story9220.xml

story9220.xml

born-digital

story

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no

2003-04-25

My wife and I were renting a cottage in Cape Cod for the week, celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. I was the Director of Operations for the Victor-Farmington Volunteer Ambulance Corps, in Victor, NY at the time, and had assigned my deputy to manage things there while I was away.

We arrived on September 9th, Sunday, and spent September 10th at Marconi beach on Cape Cod. I remember that we specifically noticed the jets coming and going over the ocean, a constant stream of traffic.

When we got up on the 11th, we were preparing to go to Eastham to shop, and we got a call from our oldest daughter, who was at work when the first plane hit the WTC. She had driven home in a panic, not knowing what else to do.

We immediatly turned on the TV, to see the developing story on TV. I also realized somehow that as the head of an EMS agency in New York, I and my Corps would be getting involved somehow, but couldn't imagine what we could do.

I called the president of the Corps, and learned that all ambulance agencies in NY had been put on standby, and that a list of volunteers ready to travel to the WTC had been put together. I detemined that things were under control at home, and that my wife and I would continue our vacation.

That day, and evening as we went to different places on Cape Cod, people had changed from the day before. We were asked, and were asking, if stranger's families were OK. People just struck up conversations, and the thirst for more news was amazing.

That night, we sat at the beach, and stayed there while the sun set. It was remarkable because there were no planes in the sky, compared to the day before. We saw meteors, satellites, and it was very quiet. We went home well after dark.

The next day, we went on a planned whale watch trip out of Provincetown, MA. It was fun, and we saw numerous whales.
At one point on our way back to port, we started hearing jets. As it got louder, everyone stopped talking and started looking around. Suddenly, there were two fighter jets overhead. They made a slow circle around the ship in formation, and then headed southeast towards the Cape. It was a stark reminder of what had happenned.

After we got home, it was only a week or so before we got the call. The FDNY had called for assistance with standby units for the Hot Zone and Ground Zero, and Ontario County's turn came up.

I put together a crew of 6, including myself, and we started planning to go to New York. I had specifica criteria for making up crews. They all had to be certified EMT's, clean backgrounds, with no physical or breathing porblems. Also, they had to be mature persons, in order to obey the strict rules in place, and to bear the possible emotional burden of the job. I sent my list to the county, which sent the combined list to the State DOH to run background checks.

When we were sent, we didn't know what our assignment would be. We could be at Ground zero looking for bodies, manning staging areas, or running calls in Manhatten. We simply had no idea, but had to be ready, with work gloves, respirator masks, etc.

We traveled in a convoy with 5 other ambulances from the Ontario County Training facility, where we had received last minute instructions, and a few encouraging words from some Town supervisors, and we went to NYC. We arrived around 11:30PM, and went to the main staging area at Chelsea Pier. we were put into the hands of a FDNY lieutenant, who assigned us our radio, and our unit designator, 71D, or seven-one-David. We were to have two shifts, with 3 EMT's on each shift. I was on the first shift with my Tuesday night Partner from back home, and a Medic who had already been to the WTC site a couple of times before, including in the days immediately after the atrocity.

The other crew had to make their way to the hospital ship USNS Comfort, which would be the off-duty location for all crews.

We were sent first to South Staging. This was in Battery Park City, south of the site. On the way south, we were going down Broadway when we first saw and smelled Ground Zero. The odor of burnt metal, hot metal, plastic, wood, etc. was overpowering, as the wind was blowing it toward us, and the interesting thing is that the smell changed as one moved to different places. Mostly the smell of hot metal and electrical things, sometimes with a sulphurous component, it is something I will always remember. Although I've not smelled anything like it since, some smells can take me right back there, drivving south on Broadway, with all the traffic, noise, smoke, and floodlights.

After we got to South staging, all the ambulances were in a small fenced in lot. there was a trailer there, with another FDNY lieutenant, and he told us to just stay put, relax, and wait for an assignment. Some of us realized that the Statue of Liberty should be visible from there, and we grabbed binoculars. She was quite visible, glowing green, with her golden torch. It was only the second time I had seen her, and it seemed very symbolic that she was intact, and lit up for the world to see.

In fact, all of New York city was lit up, and I got no sense of a city under siege. People who weren't involved at Ground Zero went on their way, and it was very good to see this. The press coverage made it seem like NYC was shutdown, but it was very much alive and functioning.

We got an assignment to go to Vesy and West around 2AM. We followed an FDNY gator over cleared roads and sidewalks, driving over a plaza at one point, and at one point we passed by a pile of destroyed ambulances. This was very sobering, as we all knew how much effort it is to keep a single working ambulance on duty, and here were dozens, just wrecked and empty. We set up right in front of the American Express building, about a half block from the temporary morgue.

We were looking at the wreckage, and listening to the constant radio traffic around 3AM when suddenly the whole scene changed. We didn't know until a little later that two firefighter's bodies had been found. A priest walked into the scene, and later walked out, followed shortly by an FDNY ambulance. As it passed, everyone, including us, stood at attention, and saluted.

Around 3:45AM, an FDNY officer came around and gathered everyone up and we formed an honor guard. The two fallen firefighters were brought out of the morgue, and into an FDNY ambulance. We were called to attention, and maybe 10 motorcycles roared up. They escorted the ambulance from the scene, and we were dismissed. Everyone went back to the job at hand.

About 6:00 AM, we were called to do a transport. An iron worker had twisted his ankle coming off of the pile, and needed to go to the hospital. We got him in the rig, and transported BLS to St. Vincents'.

After the transport and the paperwork was done, we went back to Vesey and West. It turns out we were supposed to go to staging, so we were sent to North Staging. This was three blocks from Ground Zero, and was where the trucks carring debris were coming in and out. Where we were parked, we were close enough to smell the "Ground Zero" smell from the trucks carrying steel, concrete, rebar, wires, etc. past us.

We stayed at North Staging for the rest of our duty shift. After we were relieved, our second crew showed up, and we made our way to the Comfort. That was really the second part of the whole trip, which I will write about later.

But, our short time at Ground Zero affected all of us who went. Being able to help out in a small way, and being part of FDNY's response was incredible. We met so many true heroes, and were able to experience firsthand the scenes that all of the world were watching.