9/11: One Day in America | MEGA EPISODE | National Geographic

MAN: Alright, come on down this way. Paul? Yeah, let's get out the way we came in! (overlapping chatter). MAN: Come on. Come on back, everybody down. Durrell? Yeah, right here. Are you ready for this? Go out the way we came in! (overlapping chatter). MAN: Right here! (overlapping chatter). Yeah. We got it. (overlapping chatter). Watch out! That's the way outta here. Got a light? (overlapping chatter). No, no. Come here. (overlapping chatter). We gotta get everybody out! Let's go! Let's go! Let's get some lights. Let's go. Don't panic. PFEIFER: Many people ask me, "What was it like that day?" (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: Command post, tower one. All units, evacuate the building. Command post to all units. MAN (over radio): Command post to all units. PFEIFER: And I think what they're asking is, "What was it like to be part of history?" (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: And then I tell them my story. (radio chatter) PFEIFER: And I tell them that there was signs of devastation everywhere. But there were also signs of hope. And at this extraordinary time in history, those little moments of caring for another were the difference between life and death. (rumble) (theme music plays). ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ SIMPSON (over radio): It's two minutes before the top of the hour. AP Network News, good morning, I'm Ross Simpson. Air Jordan is apparently ready for take-off. Former NBA superstar, Michael Jordan, is on his way back to the NBA. President Bush is going to get an ear full from Republican members of Congress when he hosts the annual congressional barbecue tonight at the White House. The President visits a school today to tout his education proposals before heading back to Washington. Barbara Bush travels to Capitol Hill... CLIFFORD: I woke up at 6:00 to the ringing of a phone, the meeting that I was supposed to attend was moved from The Marriott, mid-town, to The Marriott at World Trade. MAN: Watch your step please. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Morning. Thank you. Watch your step, please. CLIFFORD: This meeting was very important and I shared a lot of the details with Ruth, my sister and she said, "Ron, you know, stand out." And I said, "Look I have a new suit and a nice, bright yellow tie." And Ruth thought that was perfect for this, this meeting. And taking the ferry across in the morning, walking through where the boats are, there was a man with a glass of champagne, you know, cheering people and he passed a comment that I had a good suit on. You know he said, "That's a good suit." So I felt very confident that things looked good, not a cloud in the sky. Let's get this meeting over with. (PA chatter). KEVIN: I worked at the hotel that was between the two towers and I was a production chef. The Greenhouse Restaurant at the back of the hotel was all glass, so when you'd look up you had the two towers going up and when you looked out you had the courtyard. And the first time I saw 'em I was going in for an interview. It was like love at first sight. They're massive. And they go literally into the sky. And I remember thinking to myself, "This is where I wanna be." MAN (over radio): At all. MAN (over radio): Two alpha. Please notify caught at the response, 10-4 PFEIFER: I was a Battalion Chief in the First Battalion. (radio chatter). PFEIFER: And my responsibility was for the tip of Manhattan. I'm the first one in my family to be a firefighter. My, my father was a letter carrier in the Post Office and after I became a firefighter, uh, a number of years later my, my brother joined the Fire Department too. Kevin was three, three years younger than me so there was always this looking up to the older brother. You, you know sibling um, I'm following in your footsteps and uh, and every now and then I'll, I'll do you. (laughs). (radio chatter). PFEIFER: Battalion Chief was just a great rank. It allowed me to step back a little bit and yet at the same time to be connected to our firefighters. FIREMAN: S-5 Fox, it's pretty full. I don't think it goes into. These babies are all locked up. We have to start forcing things. PFEIFER: And that morning I had 20 years and six days in the Fire Department. In other words I could've retired six days earlier cause I had my 20 years in, but I was enjoying being in the Fire Department so much that I didn't even think about retiring. FIREMAN: All there was, was just a connection, a bunch of connections. PFEIFER: Alright. PFEIFER: And then we get a call for a gas leak on the corner of Church Street and Lisbernard. MAN (over radio): Two alpha, two alpha. PFEIFER: The gas leak's right here, right along side this. The case line's, looks like a six inch gas main. FAHEY: That day I was working as the aide to Chief Pfeifer. And that was a position that I had only done, like, once or twice. PFEIFER (over radio): John, we have uh, several manhole covers that have blown. FAHEY: Being a Battalion Aide is a very important job, but I was always the truck guy. I loved being in the truck cause you get to break down doors, break windows. It was like being a big kid. Listen, we were never looking forward to people's houses burning down, that wasn't it. But you did look forward to going to fires, you know, it was your job, it's what you were paid to do. And, and, the, the feeling you got was very intense and while it was going on, definitely, I've been in a lot of scary situations. But when it was done, you couldn't wait for the next one. ♪ ♪ ONG: They wanna know who's been stabbed, who, and I don't know but Karen said he got stabbed. ONG: Can anybody get up to the cockpit? Can anybody get up to the cockpit? CLIFFORD: When I got to The Marriott I was early. I mounted the steps that led up to the hotel. People were generally just fussing about, walking about and uh, just preparing for their day. First thing I wanted to do was go to the bathroom, check my hair, check my tie, make sure I looked good for this meeting. So when I came back out, I still had time to spare. I walked around the lobby of the World Trade Center. Always in awe of the tree of life windows. And then I walked back and sat down in the hotel lobby. (overlapping chatter) (overlapping chatter) MAN: Gas leak right here. (overlapping chatter) (plane engine) Holy (bleep)! Holy (bleep)! (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: Go to World Trade Center. MAN (over phone): The World Trade Center, tower number one is on fire. All around the side of the building there was just a huge explosion. PFEIFER: That's something big, it looks like an American Airline. That looked like a direct attack. MAN: Looked like what? MAN (over radio): World trade center for two 60. Send every available ambulance, everything you've got to the World Trade Center, now. PFEIFER: Oh, my God! (sirens) (sirens) We have a number of floors on fire, it looked like the plane was beaming towards the building. Transmit a third alarm, gonna have the staging area. Right. West Street. I have the third alarm side of me, it's that area, second alongside to the left of the building. PFEIFER: I remember sitting in the car with sirens blaring, air-horns from the engines and the trucks and lights on. I remember saying to myself, "Let me slow down my thinking." Realizing I was going to the largest fire of my life and initially I was gonna be in command. (sirens) (sirens) FAHEY: As we pull onto the West Side highway and I look up it, it was overwhelming. FAHEY: That went clear through the (bleep) building. I could see that the whole, the, the plane went directly through the building and I see that there's gaping holes in tower one. So the, the ride seemed like an eternity, you know. My mind was racing. It was an extremely frightening feeling. It, it really was. (sirens) PFEIFER: We pulled up right in front of the North Tower and there was a lot of broken glass. MAN: Did you get that notice there? PFEIFER: No. Just hold that door. PFEIFER: I got out of the car, I put on my gear and I walked into the lobby. And as I walked in I saw two people to my right, badly burnt. MAN: The plane hit the top of the building, looked like 78th floor. PFEIFER: My instinct was to help them but I knew that wasn't my job. My job was to take command and I knew we had firefighters who would come in and, and take care of them. (fire alarm blaring) (overlapping chatter). (overlapping chatter). (sirens). CLIFFORD: People were running around and I could start to smell kerosene from the hotel lobby. So I walked over to the revolving doors and I looked out. ♪ ♪ I couldn't figure out what was happening. And I saw this woman coming through the haze with her hands out. And I, I just couldn't figure out for the life of me, like, what was wrong with her. And as I went closer to her and as she walked to me I could see that she was badly burnt and I could see that she was still smoldering. So I, I brought her into the lobby and I sat her down by the wall. She said she couldn't see and uh, that there was a ball of flame and her eyes were burnt, like pretty much burnt shut. So after, after a minute or two um, after I could get her calmed down a little bit I asked her her name. She said her name was Jennieann Maffeo and she said she was on her way to work. And then she said, "Holy Jesus, Mother of God, don't let me die." She said, "Help me. Don't let me die. Help me." TARDIO: Chief! We haven't found an elevator yet. PFEIFER: You don't have an elevator yet? Did you get that? (overlapping chatter) Any of the elevators working? TARDIO: We haven't found one that's working. PFEIFER: Captain Tardio came back to me and