Sept. 11 Archives Show Heroism Amid Chaos
By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press WriterSun Aug 14, 4:20 AM ET
Radio communication broke down. Commanders lost contact with their squads. Noise and dust obscured the senses. One paramedic likened it to being in an infantry unit overrun by enemy troops. Yet, in the confusion at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, firefighters and emergency medical technicians improvised, and kept working.
Without direction from superiors and no plan to guide their actions, they followed their instincts and extinguished blazes, triaged casualties and comforted the injured, at a time when they could have surrendered to panic.
More details of their rescue efforts that day have emerged in an archive of interviews and audiotapes released by the city this week as a result of a court order.
Among the hundreds of pages of transcripts are scores of instances where trained rescuers realized they were on their own.
Frank Pastor, an EMT who lost his helmet and his equipment running for his life as one of the towers collapsed, recalled finding himself in the lobby of a building surrounded by hundreds of survivors crying, "Help me! We can't breathe," in the cloud of dust.
"I'm looking around to see what I can do," he said. "I remember opening up this door. There was a slop sink. There was clothes hanging. I took the clothes and I started soaking the clothes, wetting them, started cutting out strips, giving it to kids, giving it to the mothers."
Firefighter Tiernach Cassidy dusted himself off after the second tower collapsed and found a command post.
"At first we started asking, 'What are we doing? What are we doing?'" he said. "Nobody really had a specific answer."
He salvaged rope and some tools from parked emergency vehicles and began looking for ways into the mountain of rubble.
After hours of searching, he and a companion lowered themselves into a deep pit, where they found a pocket of trapped civilians, firefighters and a Port Authority police officer who had survived.
Cassidy described who he used his body as a bridge to help the dazed officer climb up to a girder and reach clear skies.
"He gets up on my leg and then my shoulder, and he's up on the girder," Cassidy said. "He lies there on top of the girder and he gives me the biggest hug and he starts crying.
"For me, it was like, 'All right. No time for sentiment. You've got to get going."
The failures of the day were apparent in the transcripts and radio calls, released as the result of a lawsuit by some of the victims' families and The New York Times.
Several city EMTs complained about their inability to communicate with the private ambulance corps. Some firefighters said they never heard the evacuation order. Many described difficulty keeping in touch with commanders or members of their own units.
But the chaos didn't stop rescuers from acting.
Fire Captain Bruce Lindahl recalled realizing, amid all the confusion, that someone needed to put water on the Trade Center's smoldering remains.
EMT Fermin Merrero described walking down the street, treating wounded people as they passed.
"Nobody was in charge," he said. "I know what they teach you at the academy about we're going to triage, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. One thing about it, everybody kept their head. Everybody worked as a team."
Paramedic Camille Marroncelli said that for many, the decision to keep going in the face of chaos came naturally.
"You react because it's second nature on this job and that's the only reason why people — a lot of people rose to the occasion, because it is second nature," Marroncelli said. "If you stood there and really had to think about what you had to do, you would have been more paralyzed than you were."
Radio communication broke down. Commanders lost contact with their squads. Noise and dust obscured the senses. One paramedic likened it to being in an infantry unit overrun by enemy troops. Yet, in the confusion at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, firefighters and emergency medical technicians improvised, and kept working.
Without direction from superiors and no plan to guide their actions, they followed their instincts and extinguished blazes, triaged casualties and comforted the injured, at a time when they could have surrendered to panic.
More details of their rescue efforts that day have emerged in an archive of interviews and audiotapes released by the city this week as a result of a court order.
Among the hundreds of pages of transcripts are scores of instances where trained rescuers realized they were on their own.
Frank Pastor, an EMT who lost his helmet and his equipment running for his life as one of the towers collapsed, recalled finding himself in the lobby of a building surrounded by hundreds of survivors crying, "Help me! We can't breathe," in the cloud of dust.
"I'm looking around to see what I can do," he said. "I remember opening up this door. There was a slop sink. There was clothes hanging. I took the clothes and I started soaking the clothes, wetting them, started cutting out strips, giving it to kids, giving it to the mothers."
Firefighter Tiernach Cassidy dusted himself off after the second tower collapsed and found a command post.
"At first we started asking, 'What are we doing? What are we doing?'" he said. "Nobody really had a specific answer."
He salvaged rope and some tools from parked emergency vehicles and began looking for ways into the mountain of rubble.
After hours of searching, he and a companion lowered themselves into a deep pit, where they found a pocket of trapped civilians, firefighters and a Port Authority police officer who had survived.
Cassidy described who he used his body as a bridge to help the dazed officer climb up to a girder and reach clear skies.
"He gets up on my leg and then my shoulder, and he's up on the girder," Cassidy said. "He lies there on top of the girder and he gives me the biggest hug and he starts crying.
"For me, it was like, 'All right. No time for sentiment. You've got to get going."
The failures of the day were apparent in the transcripts and radio calls, released as the result of a lawsuit by some of the victims' families and The New York Times.
Several city EMTs complained about their inability to communicate with the private ambulance corps. Some firefighters said they never heard the evacuation order. Many described difficulty keeping in touch with commanders or members of their own units.
But the chaos didn't stop rescuers from acting.
Fire Captain Bruce Lindahl recalled realizing, amid all the confusion, that someone needed to put water on the Trade Center's smoldering remains.
EMT Fermin Merrero described walking down the street, treating wounded people as they passed.
"Nobody was in charge," he said. "I know what they teach you at the academy about we're going to triage, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. One thing about it, everybody kept their head. Everybody worked as a team."
Paramedic Camille Marroncelli said that for many, the decision to keep going in the face of chaos came naturally.
"You react because it's second nature on this job and that's the only reason why people — a lot of people rose to the occasion, because it is second nature," Marroncelli said. "If you stood there and really had to think about what you had to do, you would have been more paralyzed than you were."
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