Destruction of the North and South Tower.
To start off, my father Richard was an NYPD officer for 24 years. This is a true story, I'm unsure how to prove it on this website cause there's a lot of bullshit artists but oh well. On the morning of September 11th, 2001 my father left our home in Brooklyn to head to the Bronx where he worked. He got to work at 6:00 A.M. his usual time.
He slung his belt on and his hat and went out on patrol. He headed into Manhattan to pick up some coffee from his favorite Coffee shop. He got out to order his coffee when he heard the plane go over head. He said, "It sounded like a fucking giant lion screaming over you. It was scary but I knew then it was gonna be a long day."
The Longest Day[]
BLAM! The plane slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. My father jumped and shocked at what he had just seen, he radioed in saying what he saw and drove towards the scene. He was a trained EMT so he had some medical experience so he was gonna head up with ESU guys. When he got to the towers there was debris all around him, not to mention the smell of burning flesh and burning clothing. He headed into the lobby in the North Tower and went to the Fire Chief and said, "Yo, I'm an EMT where do ya need me?" The Chief told him to head up to the 2nd floor where they still needed to get people down from.
When he got to the second floor it wasn't that bad, he helped people go down and get to a safe location when the unimaginable happened. He heard another loud explosion. He looked up at the South Tower and saw debris flying down again. He ran to his car to grab more supplies and ran towards the South Tower. He headed right up the stairs towards the upper floors and eventually reached the 35th floor. When he got up there he saw blooded and battered people stumbling down the stairs screaming.
One lady was screaming, "Jesus Christ, they were on fire! All of them!" That stuck with him while he was checking the floor for civilians. He was up there a long while looking for people and when he found no one he started heading down the stairs.
Then at that moment he heard a loud rumble and the whole building started to shake, he heard firemen screaming, "IT'S COMING DOWN. GO, GO!"
He started running down the stairs but when he got into the lobby it was too late.. The tower was on-top of him.
He was trapped, no where to go. He thought death was certain, but he didn't feel injured.
He slowly got to his knees and looked for his flashlight then he heard a voice call out and say, "Richie, you ain't gonna find your light down here brother."
He spun around and said, "Who's that? FDNY or NYPD?"
The voice just replied, "A friend, I was helping people get out of the building. It's nothin to worry 'bout."
My father kinda shook it off and said, "We gotta get outta here now, that other tower is gonna come down soon!"
The voice replied, "Follow my voice, I see an opening just follow my voice I'm headin up."
My father kept crawling towards the voice until he saw a crack of light, he yelled out, "Hey I see the opening! Where are ya buddy?"
Then he saw a hand appear and heard, "Let's go Rich, you got work to do."
My father grabbed the hand and it pulled him up. He wiped his eyes to try and get the dust out but when he could see around him, the volunteer was nowhere to be seen.
My father ended up being at Ground Zero for eight months after that. He heard similar stories going around the "Mass Graveyard" about the same type of situation. My father was never really religious but after that day, he is a very devout Irish Catholic. So when you think there's no way out, there always is.
Officer Richard at his 1993 police academy graduation