Firefighters Walked Into a Nightmare

New York Daily News ^ | 9/13/01 | LANCE GOULD

[kattracks]

Firefighter John McConnachie's crew was one of the first at the scene of Tuesday's devastation. Miraculously, it didn't lose a single man.

"I've been doing this eight years," said the firefighter with Engine 7, Ladder 1 on Duane St. "We [were] always going down there for false alarms, people smoking in the halls, broken light fixtures, overheated motors."

But Tuesday was different. McConnachie, who was supposed to be on vacation this week, was in Washington Square Park when he saw the first plane crash into the tower. Immediately, he sprang into action.

It was the same with Steve Rogers, a fellow firefighter who was shopping in a Home Depot on Staten Island.

"As soon as I got [to the stationhouse]," said Rogers, "I geared up, helped set up a mini-trauma center, and then went down [to the World Trade Center] in my truck."

Pat Zoda, another member of the division, was already at the station.

"We all saw it happen and didn't need to wait for the call," said Zoda.

When the firefighters arrived at 1 World Trade Center, they came upon a scene with "burning bodies in the lobby," said Zoda. "There were limbs by themselves. Air pressure must have come down the elevator banks and blown out all the lobby windows. Whoever was around perished."

Zoda and some of his division mates started climbing the stairs.

"I've never seen anything like it in my life," he said, still shaken up a day later. "Some people had burning skin. Some people had walked down as many as 70 flights. But everybody was coming down in an orderly fashion."

When Zoda and his colleagues reached the 30th floor, they heard an explosion — the second jet hitting the south tower. They immediately turned around and started down the stairs to evacuate the building. Zoda quickly glanced out the window and thought, "It looked like the end of the world."

They scrambled outside moments before the north tower collapsed. Zoda took cover behind a truck.

"I thought I was going to die," he said. "I lost my mask, there was dust in my mouth and caked in my eyes and nose. We saw the dust coming toward us — we all thought we were dead."

When the south tower came down, McConnachie said, "It was complete chaos. I looked up and saw it coming, and I started running."

Suddenly, it was pitch black.

"It seemed like an eternity," said McConnachie. "It must have been four or five minutes. But I didn't have my mask and I thought for sure I'd stop breathing."

Rogers, meanwhile, was getting hit with minor debris and had punctured his hand on a nail.

"My helmet was knocked off by debris," said Rogers. "It was pitch black and I started walking quickly. I found an engine, got in, closed the windows, and waited."

Eventually, the dust settled. McConnachie found Rogers after about 10 minutes. Zoda, meanwhile, was disoriented and hopped into an ambulance that took him to St. Vincent's Medical Center.

Somehow, the rest of their division survived as well.

[jude24]

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