story5987.xml

story5987.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-12

i had just gotten off my 12 hour graveyard shift at 0600 hrs,,,i am a 911 dispatcher and emt for the city of san diego fire and life safety services,,,,i had just gone downstairs to clock out and the television was on and my coworkers told me what had just happened,,,,the first plane had hit wtc 1 approx 20 min earlier and as we were all riveted watching the tv,,,all of us thinking this was a horrible accident,,,we then all witnessed the second plane as it hit wtc 2,,,,there was utter disbelieve in all of us of course as we watched this horror happening before out eyes, but eventually i knew i had to start for home as i knew i had to get some sleep to come back to work 12 hrs later for my next shift,,,,i couldnt wait to get home to tell my family what had happened as i knew they were all probably still sleeping, but when i arrived home they were all awake and watching, the neighbors had already called, so we watched together in horror, and as the first tower start to fall, immediately all i could think of were all those firefighters, paramedics, emts, police officers and all the innocent folks that hadnt gotten out yet,,all in that order, i knew they were gone and i cried,,,,eventually knowing i had to get some sleep cause i had to be back on shift at the fire dept at 1800 hrs,,,i think i finally went reluctantly to sleep around noon that day only to get up around 1530,,,when i awoke and it slowly came to me that something horrible and unbelievable had happened to our country and was hoping against hope that it had all been an awful dream once i came fully awake,,,,,i realized it wasnt a dream,,,it was undeniable reality