Never Forget 9/11: A First-Hand Account

This is from a friend of a friend of mine. I do not know him. He was a NYPD Detective on duty the morning of 9/11, and gives a chilling, and accurate rendition. This is a lengthy read, and there's a little language in it, but I think it is well worth the read for all of us today.

Mike Greene

I will offer an extremely short version this year:

Another 9/11/01 anniversary. Once again, we all have our own stories. Mine starts with me as a child growing up in NYC and hating the World Trade Center. I always thought the towers would fall on me one day. I avoided going down there, or entering them, like the plague.

Decades later, as a suit and tie NYPD Detective in midtown Manhattan, my team was working the morning of the attack. We got into two vehicles and rushed down there after the first plane hit. We pulled up to the scene as the second plane hit the South Tower.

I don't like to candy cane what happened that day. It wasn't PC nor unicorns and rainbows. This was a morning of mass death. This was a morning of mass murder. This was a morning of how many different ways can people be killed. What we witnessed was something no human being should ever witness. It was a scene that Vietnam vets later told us was far worse than anything they witnessed during the Vietnam war.

There were four sides to each of the towers. There were people constantly jumping from one of those four sides. As NYPD Detectives, our lives were filled with violence on a daily basis, investigating murders, suicides, rapes, stabbings, shootings, etc. We had seen the aftermath of people who had jumped from 5 or 20 stories. The aftermath was someone on the pavement, broken, but there. What we had on 9/11/01 was hundreds of innocent people who had simply gone to work who were now faced with burning to death or jumping to their deaths. One by one, and some in groups holding hands, chose to jump. In their business suits, alive, some flailing, some going head first, falling, striking the pavement with the sound of an explosion and in a milli second their entire bodies turning into just a splatter mark of blood. An entire living human being, turned into nothing in a milli second. Folks who had just gone to work to make a living. Murdered.

The people who were exiting the towers were not panicked and running. They were VERY orderly and calm. Some however made it all the way to the lobby and out the front doors, only to be killed by a falling person or debris. It was the same outcome, simply pulverized and turned into nothing as a person or debris landed on them. One man I will never forget, was in a business suit. He had brown hair, and a grey suit, with his tie still tied to his neck and his briefcase in hand. He had made it. He was calm and walking out of the lobby of the South Tower. But I told you, this day was about how many ways you could die. As he walked a few away from the lobby, a large shard of glass came down and split 3/4 of his body from the other 1/4 of his body. He was standing/walking, the left half of his body fell down and away to the left and the right sight of his body split away and fell down and to the right. A man. A living, whole man who had just gone to work was now split into two laying on the pavement, dead and the interior of his entire body now exposed just like one of those small animals cut in half in science lab class.

There were people with small lacerations, people with broken ad protruding bones, people with missing limbs, people with burns you couldn't fathom, people screaming and freaking out, people having heart attacks, etc. This was a day of death.

I ran into two NYPD ESU (SWAT Team / All Hazards Rescue Team) officers, Sgt. Rodney Gillis and Detective Joseph Vigiano. In light of the horror all around us, they were in good spirits. They were by their police truck, putting their breathing apparatus tanks on their backs, wearing their helmets, and retrieving loads of gear they might need (ropes, first aid kits, door entry devices, fire extinguisher, etc). I shook hands with both of them and we said be safe to each as they heading into the towers and past the sea of firemen who were mustering up and preparing to go in -- Another wave of firemen. Many were already inside.

Again, I'm offering the short version of my experience on this day 15 years ago. There are MANY more details I am leaving out:

As my team and I prepared to enter the South Tower, one final sight of horror and violence we witnessed was another poor innocent victim. A blonde haired woman, with long hair, in her business suit, a brown or tan colored jacket, white blouse, a brown or tan colored skirt and black or dark heels. She was falling with her face up to the sky and her back facing downward. She was flailing, her arms and legs kicking. Were prayed for her as there was nothing more we could do for her. As she approached the street and her death, her body struck a light pole and split in half. Each half of her then struck the pavement like hundreds before her, turning into the sounds of two explosions and being pulverized into nothing but two red splat marks in the pavement. Sadness and rage filled our blood and souls. We wanted to get these motherfuckers (the terrorists), but these were people we simply could not save. Watching people die and not being able to save them is not why we signed up to be cops.

We were just suit and tie detectives, we had no special rescue gear or training. But at the end of the day we were cops. Cops save lives and help others. As the two handfuls of us took roll call, I wrote down the names of each Detective that was with us so that we could have an accurate count of who was with us in case we got separate later, etc.

As we began to enter the South Tower lobby, I could still see (the lobby was glass) a constant stream of hundreds of people, still calm and not frantic, orderly and walking out. We had to look up so our fate did not come in the form of a person or debris from above. And that is the moment I saw the top of the tower move. I yelled run. It took a few seconds for it to fall on and around us, but I took in a lifes worth of details within those few seconds.