said he couldn't find an elevator that was working. So that meant that firefighters had to climb and to the top would be 110 stories. TARDIO: Elevators, we got none. Where are you going? Nothing running. MAN: No. TARDIO: Find out, see if you can get freight, anything going up. Use something. FIREMAN: Jimmy! Jimmy! PFEIFER: And as firefighters came in they came in quietly. There was noise from the equipment we carry, but they didn't say a lot. They were thinking about what lied ahead. And they thought about how they would handle it and I can remember one lieutenant coming up to me uh, lieutenant from engine 33, not saying a word and we looked at each other wondering if each of us was gonna be okay. And then I told that lieutenant, as I told many other officers that came in. I said, "Take your firefighters, go upstairs, as you go up evacuate the building and then go up to the 70th floor where you'll regroup so we could rescue those that are trapped." The lieutenant turned around, took his firefighters and as he turned around and started to go upstairs that was the last time I saw my brother, Kevin. (overlapping chatter) MICKEY: We had a long way to go. But when I was 18 I joined the Marine Corps and I remember in Boot Camp, the, run back in my head a jingle that we used to, to say when we were marching. "One, two, three, four, I love the Marine Corps." And that's what I, that popped in my head when I was climbing the stairs, that old jingle from the Marine Corps in Boot Camp. It, it just came right back. It was amazing cause I hadn't thought about that, in like... (laughs). In over 30 years and then it just all came back to me and you know, and it helped me get through. It helped me climb those stairs. The stairways are relatively narrow but everybody handled themselves very well. Nobody panicked. People were thanking us, "Thanks for doing a great job." And I just said to the guys, "This is gonna be a tough day. But we're gonna get through it." MAN: A plane or something hit the World Trade Center. Something happened at the World Trade Center and it's not good. (overlapping chatter) MAN: It's a plane, it's crashed into it. WOMAN: A plane crashed into it? (overlapping chatter) ♪ ♪ KEVIN: I'm in the walk-in refrigerator for a good 15 minutes. The door's closed and when I come out of the refrigerator there's nobody there. There's no kitchen staff, there's no waiters, there's just nobody there and I'm like, "Where's everybody at?" You know, "Where's everybody at?" I look at into the chef's office and I notice the ceiling is cracked, there's a crack in the wall, there's a little bit of water coming down and then a guest comes in from the restaurant and I go to tell him, like, "You can't be here." You know, "You gotta go back out." But I already notice he had a crazed look in his eye. And then he's like, "Just go look. Just go look." As I'm pushing the door open there's something caught in the door. But I'm looking at it thinking, it's like a dead animal. So I'm like, "What is this?" You know, "What is this dead animal doing here?" And I look closely and it's an arm. And then I get ready to go back in and he said, "No, no, no, no. Go outside and look." (Muzak plays) (smoldering flames) As I look around the courtyard there's nobody there. And I saw burning pieces of metal everywhere. I saw pieces of luggage. I had no idea where they came from. I look around the corner, and there's, there's, there's bodies everywhere. As, as far as I can see. It's like just broken up bodies, like that's all I can see. Maybe 100 bodies broken up into little pieces. Just arms and legs and heads and everything and like um, so like right away I'm freaking out. And then um, some, a body comes falling out of the sky and lands right in front of me. Just boom! Like loud and just like breaks up when it hits the ground and then, like a friend of mine, Abdul, like I don't even know where he came from. He's like, "Did you see that Kevin? Did you see that?" And it's like, "Yeah, I saw that." So now we're trying to figure out how to get out. He was saying, and probably correctly so, "Never get on the elevator." And I remember thinking to myself, "It's only two stories, I would be downstairs before you know it." And I remember pressing a button thinking to myself, "If the door opens up I'm getting on it." I pressed the button, the door opens up. I look at it. "Abdul" I says, "Come on, you coming, you coming." And he says "No." And he goes the other way and I get on the elevator and he never made it out. FARADAY (over radio): You're listening to live continuous coverage of a plane crash into the World Trade Center this morning. This is 1010 Wins WINS New York, I'm James Faraday. For more on the story, 1010 Wins News man, Lee Harris. HARRIS (over radio): Good morning and it is not a good morning in New York City. A major disaster. A plane crash into the World Trade Center. We're on the line with 1010 Wins account executive, John Fleisher, a witness to terrible unfolding scene. John could you maybe just recap for those just joining us on what happened and. CLIFFORD: When I was on the floor with Jennieann I held her hand and I yelled, you know, numerous times for EMS, for Emergency Services, for help. Nobody was coming. People were just running by, one after another, and, and I, I got concerned. So I ran into the bathroom, pulled a clean plastic bag and I filled it with water and patted Jennieann down with it. And I could see that Jennieann's clothes were fused into her skin. And... when we were on the floor and when there was no emergency services, help or aid coming, um, Jennieann was getting more and more concerned that she was going to die. She said, "Sacred heart of Jesus, save me. I don't want to die." And I said, 'Are you Catholic?' She said she was. So I said to her, 'Let's say the Lord's Prayer.' Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. REPORTER (over radio): Wednesday's time, 9:02. We have been talking to John Fleischer, account executive at 1010. Right now, we're gonna switch over to Kye Kendall. He saw the whole thing transpire. REPORTER 2 (over radio): From his vantage point on 14th Street, and, again, we're talking about a plane crash into the World Trade Center. Kye, what did you see and what can you see now? KENDALL (over radio): Well, I saw the plane come from overhead... (explosion) MAN: Oh, no, no no! KENDALL (over radio): A woman from the other building. (overlapping chatter). (screams) MAN: Please don't go over there! What did he say? Let's go, let's get the (bleep) outta here! Get the (bleep) outta here. (sirens) (sirens) (overlapping chatter). Oh, look at those people! OFFICER: Oh, no stopping. OFFICER: God damn! (helicopter humming) (crashing debris) MCGOVERN: Stay together. FIREFIGHTER: Alright. MCGOVERN: Stay together. Let us know what's going on. A second plane just hit (bleep)... (overlapping chatter). CHIEF: The other tower, the other tower. PFEIFER: We knew at that moment that our problem just doubled in size. (radio chatter). (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: So, at that point we met in a football huddle. And the Deputy Chief of the Division, Chief Pete Hayden, gave us an order. Half of us would stay in the North Tower, the other half will proceed to the South Tower. (overlapping chatter). MCGOVERN: Pete, want me to head up this operation? PFEIFER: Then it was my turn. It's my turn to go stand in front of Chief Hayden. (overlapping chatter). JONAS: Our orders were to go upstairs in the North Tower for search and rescue. And one of the firemen from Rescue One looked up. He said, "We may not live through today." And we stopped, and we thought about what he said. I said, 'You're right. We may not.' And we stopped and we took the time to shake each other's hands and wish each other good luck, and, "It's great knowing you." And, "Hope I see you later." Out of all those guys I was surrounded by, I'm the only one that's alive. They all died. (overlapping chatter). JONAS: So, I walked over to where my guys were standing by, the guys from ladder 6. (overlapping chatter). JONAS: And I say to 'em, "It's alright, guys. Here's the deal. It's a raw deal, but this is what we have to do." (overlapping chatter). JONAS: "We have to go upstairs for search and rescue in this building." (overlapping chatter). JONAS: And, uh, the last thing I told 'em was, "They're trying to kill us, boys. Let's go." (overlapping chatter). (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: Is this guy hooked up? FAHEY: Yeah. (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: Command Post to battalion seven. (overlapping chatter). FAHEY: The repeater radio system got knocked out when the first plane hit. (overlapping chatter). So, Chief Pfeifer's having a horrible time trying to get in touch with anybody on the upper floors. (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: Not gonna not use your radio, turn, there's a little knob. Turn it and just remove the radio. I'm gonna take it off a second. FAHEY: And that's when he sent me back out to see if I could grab the repeater radios. (sirens) When I stepped outta the building, it was absolute chaos at this time. (overlapping chatter). FAHEY: People trying to go out, firemen trying to come in. (overlapping chatter). FAHEY: And I look up, and there were hundreds of people hanging on to the building. ♪ ♪ That's one o' the things that sticks with me every day. ♪ ♪ MAN: Where? It's possible there is. Look, look, look, another man. Oh, God Almighty! Oh, God Almighty! Oh, God! Jesus! FAHEY: I can't imagine being in those people's shoes, having to make the choice of either burning to death or, I mean, jumping, and knowing you're dying. Horrible. That's absolutely horrible. Poor people. WOMAN: Oh my God! Oh! (screams). ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (thud) (radio chatter). (thud) (radio chatter). (thud) (radio chatter). PFEIFER: When we heard the crashing sound, it was something that we never heard before. We're gonna cancel out. Get the repeater on. Put your radio to Channel Two. (radio chatter). (thud) PFEIFER: Ooh, but we knew exactly what it was, every time it happened. Another life being lost. (thud) And it would rattle us for a couple seconds. But it was almost motivating us to push even further to get to the people that were trapped. (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: And I grabbed the PA system and made an announcement, to "Wait, if you can. We're coming." MAN (over radio): I may just come over to the Hudson, the Hudson River K. (inaudible) at the Hudson River. Understood. (radio chatter). WOMAN (over radio): Standby (inaudible) on 106th floor, this floor is crumbling. People are trapped at that location. (radio chatter). KENNEDY: In 1993, we were able to rescue people off the roof, so, having experienced this somewhat before, we kinda thought that was gonna be the same game plan. And I had so much confidence in the skill of this pilot flying this helicopter, that I was, like, "If there's somebody there, we're gonna be able to get them off." (radio chatter). KENNEDY: But as we're approaching, you could start to see the size and scope o' this. MAN (over radio): Just standby. Just standby one, we get... (radio chatter). KENNEDY: The first thing we did was survey the rooftops of both the North and the South Tower. MAN (over radio): Command Post on here? Command Post? KENNEDY: The South Tower, the amount of smoke that was billowing up and coming over the roof, just it was, it was outta play. (radio chatter). WOMAN (over radio): People are hanging from the windows about five feet from the top. There's at least 50 people hanging on. KENNEDY: We proceeded over to the North Tower, and there was an opening by the northwest corner. (radio chatter). KENNEDY (over radio): We're taking a look at the northwest corner of the north building. KENNEDY: I could make out the little pebbles on the roof. I could see the individual pebbles, that's how close we were. KENNEDY (over radio): They're all hanging on the side of the building on the Church Street side. KENNEDY: We continued circling the towers. If we coulda saw somebody there, we woulda made a try, but there was nobody up there. My heart just sunk into my stomach, and I'm looking out the window of the helicopter, and I'm seeing people. I'm seeing mothers, I'm seeing fathers, I'm seeing brothers, I'm seeing sisters, literally standing on the damaged portion of the building, what looked like white napkins, handkerchiefs, tablecloths, and they were waving them to let us know we need to assist them. "We need assistance. Can you help us?" And there were so many, and there's nothing you can do, but you're witnessing it, you're watching it. And I was reading those facial expressions and those look in the eyes. And I'm sure they were looking back at us and they maybe were reading our facial expressions that it was bad. It was very bad. SIMPSON: There was nothing he could do for us. I think we actually waved to him and that was it, and then they flew away. (radio chatter). SIMPSON: So, I told everybody to call their families. I called John, my fiancé. My voice shook. And John, asked me what was going on, and I said, "John, we're on the 89th floor. We're trapped here. The door to the stairwell is jammed shut and we can't get out, and I don't know when it'll get fixed. I don't know what will happen. But we are trapped on the 89th floor." I think at that time, when we were making our phone calls, there were probably a lot of people throughout the World Trade Center making similar phone calls, calling friends, family, loved ones, and communicating probably fear, anxiety and love. I think all of those emotions were just running rampant throughout everybody. REPORTER (over radio): The FBI is looking at reports that there was a plane hijacking before the crashes, and while we don't have any reports of casualties at this time, looking at the scene, the gaping holes in both towers, the smoke and the flames, it is reasonable to assume that there has been massive loss of life in New York City this morning. And this makes the World Trade Center bombing of about nine years ago look like a relatively minor incident. CLIFFORD: After the second plane hit, a rumble came through the lobby. I can remember standing up in shock wondering, "What the hell is that?" I knelt down beside Jennieann again, and I said to her, you know, "We should try and get outta here if we can." And, around the same time, pieces of ceiling were falling, and the vapor was getting thicker. You know, you could, you could see a haze, a grey haze with the kerosene smell was developing more, and people were just panicking and running. And somebody said help was on the way, but we had to walk for the help. The help was on the opposite side of the highway. And as I entered the street, um, a, a fireman approached me, with a white helmet. I always remember him. And he just said, "Jesus," he said, "For (bleep) sake get outta here as fast you can. Run!" And so I asked Jennieann if she could run, and she said she could, and so our group ran across the West Side Highway. (sirens) (sirens) (sirens) CLIFFORD: While they were packing Jennieann into the ambulance, I leaned over and said to her, "You're gonna make it. You gotta make it now." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ REPORTER (over radio): As you see is down on Broadway. Randy, what is your vantage point? What can you see from there? RANDY: As I look out, I see smoke pouring out of the... CLIFFORD: All I knew was I'd been through something horrific, and all I wanted to do was just go home, have a shower, go back to life. And it was probably 20 minutes when the phone rang, and it was my sister's husband, David. David McCourt. David asked me if I knew where Ruth was. Ruth was a little bit over a year-and-a-half younger than me. We were very close. Juliana was Ruth's daughter, the most loveliest child you could imagine. And David caught me by surprise. I'm, like, "David, like, why don't you know where she is?" ANCHOR (over TV): Watch the second plane hit the building, we'll watch it enter on the right portion of the... CLIFFORD: And he said, "Ron, they were going to California. They were on the plane that left Boston, United 175." I think I got... I think I got down on my knees and I cried, and I couldn't believe, like, that, you know? I was literally saying the Lord's Prayer with this woman on the ground of the World Trade Center, you know, when my sister's plane hit. One of the most special people were killed. This was my world, never to be the same again. (distant sirens) SIMPSON: The smoke was so thick, it was hard to see. But I was trying not to think too much about the fear. So, I would go out and check the door, and it was always jammed. And then the one time I did go out, there was a sudden pounding on the door. And I saw these two white hands coming through. And then the door opened, and the smoke went out, and there were two men standing there in helmets, with flashlights and an axe. They had come to rescue us. They told us to get out, go downstairs and run. And they went up to rescue more people, and I also learned that they did not survive. They were such good, brave souls. I do call them "angels," because I think that they were, and they were doing everything they could that day to make sure that people got out of the tower, and, as I said, they went up when they should have gone down to save themselves, but they didn't. They went up, and put themselves back in harm's way, just to save other people, so I do think they were angels. They were true heroes. (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: Every firefighter and every first responder knew this was dangerous. (overlapping chatter). (radio chatter). PFEIFER: They saw the smoke and the flames coming from the top of the building, but they also knew that people were in their greatest moment of need. (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: And they made a personal decision to go into the building to rescue lives. (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: But in the lobby of the North Tower, we had our Fire Department Chaplain, Father Mychal Judge, and I could see his lips moving. (overlapping chatter). PFEIFER: Because he was praying. It was almost like there's something bad about to happen. (overlapping chatter). REPORTER: You, two. And two and two, one. This is as close as we can get to the base of the World Trade Center. You can see the firemen assembled here, the police officers, FBI Agents, and you can see the two towers. A huge explosion now raining debris on all of us. (overlapping chatter). (screams). MAN: Every cell in my body said, "Get out of here." (overlapping chatter) MAN: And he's telling me to cut his leg off. WOMAN: Put it over your face. Oh my God! (cries). MAN: Nobody is coming to save us. We have to get out of this building on our own. (overlapping chatter). REPORTER: There is still one more aircraft somewhere that is... WOMAN: I took the phone and I heard Mark's voice. He said, "Mom, I just wanna tell you I love you. There are three guys on board who've taken over the plane, and they say they have a bomb. You believe me don't you, Mom?" (radio chatter). JONAS: He was on the radio, he was talking to me, and he said, "I'm coming for you, brother. I'm coming for