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Portrait of a Hero |
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Heroes in Action
When the first hijacked aircraft hit Tower 1 of the 110-story twin skyscrapers, Fire Chief Peter Ganci yelled down the hall to his commanders, "Look out your windows, the World Trade Center's been hit by a plane!" The men rose, looked and lunged for their gear.
Ganci too, pulled on his turnout coat. He was no desk-bound bureaucrat. So Ganci, like every other firefighter in the city, raced toward the site. Coming on the 9 a.m. shift, getting off -- they all jumped on the trucks together. So did the retirees, and the men on medical leave who happened to be hanging around the station houses. One group of firefighters commandeered a crowded 67th Street crosstown bus.
Ganci established a command center. Then he realized the towers weren't stable. "Everyone back!" he yelled. "We're moving north! Go now!"
But a lot of men were still in side.
They couldn't hear him. So he ran south toward the Twin Towers.
"He didn't have a reverse gear," said Paul Nigro, his
deputy. No one saw him alive again. "Every firefighter at
the scene, more than 500 people, went directly into the most dangerous
conditions they had ever seen," said Nigro
*As reported in the
Washington Post Online entitled "Company of Heroes"
by Sally Jenkins
While on flight 93 Thomas Burnett
and Jeremy Glick were on their way home to see their families.
They did not know the events that would unfold before them that
day; events that would eventually take their lives and change
the lives of many. Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania commented
on the acts of these brave men after learning their plane had
been hijacked. He said," Somebody made a heroic effort to
keep the plane from hitting a populated area, I would conclude
there was a struggle and a heroic individual decided 'I'm going
to die anyway, I might as well bring the plane down here.'"**
Once word got around that the two men had
placed phone calls to there family stating that they were "going
to do something"it was fairly easy to see that these men
and those with them on the flight had learned about the Twin Towers
and were not going to let the hijackers harm any more people,
so they took the plane down in an open field in Pennsylvania.
**http://www.pressdemocrat.com/local/news/13ua93web.html
Even after the initial attack, the heroes of the day continued to show heroics. The following story is taken from the Washington Post Online entitled "Company of Heroes" by Sally Jenkins. More fires broke out as they worked. Everything around them seemed to burn, or move, or colapse. Their eyes began to swell shut from the smoke and debris. They tore and sprained the ankles or knees climbing through the burning heap. Medical personnel washed out their eyes and bandaged their arms and legs, and tried to make them come out, but none of them would. Dr. Edward Casey treated on firefighter who'd been thrown by a blast and badly sprained his ankle. Casey bandaged the injury and told him, "You're discharged, go home." The firefighter said, "Give me my turnout coat. I'm not going home as long as my companies still in there."
