.
I was nervous but wanted to get up there to help these poor people. At that moment, Capt. Danny Brethel approached his company and asked us to gather around him. As always, he was in total control. He was wide-eyed and seemed to be looking directly at me–maybe because I was the junior guy in the house. He told us: “Be careful, firemen will die today.” I never heard anything like that from an officer, and it just added to the weird emotions I was having. Finally, the lieutenant called us over, informing us it was our turn to go in. We walked under pedestrian bridge to cross the street so that we would be shielded from the falling debris and from the people jumping. Once we got to the other side, we saw that we had 50 yards to go to get to the entrance of the Marriott Hotel [part of the WTC complex] with nothing to shield us from above. The lieutenant then said that we needed to run straight toward the lobby door as fast as we could. He said he would look up while running behind us to let us know if something or someone was falling in our direction. It felt like the longest 50 yards I had ever run, but I trusted the officer and just kept going. From the corner of my eye I noticed a section of the plane lying in the middle of the street. It seemed so odd and so out of place to see a section of a commercial airliner in the middle of a Manhattan street.
Once we reached the doorway I thanked God that we had made it and then entered the hotel lobby. There was a sea of firefighters all waiting their turn to start heading up. We knew we had to wait a while, so we loosened our coats and put down all our gear so we wouldn’t overheat. While we waited, I noticed Jimmy Grillo, a member of our company, holding a five-gallon bottle of water, filling up cups with water so we would all be properly hydrated. Standing by, just waiting for our turn, I also noticed a bank of pay phones on the lobby wall. The lieutenant and I approached the phones trying to get a working line. We had a dial tone but all the circuits were busy. I even attempted to use my cell phone to get in touch with my family, but that failed. I was concerned about how much they must be worrying about me.
It was our turn to go up.
We started heading to the stairwell when this dark, overpowering shadow started heading toward us. It seemed as if it was in slow motion. People were yelling to run. My first instinct was to run away from the shadow thinking another plane must be coming in. I made a turn toward another lobby, trying to get away from the front of the building. Then I felt this force, like being in a massive wind tunnel. Firefighters were getting tossed around like rag dolls. I found myself being blown across the floor landing into what appeared to be a closet. The South Tower was collapsing.
Two thoughts were going through my mind: First, I couldn’t believe I was about to leave my kids fatherless–how could I do that to them? And my second thought was, what’s taking so long to die? Beams and concrete were falling all around me, glass was flying through the air like bullets. I was able to hold my mask up against my face to shield myself from the falling debris. I was relieved that my air was still on. I stayed in a fetal position up against the corner of the closet waiting for the terrible force to finish taking its course. It took forever. I kept thinking about my two little girls and what their life would be like without me, and all that I would miss.
Once the rumbling ended, I found myself in silent darkness. I stood up, pushing debris off my body. I felt a wall to my left, a wall in front of me, and a wall to my right. I was worried about being trapped but I felt a clearing behind me. Even when I turned on the flashlight hanging from my coat, it didn’t help. There was a thick black ash in the air that not even light could penetrate. At that point, I felt lonely and afraid, like a child locked in a dark room alone, with no way to get out. That’s when I heard someone say, “This is the way out, follow my voice, there is a doorway leading to the garage”. Not knowing if there still was a floor in front of me, I dropped to my knees and crawled out of the closet over obstacles and debris, making my way toward the voice.
Then I heard someone else scream, “Back out, a van just rolled in, it must be a bomb.” I crawled away from the sound, waiting for another explosion to go off behind me. I heard someone beside me. We were able to lift up a metal gate next to us only to find a room filled up with debris from floor to ceiling with no way to get out. The smoke started settling. The pitch darkness was now becoming gray, and I had a bit more visibility. I noticed my lieutenant next to me holding up the gate. I noticed my helmet on the floor; it had blown off during that incredible force. I was able to put it back on and began searching for a way out. Crawling down a long hallway, I saw that a large I-beam penetrated the exterior wall, giving us a way to climb out. Crawling about 20 feet on the beam, we were then able to slide down a sheet of metal lying on a mountain of rubble.
Once we were somewhere outside the lobby, I wondered what had happened to all of the firemen that had been crowded in the lobby, practically shoulder to shoulder. There had to be more than 100 firefighters in there, I only noticed about eight of us crawling out. There weren’t even bodies on the floor, just mountains of debris everywhere. We decided to get away from the remaining part of the building, realizing it wasn’t stable. Later, I realized that I had just crawled out of a small section of the Marriott that had not been crushed in the collapse of Tower 2. Looking around, I realized I was separated from my company. I felt alone walking in this cloud of smoke wondering what happened to everyone. I noticed some firefighters walking within this cloud of smoke, all covered in a thick white powder. I started yelling out my company number, “Twenty Four, Twenty Four,” hoping that I would find a member of my company.
I saw someone in the distance raise his hand. I walked toward him. It was my lieutenant. I felt a sigh of relief, and I asked him if anyone else made it. He was trying to contact them on the radio, and perform some sort of roll call. He got in touch with Firefighter Tyrone Johnson who said he was with three members of Ladder 24. I also heard Tyrone informing the lieutenant that Cardinale was not with us. The lieutenant responded “Cardinale is with me.” I was amazed to find out that the six of us who had gone in together had survived. When we realized that all the members of Ladder 24 were accounted for, we tried to contact the command post to see what was needed.
