By Jonann Brady
Close call
Lt. Scott Maxwell, a 12-year veteran of the Fire Department, was on duty at his Brooklyn firehouse, when the news broke on Sept. 11. His company, Engine 219, was initially diverted to call at the Williamsburg Savings Bank. They wasted 15 minutes at the false-alarm call before heading into Manhattan. The moment his truck pulled out of the tunnel, the first of the Twin Towers collapsed. A group of six firefighters in Ladder 105 from his house, who had responded to the call just moments earlier, were not so lucky.
"They're all missing," said Maxwell. "That 15 minutes meant life or death."
Maxwell and his group parked a block and a half away from ground zero. As they were approaching WTC Two, it went down.
"We dove for cover and sat there in complete blackness for five minutes," he said. Hunks of debris rained from the skies as people ran for their lives. "Hollywood couldn't possibly recreate this."
When the smoke cleared, his group of six marched onward. At the site, they uncovered a partially buried pumper that appeared wrecked. He and his team miraculously got the pumper working and starting putting out fires. The team then began a surface investigation, searching for victims. They found one man still alive and got him to safety.
"I've always admired men in combat. This is as close as I'll ever be," said Maxwell. "We're the first casualities of WW III."
As a lieutenant, Maxwell is in charge of several inexperienced junior firefighters, and his primary concern was for his troops. His cardinal rule "is that everybody goes home."
Maxwell, who spoke from his home on Friday, was planning to sleep for much of the next 24 hours before going back to ground zero for another 24-hour shift. He said he would be carrying acorns, a stuffed bunny and other good luck charms from his 11-year-old daughter.
"It's like a tree growing out of ashes when I come home to my kid," said Maxwell.
Keeping on
On Sept. 11, Daniel Hall had just dropped his four-year-old son at nursery school when he heard reports on the radio of a bombing at the World Trade Center. He rushed home and, not long after, received a call from his Brooklyn firehouse, Ladder #119 in Williamsburg.
He hopped in his car and settled in for a tense two-hour commute. He arrived at the station around noon on Tuesday. Since his house is a designated command post, firefighters from all over the city were reporting there and being bused into Manhattan, and Hall had to wait.
He spent another edgy day watching the events unfold on television, but his tension wasn't from fear. He wanted to get to the scene to start work.
"I had to go over," he said simply.
Hall wasn't alone. "There was an unbelievable outpouring. Volunteers from outside the city, police, hundreds of ironworkers, doctors, nurses. Civilians were on the streets handing out water," he said.
When he finally made in to the scene mid-morning on Wednesday, Hall spent virtually all of the next 35 hours working, catching half-hour catnaps on the sidewalk occasionally.
Hall did not work "in the pile," as he called the remains of World Trade Center One and Two. Instead he searched for victims in building Seven prior to its collapse that evening, and then watched the building go down.
"It was like nothing I've ever seen in my life," said the 42-year-old father of three. "I wasn't in a war but I imagine that's what it's like."
As of Friday, Hall had witnessed indesribable horror but kept on. "I just tried to keep a level head and survive," he said.
Luckily for his company, all 17 members are accounted for. Like many other firefighters, Hall just wants to keep working, looking for his lost brothers and hoping against hope to find a few more survivors.
Like his friend Scott Maxwell, he will be working around the clock -- 24 hours at the pile and 24 back home with his wife and kids in Baldwin.
"You're just doing your job at this point," said a weary Hall. "What action should (the country) take? I don't know. I just don't want anymore innocent people hurt."
