Fire-fighter Matthew, LT. ROBERT DORRITIE, EMT SORAYA ODONNELL, Richard L. Erdey, EMTD, LIEUTENANT PATRICK SCARINGELLO, FIREFIGHTER RICHARD BILLY, FIREFIGHTER ROBERT SALVADOR, FIREFIGHTER RICHARD SARACELLI, PARAMEDIC DANIEL RIVERA, Paramedic Andre Cherrington, EMT Juan Rios, PARAMEDIC GARY SMILEY
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FIREFIGHTER MATTHEW LONG
And at that point they were worried that 7 was coming down so they were calling for everyone to back out. So I waited for -- we waited for the boss, Lieutenant Rohan, in the middle of the rubble and we all walked out together back to the West Side Highway and crossed the highway and pretty much hung out by the marina when 7 came down.
LT. ROBERT DORRITIE
Q. What did you feel before it started collapsing?
A. Right. I said to myself when I looked up -- you know, looking at it, actually one of the guys, about secondary explosion, you gotta watch the secondary explosions, second devices, things like that, be careful of that, and when it went -- it looked like it went off like a secondary explosion went off, and I said -- I actually said to myself, wow, this is actually pretty good, because it's out of the way. The secondary device is out of the way. Hopefully nobody is hurt there, but at least we don't have to worry about a secondary explosion, but at that time then we saw the building collapse, push down on itself. I couldn't believe it.
I was behind the bench and then you hear like a wind, right? You know, like a wind comes at you, and you hear -- first you hear this, you know, dust and dirt, and then the big stuff starts coming, and mostly what I found out later was the stainless steel -- this is from the front of the building -- landed all around me, and so I got up.
EMT SORAYA ODONNELL
Did u see the airplanes hit the building? No no. When i left the battalion, when i was 63 we heard someone say over the radio we heard a bomb went of in the other building we're not sure if it's a bomb and they were trying to confirm its another building, its another airplane.
Richard L. Erdey, EMTD
We're going back in. Because I already made a joke to my partner because I have military training, I was a peace officer for
LIEUTENANT PATRICK SCARINGELLO
I started to treat patients on my own when I heard the explosion from up above. I looked up, I saw smoke and flame and then I saw the top tower tilt, start to twist and lean.
I was assisting in pulling more people out from debris, when I heard the second tower explode. When I tried to evacuate the area, by running up
We then were told by PD that the area was possibly in a collapse zone because of tower 7. We evacuated the church.
I got halfway up to the corner of Church and Vesey when tower 7 dropped, which basically the concussion just blew me across the street and I came up again besides, past Saint Pauls and it was already late at night and it was dark.
FIREFIGHTER RICHARD BILLY
They went up to a couple more floors to the staging area. I believe they went to 35, I'm not sure. I was with them for a few minutes. What happens is a couple of other people came by, they wanted to look at their office, I don't know why, but for some reason. About that time, I don't know exactly what time, I don't have the times down, but there was a collapse. At this time, i never knew that World Trade Center 2 was ever hit. At this point I'm thinking it's the top of our floor, our building, number 1. That's what I'm thinking.
FIREFIGHTER ROBERT
The chauffeur, 4 engine chauffeur and I were monitoring our rigs and then I missed--4 chauffeur had left me and I was standing there alone and witnessed the first building collapsing and I was watching it and couldn't believe it was collapsing. I thought it was just, you know, explosions. All the windows were blowing out. By that time I noticed it was mushrooming and knew it was collapsing, so I started to run and the concussion picked me up and threw me 30 feet and I fell on my back, right near two parked cars.
FIREFIGHTER RICHARD SARACELLI
I want to know what the building industry is doing building buildings 110 stories tall with no way for us to effectively fight a fire on an upper floor and no way for people in those buildings to evacuate in a serious fire incident. A lot of what is going to come down to rest here is why were those buildings built so far beyond the human scale? Why did the City of
PARAMEDIC DANIEL RIVERA
It was basically everyone for themselves after the second explosion. I saw Many Delgado. I saw some other people. Like I said, it was crazy, really crazy. Everything pretty much calmed down. Once the second plane hit it wasn't to bad. People still running out of the building.
It was a frigging noise. At first I thought it was -- do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear "Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop"-- That's exactly what -- because I thought it was that. When I heard that frigging noise, that's when I saw the building coming down.
I could actually touch the building when it collapsed, the second time it collapsed. But again i was prepared because I heard that same noise. It was like a waterfall noise. That's when I ran. As i ran in here, I didn't run too far.
We were crazy to stay there because you still had this thing about airplanes going to hit other buildings, And the buildings around you weren't safe because the building I was hiding next to, that one was leaning and I heard that one collapsed to.
Paramedic Andre Cherrington.
Alright, what happened was, I logged on. I started work at
So as I was pulling off, I'd say about half a block away, we heard a big boom, and we seen a whole bunch of ashes, everything just started coming towards us. So I actually stopped the ambulance for thirty seconds and I looked. My partner was in the back he said stop the ambulance. So I stopped and I looked, and I seen all the debris coming. So I said close the bus. Cause at this point everyone started running towards the ambulance, I mean, you know, we had one critical patient there, so I said let me just get this guy to the hospital.
Finally some lieutenants came over and they said okay, you guys stay over here, just in case, cause one of the buildings was on fire. The last building to fall was on fire. He said it might drop. So we waited there to see if anything was going to happen. The only thing that happened was that the building dropped. We waited to see if anybody was hurt, but everybody seemed to be evacuated, everything was fine.
EMT Juan Rios
I was in the back waiting, you know, so we could wait for patients and I was hooking up the regulator to the O-2, when I hear people screaming and a loud explosion, and I heard like -sssssssss-- the dust like -sssssssss-- So I come out of the bus, and I look and I see a big cloud of dust and debris coming from the glass-- through the condominium, the other building, and like, glass falling.
PARAMEDIC
