A paramedic's account of WTC
The following is excerpted from an account of the World
Trade Center disaster by Hunter student and paramedic
James Creedon.
Sept. 13: Hello all--Thank you very much for the many *many*
notes of support and condolence. Things are very difficult here
in New York City. I thought I would share a bit about what
happened to me on September 11th, 2001.
I woke up Tuesday morning to the radio and heard that a
building had been struck by an airplane. I honestly thought it
was a historical piece about the B-52 bomber that hit the
Empire State Building back in the 1940s. Once I knew the real
deal, that two planes had struck, I put my uniform on and
headed off to my station.
From where I was standing, it was about half a block to WTC
1 (North Tower). I could see flames and smoke billowing out of
the building, and debris was landing all around me. There were
body parts scattered on the ground, and it was pretty clear how
bad things were.
Moments later, I heard an enormous roar and felt the ground
shaking. I looked up to the tower, and saw what looked like an
umbrella being opened up--like a starburst at the fireworks. I
was directly underneath it, and I could see girders shooting
out from the building. I immediately began to run southwest,
towards a building that had some sort of opening. I already
felt rocks landing on my back and helmet, and there were
girders falling right near me. I made it perhaps 30 feet before
being knocked off my feet. I went about 10 feet through the
air, and landed rolling on a set of steps. My helmet was gone,
my phone, my stethoscope.
This was the scariest moment of my life. The air was black
with ash and debris, and I literally couldn't see a thing.
People were screaming, and some were clearly seriously injured.
We couldn't breathe, and our mouths, eyes and noses watered and
burned. I stayed crouching on the ground, covering my head, and
breathed through my shirt. A few minutes later, the smoke began
to clear and I was able to make out a few other figures. We
held on to each other, and were able to make it to a restaurant
where we started gathering water for eye flushes. Ambulances
and fire trucks were overturned, walkways were collapsed, and
people were running and screaming.
After a half-hour of giving out water, I started to help out
with moving other people to the waterfront where we were
loading them onto boats and ferries. But soon we had to clear
out from there also because the second tower was coming down. I
was holding a 3-year-old girl at the time, and we lost sight of
her mother. We all ran as hard as we could, while we tried to
carry as many people as couldn't make it. There were many
injuries, and many more people with smoke inhalation or
blindness.
Eventually, we regrouped on a pier farther southeast, and
got more people loaded up to bring them to New Jersey. I helped
here for a while, and ended up taking one of the last boats to
NJ to help with triage and treatment there, by order of my
supervisor.
An hour or two later, I was redeployed to Manhattan, but I
was then taken to the hospital to be treated for injuries.
Luckily, I got off well. I have a sprained ankle, twisted knee,
miscellaneous burns and abrasions, and had to have glass and
gravel removed from my arms and back.
Especially sad and difficult to me is the loss of two
members of my own team. They were killed in collapse of WTC 2
(South Tower), along with hundreds of other rescuers.
I have lost friends, and I can honestly say that they were
some of the most caring, deeply committed, and selfless people
I have ever met.
Finally, I want to urge all of us to remem ber the
complexities of the world we live in. This is a tragic act, one
that has destroyed or forever altered the lives of countless
people. It is also an act that occurs in particular context,
one in which the United States is guilty of this exact same
kind of crime, only on a greater and more gruesome scale. Let
us take from this the inspiration to create a world free from
imperialism in all its manifestations, one that moves us from
the civil war that is capitalism to a higher form of
society.
With love and rage,
James Creedon
Reprinted from the Oct. 11, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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