I heard gunshots. It was cops shooting out the windows of store fronts to seek cover and safety, along with civilians. The rumble of 100 stories of steel and concrete crumbling like leggos was like the sound of thunder and a freight train coming at you. People were running and screaming everywhere. My strong German blooded, 6'5" unit Commander flew through the air as the invisible shock wave from the tower hitting the ground got him. He landed in the path of a van as it was fleeing the scene. His left leg was run over and he was left on the ground as the debris cloud you saw on tv overtook him. I saw an unmarked police car with dark tinted windows, I pulled on the driver side door, in an attempt to seek cover, but they were locked. I pulled my gun out and was about to shoot the window to unlock the door and get in. But I thought about the chance someone else was inside and I did not want to accidentally shoot that person. So I dove in front of the car. *Again this all took seconds, though I'm telling it as though it took minutes. The debris cloud was a second away from me. I crouched down with my head against the grille of the car and my hands against it, ready to slide with the car in case the force of the cloud pushed the car forward. I also said goodbye to my legs. I assumed the debris would washed under and through the bottom of the car and rip my legs off. It over took me and I waited. Something hit my left hip, but that was it. I shoved my suit jacket over my mouth and tried to use it as an air filter.

As I took my first breathe, it was the equivalent of having run a marathon, your heart racing, out of breath and someone throws a bucket of sand down your throat. There was zero visibility, I could not see. This cloud of debris was pulverized people, pulverized steel, pulverized glass, pulverized carpet, pulverized office furniture, pulverized asbestos, etc. I had all of this in my mouth and it was suffocating. I shoved my suit jacket as hard as I could against my mouth, but to no avail. There was no oxygen. We've all gone to the beach or a pool and stood there, held our breathe and gone under water to see how long we could hold our breath. I knew that calm and still, I had 60 seconds or so maximum. I sat there for a moment, blind, no oxygen and suffocating to death. It was pitch black right there and at that moment on that bright, clear and sunny day. It also became quiet, where you could hear a pin drop. I heard a woman slowly walk past me, her footsteps very audible as she stepped on the now layers of pulverized bodies and debris that encompassed the entire area. She was crying for help, with a labored, stressed ,weak and cracking voice. I was pissed, there was nothing I could do for her. I could not even help myself. I then heard a loud thud and her voice went silent.

As I sat there at the front of that bumper and my time on this earth ticked away, I thought of my family and how my death was going to affect them. I then pondered how I should leave this planet. Should I lay down and just fade out or should I flap around and yell and go nuts? I chose to lay down on the pavement and go peacefully. I was still trying to breathe through my suit jacket, but there was still no air. It was still pitch black. I was reaching the end. I probably had about ten seconds or so of oxygen left in my lungs. This was it. But, right then, my persistent and never giving up personality kicked in. I got angry. I was pissed that terrorists had got me. I was pissed that so many of us were going to die right there. I was enriched with rage and surviving. I told God that I wasn't done, etc. And truly right there at the end of my life as suffocation was within a second or so of taking my life, a little bit of air came in. Over the next few minutes, slowly, more and more air came in. I was fully covered in pulverized people and debris, spitting, coughing, and just trying my best to get all of that out of my mouth and throat, using my fingers as well. I stood up and went to where I had heard the woman. She was on the ground, face up. She was a black woman, in a business suit, with dark shoulder length hair. I got down on my knees and checked her. She was dead, her eyes partially open and caked with pulverized bodies and debris, her mouth partially open and a pile of pulverized people and debris in her mouth and just her entire body covered with this same brown debris- why I couldn't describe the color of her suit.

Again, leaving out MANY details, I was able to get oxygen on a city bus a few blocks away that had air conditioning. I caught my breath and went back out and got as many injured people that I could find and loaded them onto the bus. I then directed the bus driver to follow the above ground streets south, then head up the east side of Manhattan to a hospital on east 21st street. This was also when I found the rest of my team. My unit commander whose leg was run over, was carrying a woman on his back who had her shoes blown off from the impact. I then sent the bus on its way.

My team was now 7 of us. We walked to the southern tip of Manhattan, facing the Statue of Liberty. There were thousands of people there sitting on the grass. We then went to the seawall, not a dock or a place for ships to dock, but just a railing for folks to sightsee and look at the Statue of Liberty. We began to flag down boast, waving at them to come to the seawall. And so began the largest ship evacuation in known history. We placed the injured, women and children first onto the boats. These were private boast, ferries, tug boats, etc. We carefully lifted each person over the railings and onto the vessels. We dropped no one. We stayed until we had evacuated every person off of the southern tip of Manhattan. I recall watching the last boats leaving us and headed to New Jersey. What fate was in our future as we stayed? Who knows, but we were ready for the challenge. My unit commanders leg was now three times its normal size and was blue, green and yellow. He did not want to leave. We had two Detectives in our team force him onto an NYPD Harbor Patrol boat that took him to New Jersey.

*Again, leaving out MANY details: The remaining 4 of us walked north and back through the rubble. I can describe a scene from hell. That brown pulverized debris, thick and everywhere. Everywhere. There were no colors. The world was brown. There were holes in the streets with giant flames shooting up from them. There was broken glass everywhere, crushed vehicles, body parts, pieces of the aircraft, etc. We walked back through the rubble. There were no firefighters, no one. It was just four guys in suits. We looked and listened for survivors. We saw and heard no one. We continued to walk north and eventually made it to a hospital later that evening.

I'll end this years story with my mention of my unit commander, Gerard Beyrodt. He died last year from 9/11/01 related cancer. One of my sergeants, Marci Pagano. She died from 9/11/01 related cancer last year. Reggie Umphreys, an officer in my precinct. He died from 9/11/01 related cancer last year. To the several members of my command who currently have 9/11/01 related cancer. To the other approximately 100 NYPD officers who have died from 9/11/01 related cancers. To all of the non NYPD people who have died from 9/11/01 related cancers. To all of the police and non police who responded on that day and for the following 8 months as we contented our search and recovery mission. To all of the victims who we could not save that day, we regret this to our cores and will never forget. Never.