you." (sirens) MAN: You see the plane, he gonna make a maneuver. The next thing I know, bam. (overlapping chatter). (sirens) PRAIMNATH: We stood right in front of the elevator. Delise and I and 18 other people from my office. These were all big shots. The head of human resources, the General Manager. All these big shots just standing up right there. Not a word is said. The elevator doors open, we got in. (overlapping chatter) PRAIMNATH: As I'm getting out of the door, the security guard looks at me and says, "Where are you going?" I said, "I'm going home. I saw fireballs falling from the other building." He said, "Your building is safe. It's secure. Go back to your office. You can hear the whoop-whoop signals. Your building is safe. It's secure. Go back to your office. Nobody else is coming out." Delise stepped out, and she said, "Stan, I'm scared. I wanna go home." I said, "Well, go, go, go. Take the rest of the day off." I had that choice to go back into that elevator at that point or go home. So, I don't know what to do. The doors are about to close and Jack Andriaccio is holding on to one end. And Manny Gomez is holding on to the other end. "Come on, Stan the Man. You're not scared to go back up. Come on, Stan, we don't have all day here." And I walked back in that elevator. And all I was doing was being faithful to authority. They said go back. All right, so we go back. The door closes and I can still remember the look on the faces of everybody in that elevator. Because I was the last one who stepped in, and everybody is looking at me, like, "Why did you take so long? We were waiting on you." Not realizing I would never see them again. ♪ ♪ (theme music plays). (sirens) (sirens) PUMA: We saw a lot of things that day that no one should see. To this day, I still have my times when I can't take it anymore, you know, when I still think about it. There were times when I would go over the Brooklyn Bridge going into work, and it just got me so bad that I, I couldn't take it anymore and there was, as I was driving over the bridge, I actually felt myself almost trying to jerk the wheel off the side to just drive off the edge of the bridge, just so I didn't have to deal with it anymore. You know, and every time I did that, I was, like, you can't do this, you know, just keep going. Just keep going; you can do this. (sirens) PUMA: I've worked as an emergency medical technician. I was young. 21-year-old kid. And we were driving down to the Trade Center to help people. As we pull up, we see hundreds of people just running out to us. And you're just looking through and you don't know where to go, because there's just so much chaos going on. MAN: Oh, man, (bleep) man! WOMAN: Oh my god! (cries). MAN: Oh, boy. PUMA: And I remember as I was grabbing my equipment to go see what we were gonna do, some people kept on running up to me and, like, "You gotta help my friend! You gotta help my friend!" I'm, like, "Okay." I'm, like, "Calm down." I'm like, "Where is your friend? What happened?" "They jumped." I'm, like, "From where?" "From the 30th floor. From up there." I'm, like, "They're dead. The bridge is that way. Just run." And I remember we just grabbed the first four or five people that we saw that had blood on them, and we ran into the back of our ambulance. The rules almost went out the window that day. You did what you could for who you could. OFFICER: Deploy North. Gotta go people let's go, let's go. Get to the end of the street. PRAIMNATH: I'm on the 81st floor in the South Tower, in a huge glass-enclosed office. The phone is ringing. I pick up the phone, it's a young lady from Chicago on the other end. "Stan, get out." "Why do I have to get out?" With the phone in my hand, I'm standing up, not looking in any particular direction. But something caught my attention looking towards the direction of the Statue of Liberty, south. What I saw was a tiny little spec first of a plane. And within the split second, it's getting larger and larger and larger. Oh my god, it's coming towards me. It's coming for me! Eye-level eye contact. And as I'm watching, within split seconds, I can see this plane start tilting. Very gradually. And I'm watching this plane like being hypnotized. Can't move my eyes away. And I can hear this revving sound this engine is making. Like when the plane takes off, that sound it's making, well, multiply that by 1,000. And this plane is coming towards me. And my mind is reacting so fast and I don't know what to do. And the next thing I remember saying and I don't know why I said it. I said, "Lord, I can't do this. You take over." Dropped the phone, screamed, dove under the desk. (explosion) (screams) OFFICER: Come on, get up, get up, get up, get up. Get up, now. Get up! (overlapping chatter) MAN: Oh my god. Oh my god! MAN: A second airplane, a 727, just rammed into the building. Where do I go? Do I go home? MAN: It's a US Airway jet slammed into it. I saw it. MAN 2: Hello, Gerald? Yo, I'm gonna get outta the city, yo. I ain't staying here. MAN: Look! Look at the second building! COMERFORD: When the plane hit, I got blown out of my shoes, and I hit the marble wall in front of me with my upper body. And then my strong will or my obstinance kicked in. I'm, like, "Oh, no way. I am not orphaning my kids in this building. I am getting out of here." We got into the stairwells and we stumbled across this odd gentleman who had artificial legs. And he sat down and said, "I can't go anymore." The two men just said, "No way. Not on our watch." And they picked him up and they just started carrying him down. I encountered a woman on the stairwell who was having an asthma attack. And in my pocketbook I had an inhaler. And I handed it to her. I said, "Here. Just use it." And she was using it, and she said, "Oh my god, I can breathe," and she started down. So, you just did, everybody was just doing what they needed to do to help. It was a constant very quick flow, but people were kind to each other. PUMA: We were, like, right in the path of all the debris from the second plane and from the building, and it was just shot right towards our ambulance. All the patients, they were all huddled on the floor, all crunched together with their hands over their heads. And we were just kinda on top of them. We were scared in there. I mean, at least I know I can't speak for anybody else, but I can speak for myself. I was terrified. (overlapping chatter) (sirens) PUMA: I looked at my partner and I said, you know, "We need to get outta here." When we pulled outta there, I hear him scream through the front, "I'm getting flagged. I'm being flagged." So, I open up the back door, I said, I'm, like, "What's going on?" He's, like, "This guy jumped in front of the ambulance. He said we need to help this lady." So, I'm, like, "All right." So, we jump out and we see this one lady. She was lying half on the street, half on the sidewalk. Orlando and I were able to just move her over to the side a little bit, and we saw that her whole back side looked like it was just torn off. From her shoulder blades all the way down to, like, the top of her thigh. Looked like everything was just ripped right off. We didn't know it at the time, but we found out later on that she was hit by the landing gear of the second plane. And it went right down and ripped off half her back. As we're driving, she was screaming out in agony. I remember seeing the three or four other patients in the ambulance. You know, and you can see them, that they're scared. They were all crying, they were all looking round. Like, and, they're looking at me. And here I am, 21-year-old kid. What do I know? And I remember the woman on the stretcher, I go down and she's awake and she's looking at me and she's screaming. She's, like, "It hurts. I'm hurt. Help me! Somebody please help me." And I remember just getting down on my knee and just holding her hand and getting close to her. I'm, like, "It's all right. It's okay. We got you." I'm, like, "I'm here now. I'm gonna get you to the hospital." You know, "We're gonna, we're gonna take care of you." There was a bunch of doctors just waiting for us at the door. And they start grabbing some of the other patients that we brought in and other people. And we're, like, "No, no, no, forget those. I'm, like, this one. You gotta take this one in, right here." You know, you just handing the patient over it's, like, okay, I've done my part. I did my part, I did the best that I could for her. And I brought her to people that can help her a lot more than I can. (sirens) (overlapping chatter) PRAIMNATH: I really thought I'd died. Here I am alive. This is not possible. Upon impact, a large chunk of that plane was stuck in the office doorway. The air pressure was so great, it was sucking everything out. It looks like a demolition crew came in and just ripped the entire floor apart. Every wall is flattened. Every piece of furniture is mangled. I'm hiding under the desk. It looks like somebody took a giant bag of cement and threw it in the air. The jet fuel is smelling so profusely. The sound was so deafening that my ears pop. I got temporarily deaf. All the cables that were hanging in the ceiling dropped. And they're short-circuiting. The sprinkler system came on. And part of the floor collapsed. And it's hovering like this, right over the desk. If I don't get burned, well, then, I'll get electrocuted. If I don't get electrocuted and burned, well, then, the floor is gonna collapse. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna get crushed. And if the three of them miss me, well, then I'm gonna get sucked out by the air pressure. One way or the other, I'm gone. And I started to scream. KROSS: When the second tower got hit, that was a terrifying moment. Of course, now you realize, this is no accident. This is intentional. And that changes your whole perception of what you're dealing with now. One of my thoughts was going through my head, is stay calm. You know. You have to make, I knew I was gonna be having to make some very serious decisions involving people's lives. Which is my job, which I'm trained for, and I'm trained very well for on the Fire Department. And I wanted to make it as clear ahead as I could. So, I had to avoid that little panicky thing that you go through at first. I was climbing the stairs in the North Tower. And our orders were to report to the 23rd floor. So, I'm walking around the floor, I'm looking for this chief I'm supposed to report to. And I hear chatter. I hear people talking. And, of course, I'm curious. Nobody's supposed to be there. And I open the door and there's two people inside the stairway. It was an injured secretary, a woman and her boss stayed with her. This is an incredibly heroic guy. I wish I can remember his name. But he stayed and took his in, trying to get his injured secretary out of the building. And they were in stairway C. Now, they were alone; there was nobody else in stairway C, and I was worried about them. So, I told them, "Go to stairway B. The Fire Department's in stairway B; they will help you." And they were frozen; they couldn't move. They just froze. And then I yelled at them. I felt bad, but I yelled at them. I just, "Get!" You know, "Stairway B! I'm not gonna tell you again," you know, like that. But I had to do it, you know, 'cause I had to startle them to get 'em out of that. They were in, like, a funk, you know what I mean? And finally they listened to me and went over to stairway B. And they survived. They got out. That was good. (overlapping shouting) MAN: Calm down, we're the fire department she's gonna be fine. (overlapping chatter) ARMSTEAD: To help anybody, you've gotta start triaging. You try to determine the injury at a second in the moment. So that the unit coming behind you can immediately treat that person. Green tag for minor injuries, you understand everything. Then you have the, uh, red tag for immediate. And then when we get to the deceased, that means no care needed. At this time, this person is presumed dead. I was underneath the towers, going from area to area. I did not see any living person on the ground. Everybody was deceased. So, going past, you just rip the tags off and left deceased, deceased. Until I ran into that one person. I put deceased, which is the black tag. And then she says, "I'm not dead. Call my daughter." But she didn't know what I knew, and she didn't see what I'd seen. Her head did not hit the ground, or I couldn't see that the head, 'cause the hair was still intact. She looked like an office personnel. She looked like maybe a woman that was on the plane. And the makeup. But what I saw below the torso was complete crushed disfigurement. This lady must have came down feet first. (gasps). You can't take, "Stop! Stop! I'm not dead!" I could have done something immediately to help her. But I was panicking myself. I was dealing with death myself. Even though I did not fear death, or I wasn't thinking about death. But I saw death, and I saw death, and I saw death, and I saw death. She would not survive another couple of minutes. So I lied. And said, "You're okay. This is preliminary. This is just, I meant to make, I tore the wrong thing off. Relax. They're coming, they're coming, they're coming. Don't worry about what I just did." I had a guilty conscience about what I was saying, and that I was lying. But I wasn't lying in the fact of her condition. I was lying in the fact that I did think she was dead. And that black tag stayed with me. It took me three years to push it back or from this cortex part of my brain to the frontal part of my brain, the memory. Or put it somewhere with the psychiatrist and the clinician to help me move her around so that she's not in the mind's eye in the daytime or in the night-time. Or at any time. The human body or the human mind is not positioned, or the brain can never be positioned to deal with tragedy of another human being. It just reminds you that this could be your mother. This is your father, this is your family. This is a human being. You don't lie to the dying. ♪ ♪ COMERFORD: I came out on the 44th floor, 'cause that's where our stairwell ends. And there was panic and bedlam, and it was pitch black. And then all of a sudden in this darkness is this voice. He was singing, and I think the singing distracted everybody that they were, they stopped in their tracks to see why he was singing, or where he was singing from. And it calmed everybody down. And then he said these words. He said, "Today is a proud day to be an American." It was Rick Rescorla, our head of security. Rick was so concerned for many years about the security and safety of everybody in the World Trade Center. It had been attacked before, and he was certain it would happen again. He did predict that they would come. If they came again, that they would come from the air. And it's very hard to protect people when they come from the air. So, the only protection would be to teach them how to get out in case a catastrophe happened. Rick had them redo the stairwells, repaint them, make sure there was lighting so everybody could see where we were going. And four times a year, we walked from 70 all the way down to the sky lobby to get out of the building. You know, at first people would just assume this is over the top, it was exaggerated. Do we really need to do this? I mean, in my mind, my favorite line was, "Lightning never strikes the same place twice." So, after '93, I didn't even think about it because I was, like, no one's ever gonna attack the same building again. That day, things were on fire. You know, things were blowing up, and he really was able to refocus everybody pretty quickly and disperse the crowds to their proper stairwells to get them out of there. So, seeing Rick was probably like seeing your guardian angel when I saw him on 44. I wasn't nervous at that point. I really wasn't. WOMAN: Hey, Kim. Look at his big camera. Look at his big camera. MAN: He'll tell your grandchildren you were there. We were there. ♪ ♪ CLARK: I wasn't emotional on that day. I was not frozen in fear, I wasn't thinking horrible thoughts. My mind, thankfully, protected me from absorbing any carnage. You know, my mind blocked anything that might have been really ugly out there, I don't remember. Other than this grayness. Others died and I didn't. I wasn't having any of that in my mind yet. Again, I cannot explain why. Um, and I keep wondering. You know, well, am I, you know, am I cold-hearted? I don't... I don't think so. I think I'm tender and compassionate when I need to be. Odd. PRAIMNATH: I was stuck in the 81st floor. I crawled the entire length of the loans department to the lounge and the computer room and the communication room. And that's the farthest I could have gone. Because one lousy sheet rock wall stood firm. Just one wall. That period of waiting was the most painful thing you would ever imagine. That period of just waiting, hoping that somebody is gonna come to get you. And I'm crying out to this invisible God that I've hurt so much. CLARK: From the 84th floor, I led a group of people down the stairs. And we arrived on the 81st floor, me in the lead. As I arrive there, a heavyset woman came up and stopped me. "We've just come off a floor in flames and smoke, and we've gotta go higher." And, of course, I'm stopped now and I can't get past her, and bumping behind me comes the rest of my team, if you like. So, now there's this group of us. Nine, ten people, on the 81st floor landing, who are now beginning to debate listening to her and starting to discuss, well, do we go up, do we go down? What do we do now? PRAIMNATH: I'm behind of a wall and I'm crying out, "Wait for me. Don't leave me to die." CLARK: What I heard was something like, "Help! Help! I'm buried. Is anyone there? I can't breathe." Kind of again sobered up and said, "Okay, I've got a job to do here." And my flashlight back on again. And as I squeezed onto that floor sideways, I have this very, very clear memory of everybody on that landing turning around and starting to go up the stairs. So, I started toward the stranger's voice. PRAIMNATH: I can only hear that voice faintly. I had my hand through that hole, and I'm trying, "Please, please, my hand is here! Turn to your left!" As I hear a little bit, his voice is walking away. His voice is moving away from me. "No, no, no! Come back, come back towards your right. Come back, come back towards your left. Come straight, straight-straight now." As I can hear this voice closer, closer. Sharper. "Look down! Look down, look down." There I am, with my hand waving towards him. When that light flashed on my hand, all hope was there. Somebody, this person with this flashlight, whoever it is, somebody is gonna rescue me. I'm gonna live. It was that hope. That feeling of knowing that, you know what? I'm gonna live. That feeling of knowing that you're gonna live, that somebody is here to take you home. I'm gonna get to see my children again. I'm gonna be reconciled with my wife again. I'm gonna live. They left me here to die, but I'm gonna go home. And this man really did that. Rescued me so I could go home. CLARK: "Hallelujah, I've been saved!" he said. "One thing I gotta know: do you know Jesus Christ?" That was a very strange thing to hear at that time, and I wasn't ready for a philosophical discussion, so I stammered out a rather pathetic reply. "I go to church every Sunday." That