September 11 fireman:
‘It felt like the end of the world’
As New York’s firemen remember their
343 colleagues killed in the World Trade Center, one man talks about the
comrades he lost. New York firefighter Kevin Murray survived 9/11
In the East 2nd Street firehouse in Alphabet City, a once-gritty
neighbourhood in downtown Manhattan, plaques line the walls in memory of
the six colleagues from Ladder 11 who died on 9/11. There are
photographs of Lt Mike Quilty, a big moustached character in his white
officer’s hat; and of Mike Cammarata, a baby-faced figure under his new
fireman’s helmet, just a few weeks on the job and at 22 the youngest
firefighter to die that day.
Above the two engines stationed there now hangs the blackened
sideplate of the Ladder 11 engine, all that was recovered. And in a
mural on the back wall, a five dice and six dice are superimposed on the
Ladder 11 emblem with the motto ‘Lucky Eleven’.
The Tribute in Lights is illuminated next to One World Trade
Center (L) and the Statue of Liberty (C) during events marking
the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade
Center in New York. REUTERS |
Kevin Murray looks at the words with a rueful shake of his head.
“That was us, always lucky 11,” he says. “Until 9/11.”
On Saturday, he carried one of 343 Stars and Stripes flags into a
packed and emotional memorial service for the victims of the attacks at
St Patrick’s Cathedral. That was one for each member of the New York
Fire Department (FDNY) killed that day - the most lethal and heroic in
its history.
New Yorkers
He recalls every moment of 9/11 vividly. As the sun rose on a
cloudless morning, Murray, then 27, picked up his father, also called
Kevin, and a neighbour on Staten Island, for their regular early-morning
commute to Manhattan.
First came the routine stop at the World Trade Center to drop off his
father, who worked for a financial services company. As the younger
Murray drove on to the firehouse on East 2nd St, he could never have
dreamt it was the last time he would see the towers that dominated lower
Manhattan’s skyline.
At 8.47am, he was eating breakfast in the building’s communal kitchen
and cafeteria with colleagues from the 6pm to 9am shift - about to head
home - and those on the 9am to 6pm shift preparing for work.
And then came a stunning announcement from the control room over the
PA: one of the WTC towers was ablaze after being hit by a plane. Like
most New Yorkers who heard the news that morning, Murray presumed a
small commuter plane had somehow flown into the skyscraper in a freak
accident.
The firefighters switched on the television and watched the flames,
even as they scrambled to deploy.
In one of those twists of fate that still disconcerts Murray, there
were seven men there for the six places on Ladder 11 after a routine
shift rota swap fell through.
‘Ladders’ are the search and rescue teams that break down doors and
look for those trapped by fires, while ‘engines’ are the units that
carry the hoses and put out blazes.
Because of the extra man, it had already been decided that if there
was an emergency call, Murray would join a crew from a nearby station -
an arrangement that was to save his life.
His second life-saver would soon come in the form of a close
colleague, Roy Chelsen.
Murray grabbed his uniform, said a rushed goodbye to friends he
presumed that he would see again a few hours later, and sped off to join
his substitute company. It was on their engine, roaring towards the WTC
at 9.03am, that he watched the second plane swoop low over the lower
Manhattan skyline and smash into the South Tower.
“After the first call came in, I was really excited to get to the
fire. As a fireman, you want to be where the fire is. That’s the action,
it’s instinctive. But after the second plane hit, the excitement
disappeared. I realised we were under attack. I knew it was terrorism.
Then it was just our duty.”
Harrowing memories
And of course, he also knew that his father had been at work in the
WTC. “I just remember turning to the guy next to me and saying ‘My
father’s in there’.”
Carnage awaited them. “Sections of burning plane, a wheel still on
fire, debris everywhere and pieces of people, people still in their
seats. It was like nothing I had ever seen before.”
Ten years on, he is still chilled by one of the most harrowing
memories. “There were these mounds of mush. I didn’t know what they
could be, they were unrecognisable. And then I looked up and saw the
people falling from the skies.”
By the time Murray’s company reached the North Tower, Roy Chelsen and
the team from Engine 28 were already inside. A gentle giant with a cleft
chin and thick moustache, Chelsen was a friend and colleague of
Murray’s.
