CABL Forum - 911 My Story lets never forget

911
The reason I'm writing this is because I was on Long Island New York as a cable television project manager when the world trade center was a attacked. I was working at the time it happened. My wife called me at the office to let me know that a plane hit the World Trade Center.

At that time, we didn't know what type of plane, or that another one was going to hit. I was still on the phone when the second plane hit. All I could say was, "God help us". We were all stunned at work. We could see the smoke from outside. My boss called on the phone and shut us down for the day.

I went back to the hotel where we stayed during the week and while watching the live reports of what was happening, (with five other men cable television line men), we saw the towers collapse. All I could think of was the children that were going to go home without having their parents alive again. I prayed a protection prayer for them using Ephesians 6. At that moment I knew I had to go help out. I asked all the guys that gathered in my room if they wanted to go with me. They thought I was nuts, but I just had to go. Five other men left with me in two pickup trucks to go see if we could make it to help out. I knew having a Red Cross card for first aid and CPR would come in handy.

We came to a roadblock set up by the NYPD and I told them we were going to help the firemen look for survivors or help them dig. Little did we know our lives would be changed forever from what we were about to do. We finally ended up at the Brooklyn Bridge after going through 17 roadblocks (all because we had the Red Cross card). We came to the beginning of the bridge where we had machine guns pointed at us. I told them what we were there for and they said to park our trucks. I asked where, and they said "right here" so we left them off to the side of the bridge we started to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge when a police van pulled up loaded with officers. I told them we were there to help. The driver said to jump in so we did. Little did we know, just being cable guys, what we were in for.

The police van took us to ground zero. The first thing we saw when we got out of the van was the engine of one of the planes on the sidewalk. The sight was so shocking. I don't know how we could be thrown in the middle of the chaos. We arrived at 5:30 on 9-11 at Ground Zero. It was unorganized but we wanted to help. First we unloaded a truck of lumber for shoring up the building; then, when we finished, a fireman yelled to us to come and help them. We didn't even think twice. We had no protection on yet. The first time up on the pile we joined the firemen looking for survivors on top the rubble from where the towers collapsed. The sight was awful as you could imagine.

After we were there for awhile we found three buried bodies: two females and a male. We started to dig them out, but were told not to. We were told to move and leave them behind. My guys looked at me and asked what they should do. It was heart-breaking to leave the area knowing it could be someone's parents. The national guard pointed machine guns at us, so we finally had to move. We marked the spot with a fallen beam so we could come back later. We came down off the pile and finally got flashlights, a hard hat, and gloves. After six hours of being on top, water tasted good. We tried all night to go back up to the bodies we left behind but they would not let us near that part all night. Finally the city brought in heavy equipment and we asked the man in charge to use the chop saws on the pile. So, armed with tools this time, we started back up on the pile when one of the men I was with said, "Hey John, we are making history. We are on top of the rubble of the World Trade Center."

It was just after he said that we were told to get off that part of the pile. So we climbed back down and told them about the three bodies up there. It was so frustrating that no one would listen to me. The heavy equipment was unloaded now and starting to move stuff. I ran up to the operator and told him what I needed to be moved he said, "Ya sure". But then he turned his machine to clear the debris off the road and sidewalk to make room for more equipment. Just then they took the piles of debris and started placing it where the bodies were. My guys again asked me, "Now what are we going to do?" After all we did that night, that was it. We couldn't take it. We were already set for breakdown. It was 5:30 am when we left the site because we could not watch them cover up any more. We started to leave when we saw the cameras set up on the street. We walked three blocks extra so we could get around them and not talk to them.

We walked all the way back across the bridge not saying a word to any one or to each other. While crossing the bridge a lone guy with a camera saw us coming with the sun rising behind us and the smoke burning and us with our soot and whatever else was on our clothes and took pictures. He laid down and kept shooting while we walked over him we didn't think to get his name. We didn't want to talk to anyone. We finally got back to the trucks and left the site. When I finally called my wife I said, "Honey, you'd never believe what I did last night." She was upset that I would risk my life to help others not taking consideration of them if something happened to me. JOHN ROWE

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911 My Story lets never forget