was the best I could do to that question. And, "Come on, we got work to do here." So, there was a lot of debris to the right and debris to the left of me, and this immovable wall between us. And I told him the only way out of there is for you to come up this wall. So, he tried once, and I missed him. I said, "You must do this." And over the wall he came and then his weight on me pushed the desk over. We fell back onto a pile of debris, and he gave me a big kiss. PRAIMNATH: And he got up and he says, "Well, what are you doing?" Fixed his jacket and his tie. And he stretched his hand. He says, "Brian Clark." I said, "Stanley Praimnath." CLARK: And he said, "I'm Stanley." He said, "We'll be brothers for life." And I said, "Well, I have no siblings." I said, "We can be brothers." And then I noticed I had a puncture wound on my right palm. And Stanley also had a puncture wound on his palm. And I'm the one who did it. I put our hands together and said, "We'll be blood brothers for life." And we made our way off the floor back to the 81st floor landing. I shone the light down and I took that. I didn't see flames. I saw some smoke coming up. And I took that gratefully, took that fateful first step down. And we continued on down. (overlapping chatter) (overlapping chatter) (overlapping chatter) COMERFORD: When we got down to about the 22nd floor, the integrity of the building was really starting to deteriorate. And then there was cracks starting in the walls. And, you know, we were, like, "Holy crap, we have to get out of here." And we really started to pick up the pace, like, almost running. And all I kept thinking is, "This building is not taking me. I'm going home to my kids." So, I kept going and going. And when we got to the bottom floor we were yelling, "We're here, we're here!" And some people were clapping. And they're, like, "All right, we're right behind you." ♪ ♪ COMERFORD: When we emerged out of the building there was a sense of relief that we were safe. MAN (over speaker): Keep it moving, folks The danger is not over! COMERFORD: They ushered us across the street. My little group, we sat down on the curb. And they were triaging right behind us. They were carrying very wounded people behind us, laying them down, trying to triage what they could do. When we looked up and saw the burning on our building, my first thought was, "This is coming down." I'm not gonna die here on the street. I just got out of that building; I have to get out of here. MAN: You gotta keep going. Sir, are you gonna stay behind? Come on. Please keep moving. Please keep moving. (overlapping chatter) COMERFORD: Some of the people we work with encountered Rick on one of the lower floors as they were leaving the building. Rick was heading up the stairs. And they said, "Rick, come with us." And he's, like, "No, no. I have to do one more sweep to make sure all our people are safe." He could have gotten out. But he chose to go back up. All I knew that Rick was doing what Rick was destined to do, and that was get everybody out of that building. And knowing Rick, you knew he wasn't leaving until that last person was out. MAN: Got the helicopter out. OFFICER: Yeah. (rumble) MAN: Oh, (bleep)! It's coming down, it's coming down! (rumble) (screams) CLARK: The ash filled the air and blocked the sun. And, very strangely, as we went down Broadway, and it wasn't densely populated. All of a sudden, Stanley was gone. I'm, I'm, I'm looking around wondering where he is. And this feeling washed over me, like, oh! Did I just imagine this? Was Stanley some sort of a guardian angel? Like, I had real confused doubts about what had just transpired. I learned later from Stanley that he had commandeered a guy in a pickup truck and told him, "You drive me to Brooklyn." (laughs). Apparently, the guy did. PRAIMNATH: Brian said to me later on, had he made the choice to go back up like the others, he would have died. But there was something in that scream that held him to help me. So, every time I tell this man, "Brian, thank you for saving my life." He says, "No, no, Stan. Thank you. Had you not screamed, I would have gone back up. I would have died." PUMA: Being as young as I was at the time, that day, um, definitely changed me. You know, there are things that I live with to this day that still haunt my dreams from it. You know, when I start thinking about how bad it could be, I keep thinking of that patient that we picked up. The woman on the stretcher. We didn't think that she was gonna make it through at all. But we found out a couple of weeks later that she was still alive. DEBBIE: This is Mag for Magnificent. I got him last night from a friend of my fiancé's. (laughs). He is so much fun. I, normally there's little white blankets here. And then I got Mag last night, too. It made me realize that color's been absent in my environment. And it showed up when it really needed to be there. PUMA: And I found out later on her name was Debbie. And I remember going to the hospital to go see her. And they brought us over to her room and she was still intubated at the time, but she was sitting up and conscious, and she's looking at us. And she, see her moving her hand and she's, like, it's them. It's them. And she was pointing to us. And all the people that we walked by in the waiting room was her parents, her fiancé and the rest of her family. They came over to us and they were just hugging us. (sniffs). You know, it became, it was very emotional for Orlando and I. DEBBIE: And Frank Puma was the one, the guy who drove the EMT truck that allowed me to get on it. PUMA: The few times that I was able to see her in the hospital, she was always upbeat. She's, like, "Don't worry, I'm gonna get better." And throughout my time, she has been an inspiration for me to get me out of my dark places. Knowing the fact that I gave someone back their family. I helped bring that person back home. JONAS: Our orders were to go upstairs in the North Tower for search and rescue. And, uh, we heard a loud noise outside. And I see Billy Burke walking towards me. He's got a funny look on his face. And I look at him and I said, "Is that what I thought it was?" Thinking that a piece of our building fell off. And he just looks at me and he says, "The South Tower has just collapsed." Knowing what that meant, that right next door to us, thousands of people were just killed. Some of our friends, too. And I did the quick calculation in my mind and I says, "All right. If that one can go, this one can go. It's time for us to get outta here." And my guys didn't react. They balked. They didn't wanna leave. And I said, "Let's go. It's time to go." So, we start our retreat down the B stairway of the North Tower. And I'd just be whispering it to Billy Butler's ears. "Billy, can you move a little faster?" And the, uh, collapse of the North Tower starts with us still inside. ♪ ♪ MAN: This is insane. How did they hijack the planes? My sister said she was watching the news. One plane hit. MAN 2: What? MAN: Then, about two minutes later, the next plane hit. MAN 2: You're joking? MAN: Right into the front of the World Trade Center. Isn't that crazy, man? MAN 2: That can't be real. MAN: I swear to God, it happened, dude. We're gonna see 'em on fire right over here. (sirens) ♪ ♪ REPORTER: Erin, we can see over your left shoulder there the, the building's still smoldering of the World Trade Center. ERIN: Well it is a... ERIN (over TV): Grotesque sight to look at from about 30 blocks away from where we are. For those of you just, uh, joining us, let's just briefly recap what we know. REPORTER (over radio): About an hour ago, about 8:45 eastern time, one plane crashed into, uh, the tower. TOTI: Watching this unfold on TV, in the outer ring of the Pentagon. REPORTER (over TV): On the right, the tower you can see behind me, uh, and then about a half hour later, uh, a second plane crashed into, uh, the tower. TOTI: And we had a call from my friend and classmate from the Navy Command Center, and all he says is, "Another plane has been hijacked from out of Dulles, it's turned around and it's heading for Washington." So immediately speculation begins. Is it going to be The White House? The White House is too small, too hard to find from the air. The Capitol Building's easier to see but, you know, there aren't a lot of people in the Capitol Building at any one time. The only building that is easy to find from the air that has a lot of people in it, the largest office building in the world, The Pentagon. Within a couple of minutes, began to hear the sound of a jet engine, and it was pretty clear this plane was on full throttle, as if it were taking off, but instead of the sound diminishing with time, it just kept getting louder and louder and louder and we realized this is really happening. They're coming for us. (rumbling) (explosion) (beeping) (theme music plays) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (whistling) MAN: Get back! Everybody get back! This way! (overlapping chatter). (sirens) TOTI: I probably arrived at the scene about five minutes after impact. MAN: Hey, hey, hey, hey! TOTI: And initially we were way overwhelmed by the casualties. (overlapping chatter). TOTI: Every 20, 30 seconds you'd see somebody stumble out of this open doorway. (overlapping chatter). MAN: Let's go! Move, move now! TOTI: But there were people that were still trapped in the building, and so I ran down to the doorway. I got a few feet inside and I trip over somebody. And I could feel there's a, what I think is a woman. Two army guys ran back in with me and the three of us half dragged, half carried her just a few feet outside the building and laid her down again. MAN: Everybody out. Everybody