Together, the 28/11 team from the close-knit firehouse is known as
“the Pride of the Lower East Side”, a legend painted on the walls. On
9/11, Murray had worked there for three years since he was a ‘probie’
(probationary, or trainee), while Chelsen had been in the force since
1985.
Ladder 11 - Murray’s usual unit - had already made their way up to
the top of the neighbouring Marriott hotel to assist rescue operations
there by the time he arrived.
“There was mayhem in the lobby of the North Tower. The chiefs were
trying to get the situation under control, but radio communications were
a disaster and it was complete chaos.”
“We were told to forget about fighting the fire - just to get people
out. We were assigned to cover the floors from the 10th to 15th, while
Engine 28 was sent up to the 40th floor.”
With the lifts out of action, that meant a heavy slog in full uniform
and equipment - weighing 100 Pounds in total - up stairwells packed with
people fleeing downwards. “We made it up to the 10th floor. Every floor
was more damaged than the one below.
“The water pipes were broken and there were pockets of fire and an
overpowering smell of aviation fuel in the elevator shafts.”
They were directing evacuees down stairwells to safety when a huge
blast knocked them to the ground just before 10am. “It felt like an
earthquake. There was panic on the radios and we heard that several fire
chiefs had been killed when the command post was taken out. But we
didn’t know that what we’d felt was the South Tower coming down.
Life-or-death decisions
“There were shouts coming up the stairs that another plane was coming
in and that rescuers were trapped in the shaft above us. All the power
had been knocked out and we were funnelling people down the stairs with
our lights.
“When there were no more civilians coming down, we headed back down
to the lobby. But we met this guy covered in blood from one of the FDNY
rescue teams. He said, ‘My guys are trapped upstairs.’ So against our
better judgment, we started to go back up.
“We got up to the 10th floor, which was now fully on fire from the
jet fuel. That’s when we met Roy and the guys from Engine 28 coming back
down from floor 40. He insisted we had to head down fast.”
Back in the foyer, they looked out and saw that the Marriott had
collapsed, unaware that the entire company from Ladder 11 had been wiped
out in the process.
The bodies raining down outside prompted many to decide that they
would take their chances inside the building.
Gruesome scenes
Fatefully, amid a situation where life-or-death decisions were being
made by the second, Murray made a different call - but only thanks to
Roy Chelsen. His colleague was convinced the structure could not survive
after what he had seen above the 40th floor.
“Roy said: ‘We’ve got to get the hell out of here now. There’s
nothing more we can do. It’s roaring up there, it’s impossible,’” Murray
recalled Chelsen insisting.
Senior officers were telling the men to await instructions as the
“thump, thump, thump” of bodies pelted down outside in scenes so
gruesome that another firefighter said it seemed as if a “meat locker
had exploded overhead”.
But Chelsen would not follow orders. “In an act of complete
insubordination, Roy said ‘I don’t care what you’re saying. Believe me,
we have to get out of here. Now!’ He overruled two lieutenants.”
Chelsen led out 13 men, while many more stayed behind.
“We hugged a wall as there was less chance of being struck by a
jumper,” says Murray. “It was only some 30 seconds later when we heard a
giant roar. I looked round and saw the North Tower starting to come
down.”
End of the world
It was an apocalyptic vista. “We were already running through all the
dust and debris from the South Tower, which had already collapsed, and
now the North Tower was coming down almost on top of us. It felt like
the end of the world.
“We had got about one-and-a-half blocks away when we threw ourselves
under a rig (engine). We were immediately hit by the thick choking
cloud.
“I couldn’t breathe and I remember thinking ‘That’s it, we’ve
survived the collapse, now we’re going to suffocate.’ I have had really
hairy experiences in fires before and after 9/11, but at that moment, I
was resigned to dying. It felt like burying your face in soot and
inhaling.” Yet even as he was accepting that he would never see his new
wife Stephanie, a hospital administrator, or his family again, the worst
of the plume started to thin out. Murray and Chelsen desperately took in
air, still thick with dust, but life-saving nonetheless.
