Stories of survival & loss at Ground Zero

David Bianculli (0:00)

This is Fresh Air, I'm David Bianculli. Today, we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Attacks that took place on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington DC, and on United Airlines Flight 93, which was heroically diverted by passengers and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.

For anyone who is old enough to remember the events of that day, they also remember what they were doing when they heard about it, or saw the coverage live on TV. Today's show will focus on what happened at the World Trade Center and the interviews we recorded in the aftermath.

First, we hear from former Deputy Chief Jay Jonas of the New York City Fire Department. He was a captain on 9-11 and led his men up the stairs of the North Tower. After the South Tower collapsed, they headed back down the stairs, presuming the North Tower could fall as well. On the way down, they found Josephine Harris, who could barely walk.

Terry Gross (0:58)

Chief, you knew you were risking your men's lives and your own life to rescue Josephine Harris, and that the odds were you wouldn't save her either because she was so slow and the building was on the verge of collapse and you were, what, on the 27th floor?

Jay Jonas (1:13)

Yeah, we were on the 27th floor when the South Tower collapsed. That was our big indicator for us to make our escape.

Terry Gross (1:22)

So how did you decide to stop for her knowing it meant you would all be leaving very slowly, probably too slow to get out?

Jay Jonas (1:31)

Well, it was a lot easier decision for the firefighters under my command because they didn't really know that the South Tower had collapsed. And there was another captain on the 27th floor, Billy Burke, the captain of Engine 21 And I told Billy, you go check the South windows, I'll check the North windows when we'll come back here. And I kind of felt that a piece of our building had just collapsed. That's why our building moved so violently. And he just looked at me and he said, the South Tower collapsed. And I didn't realize it, but my firefighters under my command didn't hear the conversation with Captain Burke and myself. And I just looked at them and said, OK, if that one can go, this one can go. It's time for us to get out of here. And they looked at me a little quizzically because they had just climbed 27 floors with 100 pounds of gear on their backs. And once we made it to the 20th floor, we saw Josephine Harris standing in the doorway and she was crying. And my guy stopped and one of my firefighters, Tommy Falco, turned around to me and said, Hey Cap, what do you want to do with her?

And it was, how can I put this?

Every fiber in my being was screaming at me to get out of this building. Every second that we waste was one second closer to us not getting out of the building. But that's not what firemen do. We were there to save people's lives. And that culture, that firefighter culture overtook whatever personal need I felt to get out of the building. And I said, okay, let's stop and we'll save this woman. And it was the right thing to do. There was a lot of other firemen who were in that building who were doing similar things to what we were doing. It wasn't until we got to the fourth floor was when she couldn't even support her own weight anymore. She fell to the floor and she started yelling at us to leave her.

That's when I decided to break into the fourth floor to look for a sturdy chair that we could have put her on and we can pick her up with her in the chair and we could run with her. And the fourth floor was not an office floor, so it didn't have any chairs. So I was way on the other side of the building when I just thought to myself, well, we're just going to have to drag her down the stairs. And I started running back to the stairway.

Terry Gross (4:09)

At what point did the building start collapsing?

Jay Jonas (4:12)

Just before I made it back to the stairway on the fourth floor, that's when the collapse of the North Tower started.

Terry Gross (4:18)

Can you explain how in the world you managed to survive when the North Tower collapsed on top of you, you were on the fourth floor?

Jay Jonas (4:30)