out. TOTI: I asked her what her name was and she said her name was Antoinette, and she said, uh, "Am I going to die?" And it was clear that she was struggling to breathe, so I told her, "No, Antoinette, you're not gonna die. You're gonna be fine." And I just stayed with her and, and talked to her. REPORTER (over radio): The FBI is investigating reports that there was a hijacking of an American Airlines 767 out of Boston that was perhaps one of the planes that was involved in the, this disaster this morning. Apparently both towers of the World Trade Center were hit by aircraft and, additionally, a report that a plane has crashed into The Pentagon this morning. West Wing of The White House has been evacuated. President Bush was not there. He was at a school in Sarasota, Florida. The New York City Fire Department is issuing a call for a total recall of all officers and fire fighters. Drop what you're doing, report to your company. A major disaster is occurring in New York City this morning. BURKETT: I stepped into the news room and the Assistant News Director turned to me, and he pointed his finger at me and he said, "NJ, grab a cameraman, grab a crew and go downtown." I said, "Who do I take?" I turned to the Assignment Editor and I said, "Whom do I take?" and, and he said, "The first guy out of the garage. Get in the truck and go." (sirens) BURKETT: At that point, I was still looking at this as a story, as a news story that we were gonna tell on the 6:00 news that night. On our way down, we resolved we were gonna go into the towers. We wanted to document the heroism of the fire fighters. OFFICER: Hey, step off. Grab your guy and get 'em out. BURKETT: Don't tell me this. I've got press credentials. OFFICER: I, I don't care. I don't care. Get out. BURKETT: What's your badge number? OFFICER: Get out. Don't worry about it. Go! It's 44. Get out. FIREFIGHTER: Who is that guy? Get that guy out of there? BURKETT: I understand... BURKETT: When he confronted us so quickly and, and immediately we were sort of taken aback. Um, but then it was clear, really, like, almost instantly that, you know what, he's absolutely right. We'd better not go any farther, um. But, yeah, I mean, he might have saved our lives. To the right. Look at that. BURKETT: So we crossed West Street and we saw the fire command post there. The top two fire commanders were both there, like generals organizing a battle plan. So, so we, we felt like we were safe there. (overlapping chatter) BURKETT: And there was this whole battalion of fire fighters, um, in rows, standing there. I mean they looked like soldiers who were gonna go into a battle. But you look at their faces. And they looked frightened. They looked scared to me. REPORTER (over radio): Certainly people are streaming out of buildings in lower Manhattan. We can now tell you that there's not going to be trading on the New York Stock Exchange, they're evacuating the New York Stock Exchange. NASDAQ was hoping to start its computerized trading day about two minutes from now at 10:00 We don't know if that's going to happen. To this point, the White House, the Capitol Building, the State Department, the Treasury at Washington, all evacuated after the blast struck the Pentagon. Manhattan is sealed off. If you wanna get in, you cannot at this point in time. (sirens) (overlapping chatter) BURKETT: We both just kind of stood there and I said to Marty, I said, "Well, you know, let's shoot a stand-up here, while we're here." And so I did, okay, take one, and two, one. BURKETT: This is as close as we can get to the base of the World Trade Center. You can see the two towers, debris continues to fall and to rain on the people below. there are people hanging from the windows, 90 stories up, and a number of bodies have actually hit the pavement. I did the first take on the stand-up and I didn't like it at all. I thought, "Oh, that doesn't sound right. I don't like that." And I said to Marty, "You know, let me do another one." Take two and two, one. This is as close as we can get to the base of the World Trade Center. You can see the firemen assembled here, the police officers, FBI agents and you can see the two towers. A huge explosion now, raining debris on all of us. We'd better get out of the way! (rumble) (overlapping chatter). (screams) (screams) BURKETT: God. Look out behind you, look out behind you. Please. Run, run. (screams) WOMAN: Help. Help me. MAN: Anthony you okay? ANTHONY: Yeah. WOMAN: Yes, please. Oh my God. (screams). (crying) (overlapping chatter) (screams) (overlapping chatter) MAN: The whole site. It's gone. The whole tower. It's gone. Holy crap! They knocked the whole friggin' thing down. Holy. They did it! It's down. The second tower's down. Holy. MAN: No. MAN: The whole top of the building fell off, dude. MAN 2: Holy, dude. It's ... gone. Look, they say it was a bomb in there. MAN: Oh my God, man. MAN 2: Look, it's gone man. MAN: This is not happening. MAN 2: This is not happening. WOMAN (over radio): The entire World Trade Center on the, the south building just fell. I just saw the whole thing. Oh my God. Oh my God. (gasps). I can't see anything up. The whole thing went down. REPORTER (over radio): That the... WOMAN (over radio): Oh my God. Oh, I saw the building crumble. It's all the way down. I can't see, I can't see what's still standing. Oh my God. (gasps) ♪ ♪ REPORTER (over radio): A situation that, uh, started bad just gets worse and worse and worse. The World Trade Center, South Tower, has totally collapsed. Again, uh, we've had no reports of, uh, casualties. Obviously, there are... BURKETT: Everybody was running away, and we didn't know where we were running to. I turn around and there was this door and it's a way to escape. (screams) (overlapping chatter) BURKETT: Marty, on me again. MARTY: I'm rolling, I'm rolling. BURKETT: Alright. We don't know what's happened inside. What we know we have to do is just keep running the other way. The firemen are going this way, so are the police officers, and we don't know what's happening. MAN: Out. MAN 2: Everybody out! MAN: Everybody out. MAN 2: Let's go! MAN: Everyone out. Keep it moving. He was just in the building... BURKETT: All these years I'm asking myself what if there was no door? MAN: Go, go! BURKETT: And you know there were people behind us that did not make it through the door. (debris thuds) (debris thuds) GIEBFRIED: Both Jen and I ran back across the street where we thought the entrance to the building was. We hit a glass wall and that's where we got buried alive. (overlapping chatter). GIEBFRIED: The ten to 12 people that were with us, we were all banging, clawing, trying to break that window. It wasn't breaking. LAMPERT: And at that point my nose and my mouth were just filling up with dust and whatever else was in the air and I couldn't breathe. Even with my shirt over my mouth, I couldn't breathe and I just, I remember slowly sinking to the ground and, and thinking this is it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna die. And I'm getting upset about it now but, in that moment, it was very peaceful and, even though I didn't know that the tower had collapsed, um, I didn't really know what had happened, I do remember thinking distinctly that at least my parents are going to get my body back. My parents were. You know, I was whole. I was whole. I wasn't damaged, and my parents would get me back. My parents were going to have me and to take home. (overlapping chatter) GIEBFRIED: I stepped back and I basically said a little prayer 'cause I knew we were gonna die. I grabbed Jen, I closed my eyes and then all of a sudden one individual got to his gun. There was this pap-pap-pap noise. Next thing I knew I was being yanked through and over broken glass. (coughing) (overlapping chatter) GIEBFRIED: Later on I found out it was a police officer who got to his secondary gun and shot out the window and saved us all. MAN: In. Yoily. Yoily. In. Deep breath. In, in. Hold it. LAMPERT: I don't think anybody really understood, even then, what happened to the twin towers. (overlapping chatter) (coughing) LAMPERT: I was numb, like in, in, in shock. I still don't remember. It was disbelief. This cannot be real. (radio chatter) (overlapping chatter) (smoldering) CANAVAN: As we exited out of the tower I can hear this rush of air, feeling the heat and then this thumping sound and, and then it was just smack down, just plastered down. Completely buried. A slab of concrete falling at an angle had knocked me down, but it was protecting me. I was sort of in a little cocoon, and it got just dead quiet, to the point where I said, "You know what, I'm dead." At that point, the thoughts going through my mind where "Well my kids, I have a birthday to plan and my, my daughter's going to be born. I'm not gonna be around for my kids. I won't even see my daughter's face when she's born. I have to be there." But as I started to move, someone grabbed my ankle. Said he was a security guard and he said, "If we stay here, they'll find us." I said, "If you stay here you're either gonna smother or you're gonna burn to death". And I started digging, and he followed behind me and finally we saw a little peephole, a light, and I looked at him. I said, "Okay, I'm gonna push you through." He was smaller than I was. I said, "See if you can move some stuff so I can get out." And he squeezed past me and I helped push him out and, uh, I got back down, I was waiting. I didn't see anything happening and, when I stuck my head back out, he had been, uh, walking away down a pile of debris. So I started yelling at him, "Yo, yo." And he just kept waving, like, come on, come on. And I, I was the only one talking, um, and I