IN THEIR OWN WORDS (45) 10/15/2001
Real life NYC and Port Authority police officers, firefighters, EMS workers, and their families share their experiences on 9/11 and the days and weeks following the tragedy.

Officer Mike Keenan (NYPD, ESU): All the stories of kids asking mommy “when’s daddy coming home?” I’m sure along with thousands of other families.

Firefighter Hughie Lynch (FDNY, Squad 1): I’d love to sit and talk about Pete and Espo and all the other guys and all the crazy shit that they did, but it’s like, you’re not gonna get to everybody. And I’d like you to know everybody. It’s impossible. So take us a whole.

Skipp Sudduth: So after hours of discussion and debate we decided that the only appropriate way to continue was to first honor these people by giving them the opportunity to tell their own stories, in their own words, before we return to telling our fictional stories.

Skipp Sudduth: These are the people that we portray on “Third Watch” and this is the reason we portray them.

Officer Edward McQuade (Port Authority PD): I was totally unprepared for the magnitude of what I saw when I turned the news on.

Keenan: I got in my car and drove a couple blocks to where I could see the Trade Center and what I saw I could tell it was no small aircraft that hit that building.

Paramedic Christine Mazzola (FDNY): I turn the TV on and there it was. The Twin Towers was--- was burning.

Firefighter Jeff Converse (FDNY, Squad 252): An incident like this, everybody goes. And if you can’t, uh, get on the apparatus you got in a private car. But you got there. Everybody took in this alarm.

Firefighter Sean O’Sullivan (FDNY, Engine 9): I saw the hole in the building and I just knew there was a lot of people up there and...said a little prayer on the way down.

Lt. Bill Walsh (FDNY, Squad 252): I couldn’t tell you how many guys in how many firehouses and how many homes; firemen, police officers, emergency medical technicians, how many people didn’t wait for the call, didn’t wait to find out what was going on, just went.

Keenan: I followed them over the Verazanno Bridge and they never came back, not one guy on that truck.

Officer Kenny Winkler (NYPD, Emergency Service Squad 6): I jumped out of the back of that truck and that was the first time I looked up and I saw it and I said “this is big.”

EMS Lt. Rene Davila (FDNY): These are things that my dreams bring back to me.

Officer David Norman (NYPD, Emergency Service Squad 1): I’m very proud of a lot of the people that were coming out of that building because strong people were helping those that were injured or weak.

Sgt. Joe Canny (NYPD, 13th Precinct): And I knew something was wrong. I knew this shouldn’t be happening. And then it dawned on me: this building is collapsing.

O’Sullivan: My first thought was “I’m not gonna make it.” My second thought was “six truck is...behind me. They’re not, you know--- “ That’s your second thought. And then I just thought “there are thousands of people in that building.” You know. It was just horrifying.

Firefighter Carl McBratney Jr. (FDNY, Squad 252): And all I saw was that silhouette, of uh, maybe 20 stories high and then I realized that the towers were gone. And I said to the guys, I said, “they’re gone.” And uh, it struck me then, that means our guys are in there.

Firefighter Jim O’Connor (FDNY, Squad 252): The one chief walked up to one the lieutenants and grabbed him on the shoulders and he said “I need you to find me a chief that’s alive.”

Keenan: I just couldn’t believe that the whole lower Manhattan as we once knew it was...not there anymore.

Walsh: It’s too much information to absorb. It’s too colossal to take in.

Captain Ed Metcalf (FDNY, Squad 252): It was eerily silent and--- and that scared me.

Davila: I told him “what we can’t do alone we can do together. We could get out of here.”

Officer Anthony Lisi (NYPD, Emergency Service Squad 6): You felt like it was armageddon, like it was the end of the world. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was like hell. Hell on earth.

Firefighter Gregory Fagan (FDNY, Squad 1): It was like something out of the movies.

Firefighter Anthony Edwards (FDNY, Squad 1): There was...like fire trucks burning and I said to one of the guys with me, I said, “This is like the American flag burning, this not supposed to be happening.”

O’Connor: It felt like you were watching a movie and uh, and then when you came to your senses you didn’t even know where to start. You looked around and you said “where do I even begin?”

Lynch: As soon as you saw somebody that you knew that hadn’t seen you gave ‘em a hug and said “thank God,” you know, “that you’re alive.”

Sgt. Tom Sullivan (NYPD, Emergency Service Squad 6): Not just 6,000 people. One person died 6,000 times that day and it’s really the truth.

Canny: Why? For what? You know, people at their desks? That’s your big, you know, that’s your big political statement is killing a person at a desk? What, you know, what’s that about? How do you do that? Where’s the glory in that? Where’s the honor in that?

Winkler: Not one of them hesitated when it came time to go into that building. Were they scared? Where they nervous? I’m sure they were. But not one of them hesitated.

O’Connor: These were the guys that were gonna go that extra step, that were gonna go that extra floor, that were gonna get those extra civilians and that’s what they did. They got 25,000 people out of those buildings. And that’s something that can’t be overlooked and can’t be forgotten.

Metcalf: What would I say to them if I could? “You didn’t break our spirit. We paid a terrible price with over 6,000 lives, but you didn’t break our damn spirit. And you won’t.”

Mazzola: I mean, whatever beef you have, that was just outrageous. And it shouldn’t have been.