As the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks approaches, first responders who were at the World Trade Center in New York are still dealing with the mental and physical impacts of working at the scene.
The trauma has not dissipated.
Retired New York firefighters gathered in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday to show off their memorial fire truck. It features pictures of all 343 FDNY firefighters who died that day, along with photos of 75 police officers, one police K-9 dog, and other first responders who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
They also came to share their experiences with the news media.
“I got there about two in the afternoon, and it was just a cloud of dust,” said firefighter Don Gander, who was off duty that day. “But we were looking for guys that we worked with and I lost, like, 32 close friends that day.”
We watched as three former FDNY firefighters pointed at individual faces on the truck, telling stories about each one.
Sal D’Angelo was based in Staten Island. He was on a fire boat heading to Lower Manhattan when the first one, and then the other tower collapsed.
“I haven’t been back. I dug for eight days. Everybody was dead; I went to 200 funerals,” D’Angelo said. “I lost 17 friends in September. Who goes to 17 funerals?”
“We found six Port Authority firefighters in a staircase, face down, crushed,” said Mike Nugent, a division chief with Broward Sheriff’s Fire Rescue.
Nugent was among many firefighters called in from around the country to work at Ground Zero, the biggest recovery operation in the nation’s history. Their primary mission was to find any remnants of people, so that families could hold funerals. What did they look for? Flies, Nugent said.
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“We found a hand holding a set of car keys. It was a woman’s hand because it had nail polish. All you could think about was that woman was trying to get out to save her life, to get in the car and she didn’t make it,” Nugent said.
Paul Iannizzotto told us one minute he was talking to colleagues who were standing right next to him, and then a few minutes later, they were gone.
“I was in the right place at the right time, because I was in the north tower when the south tower fell, so we were able to get out and get back to the pile later on,” the retired FDNY firefighter explained.
I asked him if he has survivor’s guilt 25 years later.
“Every day, every single day,” Iannizzotto said, with tears welling up in his eyes. “It’s never easy. Of the 343 firefighters, I knew 108 personally, 108, that’s how many were personal friends of mine.”
The search and rescue operation quickly turned into a search operation as everyone at the scene realized there were not going to be any survivors. But they worked incessantly. Nugent said no one wanted to stop.
“It’s sacred ground, and we took a hard gut punch that day, and you never really get over it; time heals all wounds, time hasn’t healed this wound,” Nugent said.
They all worked long hours exposed to toxic air and dust. Many of the firefighters, including the four men who told their stories today, are suffering from lingering health issues ranging from breathing difficulties to Parkinsons and a variety of cancers. Since 9/11, 608 firefighters have died from diseases thought to have been caused by Ground Zero exposure.
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So 25 years later, the Al Qaeda terrorists are still claiming victims.