We had no response, not aware at the time that the command post was destroyed in the collapse. We went aboard the police boat to help with the evacuation of civilians. I was still in shock–and disbelief–at what was going on. We took off our air cylinders, helmets and coats just in case we fell overboard. We pulled alongside a group of civilians waving us down. I stood at the front of the boat helping people on board. A police officer said, “Women and children only.” I couldn’t believe that what was going on was real. It felt as if I was in a movie, like “Titanic.” I just kept thinking to myself, “This can not be happening; this is not real.”
As we helped to get people on board one at a time, it seemed like a calm panic. A mother handed me her infant baby. I cradled her in my arms. I found an oxygen tank on board. I was able to kneel down holding the baby and giving her oxygen while the mother looked on. We began our trip toward Jersey City. People where thanking me. They, too, were all in disbelief. One women also apologized to me while trying to clean the debris from my eyes. I looked down at the infant I was holding, noticing she was wide-eyed but her limbs were not moving. I saw she wasn’t pushing the oxygen mask away from her face like most infants would. When I looked at the mother, I noticed she seemed upset but relieved that I was helping her baby, who turned out to be OK. I’m sure she didn’t know that the baby was helping me, as well: I felt like I was holding my own infant daughter. It was, in the middle of all the chaos, a moment of peace and tranquility.
Once we got to New Jersey, I handed the baby to the paramedics and reality started settling in. I started having a tingling sensation, even my knees where buckling. New Jersey paramedics and rescue workers helped us toward a staging area where they were trying to wash my eyes and face. They took my blood pressure. They started talking amongst themselves and told me that my blood pressure was dangerously high and rushed me to the Jersey City Medical Center. Once there, people were rushing everywhere to help out. They cut my shirt off, put in an IV and started giving me medication to lower my blood pressure. I had a team of doctors working around me but I was still in a state of shock and disbelief. A nurse came over to me asking if she could contact someone for me. I said yes, here is my phone number, and could you tell my wife I’m here.
More and more people were coming into the emergency room. The doctor that was taking care of me came back into the room and checked my pressure. He told me that my pressure was dropping. Once he left, I asked the nurse if she could take out the IV. She did. They were able to wheel me into another room. I was able to get in touch with my family and let them know where I was, and that I was all right. Still sitting in the room, still in disbelief, I watched the news on the television and saw what just happened: I was mesmerized by the whole situation. While listening to all this I saw my brother Danny walking toward me. We hugged and cried in each others arms. I started feeling a sense of security again, and I asked him to take me out of there. He wanted to take the elevator but I suggested we take the stairs because I wasn’t ready to go into tight quarters at that time. When we got to the car I asked if he could take me back to the waterfront so I could see what was going on. He wasn’t happy about taking me there but he understood. Once we got to the waterfront I met up with my lieutenant again. He told me that they thought that biochemical weapons were in the planes and he was heading to the hospital. He recommended that I do the same. My brother then insisted we leave.
The radio said all bridges and tunnels where closed, but I needed to get back home to Staten Island so we headed for the Bayonne Bridge. There we found New Jersey state troopers stopping cars from crossing the bridge. We pulled to the side, and I identified myself as a NYC firefighter and that I needed to get home. He saw my bunker gear was still on, and the condition I was in, so he called ahead to let us go through. When we reached my house, I was looking forward to seeing my family. I met my wife at the steps. We held each other and cried. I went to see my 13-month-old daughter, Cristiana, in her crib. I took her out and held her tightly in my arms. It was a warm sensation, being able to hold her, smell her, kiss her–again thinking about the thought of never seeing her again. Then my other daughter, Carissa, who was 4 at the time, came walking into the room, not understanding what was happening. I held her tight, still crying, but rejoicing in just listening to her wonderful voice. Then the rest of my family started coming in: my brother Joe, my father and mother, each holding me and hugging me tight. We were all crying. I’m sure they all had the same thought: that we were never going to see each other ever again.
We all went downstairs and sat around the table as I tried to explain what had just happened. I could see they were all in disbelief but happy to see that I was alive. I called the fire department headquarters to make them aware I was released from the hospital. Then called my firehouse to see what was going on. I was told that my captain, Daniel Brethel, Father Mychal Judge, Lt. Andrew Desperito and Firefighter Michael Weinberg, all members of my firehouse, were still missing.
That night I didn’t sleep. (To this day, I don’t sleep like I used to.) I tossed and turned that night thinking of how something like this could happen, wondering if it was all just a bad dream, like the nightmares that I live with now. The next morning, I got out of bed and told my wife I had to go back to help search for the missing. I so needed to see what I got out of for myself. Once I got back to my firehouse, I was embraced by some of the guys who heard what happened. I remember getting a special hug from Duffy, another member of Ladder 24, who was in the lobby of the Marriott with me. He thanked me and the lieutenant for trying to call home, which delayed us a few seconds that may have saved our lives.
We heard the stories: of how we lost all the chiefs and other members who were at the outside command post where we first stopped; how we lost Captain Brethel who slid under a fire truck as the tower was coming down; how we lost the great Mychal Judge, who was giving someone who had jumped their last rights. Lieutenant Desperito was lost after ordering all his men out of the building as he helped someone else trying to get out. Weinberg, who wasn’t even working that day, thought of his sister, who worked in the World Trade Center, and decided to come in. He took the run with the Father Mike and Captain Brethel.
All I could think about was, this can’t be happening. I kept picturing my captain’s face telling us, “Firemen will die.” I wonder if he knew his death coming? I was walking around the house in disbelief. I saw our truck outside. It was a mess. All the windows were blown out, the tools all gone, a thick white powder covering it, with debris still on top of the platform, the beautiful shiny red truck looked old and crumbling. My lieutenant wanted anyone in the collapse to go to the medical office at headquarters. I didn’t. I went back to the World Trade Center to look for my missing brothers.
