By:David Seltzer
Bob was a firefighter. He remembers how clear the day was, how bright the sunshine as he looked west across the East River to where the North Tower was engulfed in flames. Bits of office paper shimmered in the air the work of all the lost lives falling like snow in a plastic snow globe.
In the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, traffic stopped while Bob-s company was trying to make its way to the burning towers. Did Bob quietly hope to be delayed until the danger was past? No. Rather, he saw the tunnel as a potential tomb. We didn-t know what the enemy-s plans were, he recalled. If the tunnel were attacked, we might be buried. I couldn-t wait to get into Manhattan.
When he arrived at the site, Bob may have felt differently. He saw a burning van and flesh and body parts in the street. He shut the sights out of his mind, focusing on preparing his engine company to deliver water to the blaze.
He could not, however, block out the thuds. Bob was hearing the bodies of tower jumpers landing in the street. Fortunately, I couldn-t actually see them hit, he said. They disappeared about five feet above the ground, but the sound is something I can-t forget, more like concrete chunks smashing than people.
He retreated into a parking garage tunnel under West Street, a makeshift command center where scores of firefighters waited to be called to the scene. A few minutes later, he was drawn outside by morbid fascination. In 20 or 25 minutes I counted 15 to 20 jumpers, he said. This is one side of one tower. There were seven more sides.
Bob-s engine was called to action, but he spent several minutes looking for a flashlight, to illuminate darkened corridors and stairwells, and an extra helmet for another firefighter. Before he could locate either, the South Tower collapsed.
Bob had a life-or-death choice: dive under his rig or flee to the command center. Before he had run 20 strides, he became enveloped in a pitch-black cloud of debris from the falling tower, and the concussive force of the collapsing structure hurled him like an end-over-end football to the base of a building wall. It was then that he waited for a slab of the tower to come hurtling toward him. He covered up and prepared to die, spitting particles from the black air that had stuck to his tongue.
Before long, however, the darkness lifted. Bob could see his hand in front of his face. Might he survive? A fellow firefighter called. Bob rose, shaking off debris. A hit of clean air from an O2 tank initiated a coughing fit.
A few blocks away, ambulances were waiting, and Bob was loaded into one. As he looked out its window, he saw two firefighters racing toward him. In retrospect, Bob realizes that his first thought they had left something in the ambulance was foolish. The truth was much grimmer: the North Tower was collapsing.
An EMT in the back of the ambulance screamed, Don-t stop! Just keep f-in- going! Bob quietly agreed: the instinct for survival trumps altruism. The ambulance made it to St. Vincent-s Hospital in a few minutes. Four hours later, Bob was released, and he eventually made his way home.
Did the experience change him? For weeks he couldn-t keep his train of thought. If you and I were having a conversation, I couldn-t follow it, he said. With the help of therapy, however, that has passed.
Did it change me? I know my relationship with my son has improved; we had been somewhat estranged. It probably has to do with the fact that sometimes I look around, see the sky, and just feel so lucky to be alive.
Then his eyes welled. The time spent searching for the flashlight and helmet probably saved the lives of me and my company, he said. There are a lot of guys who didn-t make it. His voice trailed off.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Walking Liberty silver dollar. I don-t know how that got there, but on 9/11 it was suddenly there, he said. I haven-t gone anywhere without it ever since.
Three years later, Bob is retired from the FDNY. He spends three days a week working at a local golf course, playing golf, and living quietly in Baldwin.
Seltzer taught English at the Long Beach middle and high schools for 33 years, until 2001. He is retired and lives in Baldwin.
