story1024.xml

story1024.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-15

hello everyone, my name is donnie holmes. i am a arff firefighter in birmingham alabama with a government contracted company located at the the birmingham international airport. on september 11th 2001, i as many other firefighters and just made it to the fire station to make it another go round on shift. little did i know that everything that i thought was normal would suddenly be shaken off course. i had just cheched my crash truck off for the day that i was assigned to and sat down at the kitchen table for a bite to eat. as i was changing stations on the kitchen tv i stopped at a local channel to marvel at the news bulletin showing what fdny was b shifters were having to battle as they came on shift. to my surprise i heard the news reporter state that an aircraft hit the towers. in a minute of shock i left the kitchen and got on our station p.a. system and yelled the news to my fellow crewmen of the crash. as everyone of my partners poured into the dayroom we all stood in amazement as the pictures kept getting replayed over and over. the hardest part of watching the events unfold for us as many other firefighter watching was the feeling of helplessness as the towers crumbled down. due to our fire department being part of a government employed aircraft refurbishing company, we were placed on a state of heightened alert and all of our taxi ramps where blocked off and all shifts were called in. my heart goes out to everyone that lost a loved one in this horrendous attack on our country. may god bless everyone in our country and those abroad that are fighting to continue our priveledged freedom.

donnie r. holmes firefighter/emt pemco fire crash rescue