My guys were at a steam leak at a nearby hospital when an off-duty firefighter called me at Rescue 5 house in Staten Island. He said, “Bill, a plane just hit the World Trade Center.” I jumped in my rig and took off, expecting the guys to follow. I pushed through the tunnel, and turned onto West Street. Body parts and corpses filled the street and I said a prayer because there was no way to avoid running over some of them.
The chiefs at the command post told me they could use me in the North Tower. I ran inside the lobby, and then the screeching started — a terrible twisting, metal-on-metal sound. I jumped into a stairwell. Then everything went black.
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I heard screaming from the other side of the door. I opened it and shouted, “If you can see my light, come to me. I’m a fireman.”
Me and some cops gathered all the people and made a chain of sorts, and started passing civilians out of the building. Three firefighters came down carrying a heavyset person, and that was the last civilian left to evacuate.
We decided to get out too, hugging the overhang to 6 WTC. We had maybe 30 seconds, and then that horrible screeching noise came back.
I didn’t even look up. I took one step to run and a huge force picked me up and threw me into the wall. When the noise stopped, there was just me and the three other firefighters alive.
That night in the hospital, my brother called me. “Bill,” he said, “all the guys from Rescue 5 are missing.” It didn’t make any sense to me. I just started naming all the guys I’d had breakfast with that morning.
“They’re all gone, Bill,” he repeated. “Gone.”
For about a year and a half, I was on light duty at the FDNY; then I retired. I had what they call survivor’s guilt. All 11 of the guys died. They were killed when the towers collapsed. After about four years of therapy, I found the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, and I started giving tours.
Now, when I put my head on the pillow at night, I say, “Thanks for another day,” and when I wake up I say, “Wow, thank you for another one.”