Picciotto told his eyewitness account of survival at the 2011 APCO Conference in Philadelphia Wednesday, Aug. 10.

Practice. Priorities. Spirit.

These are the lessons Fire Department of New York Chief Richard Picciotto learned on Sept. 11, 2001, when he led one of the largest rescue operations in the history of the United States.

Picciotto told his eyewitness account of one of the most defining historical events in modern history to a packed house at the Closing SuperSession Luncheon at the 2011 APCO Conference in Philadelphia Wednesday, Aug. 10. Cassidian Communications sponsored the luncheon, providing every attendee with a copy of Picciotto’s New York Times best-selling book, Last Man Down.

When the first plane hit the North Tower just before 9 a.m. EST, Piccioto called his dispatcher with one simple request.

“We needed to go to that call,” he said. “I knew it was a terrorist attack from the get-go.”

Picciotto relied on his practice and experience.

When terrorists detonated bombs in the parking level of the World Trade Center in 1993, the newly promoted battalion chief was one of the first responders on scene, leading the evacuation the North Tower.

His experience wasn’t wasted.

Each level of the 110-story buildings spanned one acre, meaning the two buildings totaled more than 200 acres of concrete and steel hovering above Manhattan streets. 20,000 pounds of jet fuel filled the 99 elevator shafts inside the tower, igniting an inferno that blew the elevator doors off at every level, injuring hundreds and spreading a massive fire underground. Only three stairwells — 36 to 42 inches wide — served rescuers and survivors as the way in or out.

By the time Picciotto and his men arrived on scene, another airplane hit the South Tower spitting more jet fuel down on the entire complex of the World Trade Center. The dull, thump of bodies — people jumping out high-story windows — shook the ground around him.

“Horrendous,” he recalled. “Horrendous what I heard. Horrendous what I saw. There are certain things in life you shouldn’t have to see. I knew, at that point, we couldn’t put this fire out. I was hoping we could contain it.”

He received his first assignment, leading firefighters to the 20th and 23rd floors to extricate people trapped inside. When complete, he climbed higher, to the 35th floor. Breathless, carrying hundreds of pounds of equipment through narrow, crowded stairwells, he stepped into a public hallway for a quick breath when he heard a thunderous roar.

“I felt the noise,” he said, describing the collapse of the South Tower. “It started above me, came down around me, enveloped me and went right through my body. Then it stopped. Just a deathly, deafening silence.”

When the South Tower collapsed, debris demolished the Incident Command Post — set up near the tower that was hit last. The mobile communications bus was also destroyed so Picciotto couldn’t raise anyone on his radio.

“My first thought was, ‘How many people? How many firefighters? How many friends of mine?'”

Suspecting the tower was bombed as it was in ’93, he made a command decision, ordering all firefighters in the building to evacuate immediately. Everyone started their slow descent.

At the 27th floor, Picciotto pulled a man from behind his desk who was still typing at his computer despite the deafening roar of buildings collapsing and the chaos swirling around him.

Further below, everyone stopped moving. Debris from the South Tower blocked the exits to both the A and C stairwells. Everyone still in the building had to go to the B stairwell at the core of the crumbling structure.

On the 12th floor, he ordered the evacuation of a few dozen non-ambulatory tenants — some wheelchair-bound, others assisted by walkers or canes — who had resigned themselves to wait patiently for their demise.

Thousands inched along, step by step, down a 36-inch wide stairwell.

When he reached the 7th floor, the North Tower collapsed.

“What I thought was loud before was thousands of times louder and more violent,” he remembered. “The power went out so it was pitch-black. As the floors pan-caked down, they created tremendous air pressure that tossed us around like hurricane winds, picking people up like rag dolls.

“I thought of my wife and my kids. I prayed a combination of every prayer I ever knew. Then I started repeating, ‘Please, God, make it quick.’ Then the ground that was bouncing under me disintegrated — just disappeared like a trap door — and I went free-falling into blackness.”

The North Tower collapsed in eight seconds, leaving Picciotto motionless in the hot, smoky darkness.

Cautiously, he called out for another voice.

One answered.

Then another.

And another.

He wasn’t alone! Eleven other firefighters, one police officer and a civilian were trapped, but alive, in the same void as Picciotto.

Practice kicked in.

He knew rescuers would look for pockets within the tangled steel and try to extricate survivors. He knew they had to stay still to keep the fragile, crumbling house of cards from becoming a tomb. Using his radio, he called for help.

Ninety minutes later, alone in the blackness, a voice answered. Help was coming but they couldn’t find the trapped responders. A few more hours passed with little change — little hope. Training turned to tension when Picciotto recognized his fuzzy thoughts and tired eyes as signs of potential oxygen deprivation. If he didn’t act soon, no one would survive.

Above him, in the uncertain distance of consuming darkness, Picciotto spotted a very, very dark gray spot.

Gradually, it became brighter. Others saw it, too!

Confident their hope for survival rested just beyond that spot, he squirmed toward it, through layers of dense powder that once stood strong as the concrete walls of the world’s largest structure, until his hand, then arm, then head burst into sunlight atop the tallest pile of debris at what would be called Ground Zero.

The 13 others followed him out of the twisted stairwell near the last fragmented piece of the North Tower wall. It was hours later before they snaked their way out of the ruins to safety — to medical care — and home.

“My prayers weren’t answered,” Picciotto said of his plea for a quick death. “Sometimes what you think you want so bad, but you don’t get, should make you glad. Sometimes the best things in life are those prayers that go unanswered.”

Through his heroic efforts that day, Picciotto is credited for saving an estimated 20,000 lives. A day that marked a period in the history of the American spirit he says should never be forgotten.

About the Author
Stephen Martini instructs dispatchers at Hamilton County 9-1-1 in Chattanooga, Tenn. Having earned a degree in English literature from the University of Mississippi, writing is both his profession and his passion. He is a member of the PSC Editorial Advisory Committee.