Page 454 - Fireman News Today

>> came back to the fire house the next day. i couldnt wait to get back, actually, because i wanted to get down. i figured, were going to have plenty of people that are going to be trapped for sure. were going to get them out. we have to. we always do. >> were all alive. thats more than we could have possibly hoped for. so our job now is to go and do whatever needs to be done and do it as much and as hard as we can for as long as theyll let us. >> some of the guys took the city bus down to what ...

And he says yes. >> yeah, you stay with me. >> come in with me. never leave my side. i go. and i hear screams. and right to my right there was two people on fire burning. i just didnt want to film that. it was like no one, no one should see this. >> fifer was the first chief into the building. right away a guy from the port authority told him the damage was somewhere above the 78th floor. but all you had to do was look around. it was obvious something had happened right there in the lobby. >> yo...

>> im going through the list. >> hello. is there anyone in this car? >> theres about 98 elevators in the world trade center. >> in the middle of all this, suddenly an elevator opens up. and we see people not having a clue of whats going on. theyve been stuck in there since the first plane hit. >> we were seeing the look on the firefighters. it was not fear. it was whats going on? disbelief.

>> theres going to be a lot of pain to deal with in the future. a lot of guys, we all lost friends and family. >> i dont want to ever have to put that thing at half-mast again for the rest of my career. thats it. >> until the recall ends, its 24 on, 24 off, 24 on, 24 off. >> we got word wed start digging in the morning. some of the guys with wives and kids went home, just for a few hours. they knew it might be days before theyd see their families again. >> my son was sleeping. i picked him up, a...

♪ ♪ >> when you work in a firehouse seven blocks from the two tallest js in new york, you get to know every step, every staircase, every story. >> jim. couldnt get too close to -- >> im james hanlon. im a filmmaker and a fireman at ladder 7 in downtown. during the summer before 9/11

>> may day. >> mayday, mayday. >> there were two planes. i saw the second one hit.day. >> mayday, mayday. >> there were two planes. i saw the second one hit. it hit the other tower. >> all we knew a second plane hit. and we had a lot of people trapped. >> stay together. stay together. >> second plane. >> now the chiefs would have to set up a whole other operation over in tower two. >> when the second plane hit, thats when you could see fear. >> both of them are on fire. >> you could see it in ev...

It would have felt good saying at least i got one person out, one family will be able to have a decent funeral. >> quiet! >> our first shift was 24 hours. and in all that time, there was one person pulled out alive. one. it was beyond discouraging. it was even hard to understand. walking back to the fire house,

There were days wed go to the trade center five times in a single shift. >> well send you some help. >> my point is, we knew those towers as well as anybody. but nobody, nobody expected september 11th. [ screaming ] >> the world trade center. >> on that day, guys from my firehouse, my best friends, were some of the first firefighters

>> i dont know what to do. go back down there or what? >> at the same time, we knew hundreds of firefighters, thousands of people had to have died in those towers. and every hour that passed, we were more certain tony was one of them. >> hey, guys. deputy chief hill called. first division. he doesnt want anybody else down there right now. >> but the truth is, the guys had to go back, had to start digging for survivors. >> i had to go back and find the kid. >> its gone, man.

You know every time you hear that crashing sound, its a life which is extinguished. its not something you can get used to. and the sound was so loud. >> i just remember looking up. thinking how bad it is up there that the better option is to jump? >> the fbi is now investigating reports of a plane hijacking before these crashes were telling you about at the world trade center towers this morning. >> pieces of the building and the planes actually landed blocks away. gedeon was walking with his ca...