Thursday, October 1, 2026
For former Rockville Centre Fire Department Chief John Busching, answering the call on Sept. 11 meant crawling into the darkness of a collapsed World Trade Center, through unstable rubble and burning debris, to reach a man trapped beneath the wreckage.
Busching, then an NYPD Emergency Service Unit officer and paramedic, arrived at Ground Zero around 7:30 or 8 p.m. after being redirected from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. He had initially been assigned to a helicopter rappel team, but the collapse of the towers changed the mission.
“It was complete devastation,” Busching recalled. “It was just starting to get dark, so there was no light. All the power had been knocked out. There was that gray concrete dust and papers and everything and fires burning out of control.”
His search-and-rescue team was sent toward the location of two Port Authority police officers who had been buried. By the time Busching arrived, Officer Will Jimeno had been rescued and crews were working to reach Sgt. John McLoughlin, who remained trapped deep beneath the debris.
Busching was the first medical provider to evaluate McLoughlin. The officer was conscious and buried from the waist down. Reaching him, however, was a dangerous undertaking.
To get to the hole, rescuers had to climb over fallen beams and debris while fires burned around them. Busching eventually had to crawl about 18 feet through an opening so narrow that he had to squeeze past a pipe. He was carrying medical equipment and wearing his gun belt.
“If you're claustrophobic, you're in bad shape,” he said.
Inside, rescuers were forced to dig McLoughlin out by hand because traditional tools could injure him.
“That’s what New York City has the most advanced rescue teams in the country,” Busching said. “And we're digging this dude out by hand.”
Busching and trauma surgeon Dr. John Chovanes developed a treatment plan to keep McLoughlin alive while rescuers worked. They administered fluids and medication while monitoring his condition. Amputation of both legs was discussed if his condition deteriorated or rescuers could not free him, but it never became necessary.
After nearly 22 hours beneath the wreckage, McLoughlin was brought out alive.
“It was like we won this one small battle,” Busching said. “And I think that's what helped me through a lot of it, was at least I had this one good thing to remember.”
The rescue of McLoughlin and Jimeno later became the basis for the 2006 film “World Trade Center,” starring Nicolas Cage as McLoughlin. Busching served as one of the NYPD consultants for the movie.
He said filmmakers recreated the rescue site with remarkable accuracy, making the experience of returning to the scene unsettling.
“They really built it, like, unbelievably accurate,” Busching said. “So going back in there was kind of scary.”
The movie condensed events that unfolded over hours into minutes, he said, but captured the basic circumstances of the rescue.
The physical effects of that day have also stayed with Busching. He developed asthma soon after 9/11 and was later diagnosed with throat cancer about 11 years after the attacks. About 20 years after 9/11, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which is currently being monitored through active surveillance.
Despite those health challenges, Busching has remained active with the Rockville Centre Fire Department. Now 61, he no longer enters fires but continues to drive the truck and assist with exterior operations.
His experience at Ground Zero also influenced how he led the department after becoming assistant chief in 2008 and chief from 2011 to 2013. Safety, accountability and training became priorities.
“I didn't want to see anybody get hurt or killed while I was in charge,” he said.
Twenty-five years after 9/11, Busching sees “answering the call” as something that extends beyond the events of that day. It is about taking what he learned at Ground Zero and continuing to serve the community where he grew up.
“Whatever I can bring now to my local community from that experience, I think is a positive thing,” he said.
To read more from the Herald's Remembering 9/11, 25th anniversary special section, click here.
