9-11 Podcast 3

The speaker, a first responder to 9/11, reflects on the difficult experiences they had during the aftermath of the attacks. They discuss the emotional toll of encountering numerous bodies and having to disassociate themselves from the situation. They also describe the gruesome task of cutting up bodies to collect DNA for identification. The speaker mentions the presence of large rats that were feeding on the bodies, but this aspect is not widely talked about. The speaker reveals the health issues they have developed since 9/11, including asthma, COPD, emphysema, and skin cancer. They also mention the health problems faced by other responders and volunteers. The speaker's brother, who lives near the World Trade Center, has also been affected by various illnesses attributed to 9/11. Despite these challenges, the speaker expresses pride in their son, who became a police officer after 9/11. They share anecdotes about their son's experiences and the worries they have as a parent. As a first responder to 9-11, what do you think was the most difficult thing that you had to process? Yeah, well it took me, I would say, quite a few years to even talk about it. What happens is you saw a lot of bodies. A lot of bodies. And you have to disassociate yourself when you're looking at them. Because you have to take the emotional part out of it, which is not easy to see it. A lot of people were all under the rubble, and they're trying to get to the rubble. But we still had to go see if we could find the bodies. And some bodies were crushed between these large stones. You couldn't get them out physically, but you had to get them out. So what you did was, some people, we were given heavy trash bags and bags. And you had these, what we'll call a sawzall, which is a battery operated saw. And if you saw people, they were dead. They were dead for a couple weeks. You had to cut them in half. You had to cut parts of the body off. And put them in the bags, because at least you had, they can get DNA from that person. And even if you had a finger, they can bury your finger. So it gave the families some closure. So you'd be there, and somebody would be holding a bag, and would have to cut body parts off and put it in a bag. That was kind of rough. Did you have to do that? Yes. Then you had a problem with the rats. They don't talk about that. People don't talk about it. But the rats were the size of dogs. And they're eating bodies. But you're not getting any of that because it's so horrific. You don't want to say, maybe I shouldn't have said it, but you didn't want to say, of course, you have people, their bodies are there. Now they're thinking, what, their bodies get eaten by rats? But just look at the bodies and stuff, and the fear of what was going on. It was, I remember, you know, you'd go in and volunteer, and you're working there. And at first they told us that it was okay, the air was okay to breathe. So not many of us had masks, so we used bandanas, or we had a scarf to put in your mouth. Then you had cheap masks. But that didn't work. It was, you could taste it. You could taste it in the air. It was almost like sand. And you'd be down there, and you're getting wet. You're sweating from the fires going on for quite a while. And getting wet from fire hoses or whatever. And that sand, that crap that was in the air, is attaching to your body. It's getting on your clothes and stuff. What it was, it was cement. So once you start drying it off, your pants and your shirt start to harden. So if I remember, I'd come home, and I'd take my pants off, and I could stand my pants in the corner. Because they got hard. Some guys, we'd put water on their clothes because it was hard enough. That's the stuff we were breathing in. That's the stuff that got us all sick. Would you change anything that you did? Would I change? No. I still would have went down. I still wouldn't have helped. I maybe now might have been smarter, where you have a better mask. Now we issue different masks after this. I would have, yeah, I would have had a better mask. That would have stopped a lot of health problems. Since 9-11, a lot of people talk about the impact it had on people mentally, but it also talks about the impact of the volunteers and responders' health. How is your health affected by 9-11? My health, okay. From 9-11, I have asthma. I have COPD. I have emphysema. So I have bad lungs now. And now another thing is I got skin cancer. These are all from 9-11. Everybody's got skin cancer from it. A lot of it is from breathing in and out. A lot of people, and it's attributed to 9-11. So I have problems breathing. Some days are good, some days are bad. And just recently was a skin cancer. When I went to the dermatologist, I had a couple of spots on my head. And so there was 11 spots. When I say a couple of 11 spots, I've been going to the dermatologist regularly. And every time I go, the girl would freeze them. So I said, you know what, this is nuts. I went to a different doctor. All she does is sneeze. I want to make sure. So what they did was they biopsied three of them. And all three came back cancer. So the doctor cut them out. Well, when he cut them out, me being, I don't know, I was foolish. I didn't tell him what kind of medicine I was on. He wasn't one of the doctors in my health network. And I have other health problems that are attributed to 9-11, but it's not certain things you can do, certain things you can't. But anyway, I'm on blood thinners. And I should have told him I was blood thinners before he cut the stuff off my head because I bled for 10 days. And then when I told him that when I went back, he got annoyed. He said, you should have told me. The doctor goes, you should have told me, you dumbass. He goes, or you should have came back in, he says, because when they cut it out, then they burn your head, they cauterize your head. Yeah. Because I would have re-cauterized it. I said I didn't like the smell of the skin burning. So I figured, you know, I'd hold off. So then I went back, and they tested three more. And those three more were skin cancer. So now that's