Murray made his way to an Emergency Medical Service station where he
was hosed down and his eyes rinsed out. With mobile phone communications
down, he broke into a school auditorium to find a landline and got a
message to his mother that he was alive. Amazingly, his father, at work
in the WTC, had survived, too. But he was desperate for news of his
colleagues from Ladder 11 and returned to the smouldering ruins - known
simply as’the Pile’ - and joined the desperate rescue and digging
operation.
“We were all doing stuff that we shouldn’t have been doing. The Pile
could have shifted, it was still burning, there was no way it was safe.
We had no masks, no hazmat [hazardous material] suits. But none of us
was going to leave while it was possible that we might still rescue
people.”
Occasional cheers went up as a survivor was located and pulled from
the Pile. But by midnight, Murray had heard nothing of Ladder 11 and
headed back to his firehouse.
As he returned, the charred metal engine sideplate bearing the
company’s name was being carried back into the station. “I just lost it.
I knew from the looks on the guys’ faces that the others were dead. And
I would have been one of them if it hadn’t been for the rota that day. I
felt a real guilt that it was me who had taken the detail at the other
firehouse.”
In fact, his fellow firefighters had thought Murray was himself among
the dead after hearing nothing of him for 15 hours. At the station that
night, the mood swung between mourning for fallen comrades and relief
that all the men from Engine 28 had survived.
Some swapped stories of remarkable heroism and dramatic escape; most
were too exhausted and numb to say much at all.
In the early hours, Murray was finally planning to drive home to
Stephanie when the order came through that all firefighters were being
put on shifts of 24 hours on, 24 hours off. He eventually made it home a
day later.
Murray worked for the next two months on the salvage and clean-up
operation at Ground Zero before exhaustion struck him down and he was
sent on sick leave. He lost 30 percent of his lung capacity as a result
of his work at Ground Zero, inhaling a toxic mix of dust, chemicals and
debris. Like many rescue workers, a decade on his lungs have only
recovered to 85 percent capacity.
For many, the fall-out has been lethal as hundreds of rescue and
salvage workers have died from WTC-related conditions. The precise
health impact is still being investigated, but firefighters exposed to
the toxic dust and fumes are 19 percent more likely to develop cancer
than colleagues who did not work at the Pile, according to research
published in The Lancet this month.
Ground Zero
Nor are the medical effects limited to debilitating physical effects.
Stress disorder is four times higher among firefighters who arrived
first at Ground Zero compared to the general US male population,
according to a report published by an American Medical Association
journal last week.
Chelsen, too, had spent weeks sifting through the rubble, but unlike
so many firefighters his health seemed unaffected. “It was typical of
Roy that everything would work out his way. We called it Roy’s Rules.
Life always seemed to run in his favour.”
But in 2006, Chelsen was feeling increasingly weak and his wife, a
nurse, persuaded him to take a blood test. The diagnosis devastated
everyone: he had multiple myeloma (cancer of the marrow). The FDNY
recognised the condition as WTC-related and awarded him a World Trade
Centre disability pension when he retired in December 2006, 21 years
after starting the job he craved.
Chelsen had saved Murray’s life five years earlier. Now, Murray set
out to repay the favour. He organised blood donations and set up a
Facebook page in the hope of identifying a donor match for his friend
and colleague.
One appeared to have been found, but fell through at the last moment.
Finally, a 100 percent match was identified late last year and Chelsen
underwent surgery, but by then he was just too sick and the replacement
marrow did not function. Murray and fellow firefighters spent the day
with Chelsen on January 9, “busting his chops, like we always did”, he
recalled. That evening, Chelsen died. “It was 1/9/11 - typical of Roy to
go out on a date like that.” Murray’s final gesture of gratitude and
respect was to deliver the eulogy at the funeral of the man who saved so
many lives on 9/11 through his sheer force of willpower and whom he
loved like an older brother.
“Losing Roy was the worst for me,” he said, his voice shaking. “If he
could have beaten the cancer, that would have been one victory to come
out of 9/11.”
Yet there has been some good to emerge from all the tragedy. Like
many firefighters who were also at home for medical reasons, he and
Stephanie soon conceived a son, also called Kevin. “There was a real
FDNY baby boom,” he says, adding ruefully: “A lot of us were thinking
about our own mortality at the time.”
Courtesy: Telegraph |