said, "I can't get out." And at that point I could see he's wearing like his security guard suit, but he just kept going. At that moment, I got really angry and I picked up a piece of concrete that was laying there and I, I actually threw it at him. That's, that's how angry I was, um. I missed him, you know, and luckily, luckily I did because I would have had to live with that the rest of my life. But once he left me there, um, just the next thought is, "Okay, I'm on my own. You're gonna have to do what you have to do." (sirens) (sirens) TOTI: When you're in the military, you're trained for battle. I've been to sea on submarines where we had casualties where I had to run to the scene of a casualty and, and you know put out a fire or something like that. Nothing compared to what we experienced that day. And at some point, one of the security guards started yelling, "There's another plane coming. Everybody needs to move away from the building." (overlapping chatter) MAN: We need to gather up this paramedic equipment and move it. MAN 2: What have we got going on? MAN: There's an aircraft coming. Let's go, go. Move! (overlapping chatter) TOTI: Two planes hit the World Trade Center. Pentagon is a huge target. (radio chatter) It just made sense for two planes to hit The Pentagon too. So, we took this threat very seriously. (overlapping chatter) OFFICER: Get back, get back. MAN: They've got another inbound plane. MAN: Josh. OFFICER: Everybody get back, get back. Get back. Go, go, go. REPORTER (over TV): Every airport in the United States has been shut down as the FAA and the government tries to figure out exactly are there more attacks yet to come. CNN's David Ensor joins us from Washington. David, where in the capital are you now? ENSOR (over TV): Well Aaron, I'm, uh, I'm in our bureau but I have on the telephone with me Barbara. PENNEY: I remember looking down and seeing the smoke, and I remember thinking if at any point in my life what I did mattered it was now. They lost radar contact with Flight 93. Any aircraft attempting to enter Washington class-bravo airspace will be shot down. (overlapping chatter) PENNEY: But it normally takes ten to 20 minutes to get real missiles loaded up on the jets, so we didn't have any live weapons on board. There's no way for us to shoot this airliner down. (overlapping chatter) (overlapping chatter) PENNEY: I was just a brand new wing man. I had recently earned my combat mission ready status. My flight lead at the time was our Director of Operations, Mark Sassaville. His call sign was Sass. PILOT (over radio): Go for eight-six. Turn right heading 0-8-0. We're gonna bank here for the traffic. PENNEY: And I distinctly remember I run after Sass down the hallway, down the stairs into life support where our flight lockers are and where all of our gear is. And I'm zipping up my flight suit when Sass looks at me and says, "I'll ram the cockpit." And I knew I would ram the tail. We knew without missiles, that this would be a suicide mission. Going after a civilian airliner, with innocent Americans on board. And these were citizens that, that we had sworn to protect. We flew to the northwest and we searched and we searched. We were too late for anything. The passengers of Flight 93, they had to make that choice. (birds chirping) HOAGLAND: On the morning of September 11th, I heard my sister-in-law, Kathy, run out of her bedroom door and down the hall and answer the kitchen phone. And I heard Kathy say, "Well we love you too, Mark. Let me get your Mom." And then she saw me and said, "Alice, come talk to Mark. He's been hijacked." And I took the phone and I heard Mark's voice. He said, "Mom, this is Mark Bingham. I just wanna tell you I love you. I'm on a flight from Newark to San Francisco and there are three guys on board who have taken over the plane and they say they have a bomb. You believe me, don't you Mom?" I said, "Yes, Mark, I believe you. Who are those guys?" And then the phone went dead. After Mark's phone call was dropped, the three of us, Kathy, Yvonne and I, stood around in the kitchen trying to figure out what to do. At about that time Kathy, who had been watching the television for a few minutes said, "Guys, come look at this." So we went and, uh... into the, uh, den there and watched, and we saw. We saw images of the North Tower and the South Tower in flames, and we realized that Mark needed to be told that he was part of a much bigger scenario so I excused myself, I went into another room and dialed his cell phone number. VOICE (over phone): End of message. HOAGLAND: He was a young man. He was a force for good in the world. I had never taught Mark how to kill anybody, but I saw him do some pretty rough stuff on the rugby pitch but always in fun and in the spirit of sportsmanship, and now I was hoping against hope that my son could be a killer. But I knew that Mark would be able to seize the moment. MAN: Get out! MAN 2: Hey, come on guys. Let's go! CANAVAN: At any point, it would have been easier to just sit down and that would have been the end of me. But then I just kept thinking I can't just lay here waiting. Don't, don't give up. Just, I don't know if everybody has that don't give up. Most of the New Yorkers I know, they don't give up. They don't. You can knock 'em down, they get up again. You knock 'em down, they get up again and I just squeezed through the concrete, the rebar, um. I scraped my body down from the top of my head to my feet. At the moment, that was the only way out. There was no one else there. It was me getting through there or, or not getting out. When I came out through that hole, it was like a blizzard down there. Papers grey, embers flying around. (overlapping chatter) CANAVAN: But when I looked straight up, perfectly blue sky and I could see my tower behind me still standing there. And that's when I realized I'm still around. Whatever had happened to me, it didn't get me. I survived. I was lucky. I was very lucky. (overlapping chatter) Still around, guys. Still around. REPORTER: Want to talk to us a little bit? CANAVAN: I'll make it. REPORTER: What's your name? CANAVAN: Tom Canavan. REPORTER: Tom, what happened man? CANAVAN: Uh, big boom. Come down the steps, everything fine till we got to the basement and then everything just fell in. I gets trapped under there with another guy, crawled out. Kept getting hit in the head, get bounced all around. Finally, we crawled our way out over the rubble. AGENT: Come on now. CANAVAN: We did alright. REPORTER: Alright. Way to be Tom. AGENT: Let's go. FIRE FIGHTER: Amos, right down. Amos, straight down. CANAVAN: Oorah! (overlapping chatter) REPORTER (over radio): Kitty. Kitty, let me interrupt for just a second. The associated press is reporting that, uh, federal officials fear that another hijacked plane is headed towards the Pentagon and I'm looking for the time on this. We will continue to check that out. Kitty, I apologize for interrupting. Why don't you continue? HOAGLAND: The three of us were very quiet. We all knew that it was a very grave situation that Mark faced. My brother tried to cheer me a little bit, he pointed out that since the hijackers had been so successful taking down the World Trade Center, uh, and, and the Pentagon, that maybe Flight 93 would land safely. And even as he was saying it and I was listening, we knew both of us that that just wasn't gonna happen that way. (overlapping chatter) MAN: We've got the patch confirming this plane crash in Somerset, Pennsylvania. We don't know if it's a big plane, small plane... Any relation to this. WOMAN: Flight 93, Newark to SFO has crashed. WOMAN 2: Pennsylvania. Again, United Flight 93, Newark to SFO has crashed in Pennsylvania per United Airlines. REPORTER (over radio): I'm now told that United Airlines is now saying that Flight, can you tell me the number of the flight, 93 has crashed in Pennsylvania. Now I don't. REPORTER 2 (over radio): It crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania near the town of Shanksville. South of Pittsburgh we're told, about 80 miles outside of Pittsburgh. It is not known how many... HOAGLAND: That was hard to take in. REPORTER 2 (over TV): The crew were on board although initial reports... HOAGLAND: But I, I knew that the, that I would never see Mark alive again and none of those innocent people on Flight 93 would see their loved ones again. REPORTER (over TV): The plane that crashed in Western Pennsylvania we are now told was a United Flight 93 out of Newark, and it was headed for San Francisco. Now was that one of the hijacked planes? Did some heroic pilot perhaps save an awful lot of lives in Washington? We don't know at this point, but we do know that it was United Flight 93 out of Newark, heading west on its way to San Francisco. HOAGLAND: Even though our boys were not able to save their own lives, they saved countless lives on the ground, and I'm very grateful for what they were able to do that day. BINGHAM: We saw a lot of bridges and, um, we're drinking beer. We got, bought some toys. And I'm deeply in love and, about it all the good stuff. HOAGLAND: I don't know where I lucked out so much to have a son like Mark Bingham, he was, he was a wonderful young man. I can't take any credit for it, it just was something that Mark had and very grateful for that. (overlapping screams) REPORTER (over phone): You're really seeing a lot of people trying to move north, away from any place downtown near the World Trade Center area. People are just walking. The subways are stopped entirely, all around the area of the World Trade Center. You can't get below 14th Street and there just feels to be like a massive exodus of people walking north to get away from the area.