why I'm just finishing up on chemotherapy cream. They should fill the rest of the stuff. So that's a new process, that's a new thing that I do. I'm on quite a few medicines, inhalers, all because of 9-11. And, you know, when you get one thing, other things start to build up. You know, I take, in the morning, I take 26 pills. After dinner, I take nine. And before I go to bed, I take six, sometimes seven. That's every day. Oh, my gosh. And that's a lot of stuff from 9-11. But I wouldn't have changed going there. I wouldn't have changed trying to help somebody. So it's just another thing that you have to deal with. Do you know anyone else that got similar illnesses? Oh, yeah, I lost a lot of people. A lot of people on the job, sick, and they died from it. Constantly people dying from 9-11, people getting all different types of cancer. Like, I've got a lot of spots on my lungs, and I've got people that have a bunch of cysts on their lungs and on their throats. Like, my brother lives in Manhattan. He lives not too far from World Trade Centers that went down. He's a walking disease. So he's had quite a few cases from it. I've had a couple of them. He had a real bad case of throat cancer. He had prostate cancer. It's all related to 9-11. There was no possible hereditary or getting it passed down from family? No, no. And the doctor, they ask you that. They ask you, you know, when you go and give your family history. We never had any family history of, like, getting that stuff. So, you know, we never had a family history of throat cancer. Anything like that. I have diabetes now. We never had any history of diabetes. And, you know, diabetes, a lot of people have it, so you can't really put it towards 9-11. But COPD, emphysema, asthma, that's all attributed, and that's all documented. So, you know, that's all from 9-11. But, no, I never had any family history of that. Other than you and your brother being affected by it physically, was anyone else affected in your family by it? My brother lives down there. He lives not too far from there. He got cancer. But other than that, we live out on Long Island. So although the smoke came over there towards us, but we really didn't expect it to go that way. How do you feel about your son becoming a police officer post-9-11? Very proud. Very proud. I didn't want him to be a cop. He went to school, got a degree in Homeland Security. So, but he always wanted to be a cop, he said. He's a better cop than I am, or was. He's real busy. He works up in Harlem. And the difference between the city department and Nassau is what we see, let's say, okay, what he sees in a week, we don't see in three, four months. That's how busy he is. He's had people that he thinks shot. He's lost friends. He just, you know, just weird stuff that happens. He has one night, he has an iPhone. And on the iPhones, if you bang them, or it gets thrown or whatever, bangs, the emergency contact does beep it. And I'm his emergency contact. So I look at my iPhone, and I see that he's at the hospital. And I can't get in touch with him. I see I'm tracking it on the phone, so I'm calling him, and he's not answering. And then I call the priest. I have to call him quite a few times, and I didn't get no answer. So I just wanted to call the priest to see, you know, if there's something going on. And the priest is not answering. So now I start to get dressed, and I start to head into the city, which is about, I don't know, about that time, it would be like a 40-minute to an hour ride. Then he called me back. What happened was he had an arrest, and they brought the arrest over to the hospital, and the guy started fighting and dumped him. And they were fighting on the floor. He said, watch at the wall. And he set it off. I said, okay. You know, so it's tough sometimes sleeping. He called me up one night about 4, maybe 4.30 in the morning. Yeah, probably more towards 4.30 in the morning. He called me up. He goes, are you awake? So I said, I am now. What's up, you know? And most of the time I don't sleep at night. And that's because of, you know, stuff at work and stuff I've seen, I think. That's why I don't sleep. But he says to me, this is how he starts the conversation. He says, I just want to tell you now and let you know what happened before you see it on the news. So now I'm thinking something's wrong. Obviously something's wrong because, you know, you see shootings on the news and stuff. So he goes, I was in a fire, and I'm at the hospital now, but I'm okay. So I said, what do you mean you're okay? He goes, yeah, I'm okay. I just got smoke inhalation. But I'm okay. So I said, well, next time you pick up the phone, you lead with that. When you pick up the phone, say, I am okay. Don't say the other stuff because now I'm thinking you're hurt. You know, stuff like that. But there was a fire, and him and his partner got, it was, I think it was five stories. They cleared, I think it was five floors. They cleared four and a half floors, and then he couldn't get any, so he got taken out. But he had smoke inhalation. So did two other cops. And they did real nice. They did a great job. He had another time where there was a fire. This guy killed his partner, stabbed him in the chest, and then lit the apartment on fire. So when the police got there, well, when my son got there, the guy was standing there naked, covered in blood, with a knife, and started swinging at the cops. And now he's fighting them, fighting a guy who's covered in blood, who's trying to stab them and stuff. So, but, you know, he did a lot of stuff that a cop out here doesn't do. And I get nervous all the time for him. But he's a smart cop. He knows what he's looking for. He'll be in a car drive and point something out that I didn't even look at. I worked bike again for 15 years. So I knew them, what was going on with them. But he's working a different aspect of it, you know. So I get nervous. I wish he had a different job. But I'm so proud of him. He's recently married. And he married this girl who's a New York State trooper. But she's a cop. Oh, my. The apples don't fall far from the tree.