“This doesn’t look good,” Jimmy said.
My partner, James Leahy, and I had just spotted a low-flying plane headed toward lower Manhattan, and we were chasing it downtown. We were driving so fast the blocks were a blur, and we were at Canal Street when it hit the North Tower. We just couldn’t believe it — we were screaming on the radio to tell Command what we’d seen and driving like crazy, on the sidewalks even.
As soon as we pulled up at the scene, the glass bridge that connected one of the towers to 7 WTC was severed and the glass smashed down around us.
Body parts and debris were pelting down, and you couldn’t get in through the front of the tower. We ran into the underground mall and started banging on the doors, me on one side, Jimmy on the other. “Everybody out! Everybody out!” we yelled. Nobody knew a plane had hit the building.
TEN YEARS LATER: THE POST REMEMBERS 9/11
COMPLETE 9/11 ANNIVERSARY COVERAGE
A bunch of firefighters arrived, and Jimmy went to lend a hand.
“I’ll meet you back in the lobby,” he said.
Cops aren’t supposed to separate, but what could you do? So many people needed help. “I’ll be OK,” Jimmy said.
I got the PATH trains on lockdown, then I ran back into the mall to help evacuate people from the North Tower. What I saw shocked me — people were burned, terribly burned, from the jet fuel.
Since nobody could exit through the North Tower, I started grabbing people and running them through the mall, up to the South Tower lobby, and then across Hudson Street to ambulances waiting on the other side. Many of the injured just stood there, not moving, if I didn’t push them.
The whole time I was talking to Jimmy over the radio. He was climbing up into the North Tower with the firefighters. “Please come down now, Jimmy. I need your help. Come down,” I said.
I was afraid for him. He wasn’t a firefighter. He didn’t have their equipment.
“I’m gonna be fine,” he kept saying. I was in the lobby of the South Tower, urging a heavy woman to move faster, when there was a massive explosion. The ground shook. I thought the North Tower had collapsed on top of us.
I was on my knees. People were screaming and crying and praying around me. It was total panic mode.
The plane severed a lot of the water pipes, and what we didn’t know was that water was steadily streaming down. All of a sudden, in that big, airy lobby, chunks of ceiling came bombing down.
Those wet heavy pieces wiped out groups of people right next to me. They died in front of my eyes.
“RUN!” I screamed. That’s all I could say.
I was hopping over bodies, carrying a woman with bad burns. We got to the doors and out to the sidewalk, and then the building started to pancake down.
It felt like an earthquake. I was crushed by a huge pressure, like an unnatural force pushing me down, down, down. It was like being in hell — dark, smoky, I couldn’t see, only hear the screaming around me.
I hit something, I think a car. I grabbed it, wormed my way under it. I was screaming on the radio, “Get out now, Jimmy, get out now! The building’s collapsed. Just f – – – ing run, Jimmy!”
It was like the end of the world for me.
I woke up in the hospital. The doctors said I was talking when I came in, calling Jimmy’s name.
It took months to find him in the rubble. It was a terribly painful time in my life. I couldn’t forgive myself for what happened.