How the unthinkable losses on 9/11 reshaped the FDNY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, April 26, 2015, 12:01 AM
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ANDREW SAVULICH/NEW YORK DAILY NEWSIn one of the most famous images from that horrible day, American flag is defiantly hoised above the burning debris.
FDNY Chief Joseph Pfeifer has honored lives lost on 9/11, including his own brother’s, by devoting his career since then to thwarting terrorists.
“9/11 is part of history that is personal to every firefighter,” he said. “It’s about saving lives — no matter what occurs.”
Pfeifer was investigating a gas leak near Canal St. when the first hijacked jetliner roared overhead on that fateful morning. He watched it slam into the north tower.
He was the first FDNY commander on the scene — and ran into his brother, Lt. Kevin Pfeifer, in the lobby of the World Trade Center. His brother died in the north tower’s collapse, trying to lead his men from Engine 33 to safety.
On that day, 340 firefighters, two paramedics and one FDNY chaplain died.
ROBERT MECEA/APScreaming in pain, one firefighter is pulled from rubble where 343 colleagues died.
In 2004, Joseph Pfeifer founded the FDNY’s Center for Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness, based at Fort Totten in Queens. Each week the center puts out a one-page briefing to 50,0000 first responders nationwide highlighting new terror threats — and strategies for responding.
“After 9/11 the department had to face other threats,” Pfeifer explained. “Before 9/11 we weren’t really connected to the intelligence community at the classified level. We’re very connected now.”
The center runs drills for responding to everything from sniper fire to chemical, biological and radioactive attacks.
“Firefighters have had to widen their aperture and look beyond just fighting fires,” he said. “We train them to be aware.”
LINDA ROSIER/NEW YORK DAILY NEWSFuneral for the Rev. Mychal Judge brought many to tears.
The Fire Department’s anniversary is bittersweet without his brother. “It’s some sadness, but also points to 150 years of heroism,” he said.
Other FDNY members said the job has never been the same since that day.
Joe Fortis was just starting his shift as an EMT the morning of 9/11 when a radio dispatcher began screaming for units to respond to the trade center. He and his partner raced there in their ambulance.
Fortis, 47, recalls watching in horror as the second plane flew over his head and hit the south tower, singing his eyebrows. Then the ground started shaking as the first tower fell.
BETH A. KAISER/POOLShocking loss is etched on faces of firefighters near WTC two days after attack.
Fortis slapped bandages on the heads of fleeing workers, and later collected stray body parts, bagging them up for the morgue.
Since then he has risen to become an FDNY paramedic — and says the horrors of that day have made him better at his job.
“It’s always in the back of your head — where is my way out?” he said. “You’re no good as a dead paramedic.”
He has learned to take patients across the street from burning buildings before treating them.
THOMAS MONASTER/NEW YORK DAILY NEWSCoated in dust, a firefighter is helped from the fallen towers.
“So the patients and us won’t become a tragedy you don’t set up in the lobby of a location,” he said. “Because things can go wrong.”
Since 9/11, Fortis has travelled the world competing in EMS competitions where his team is graded on their response to mock emergencies. “After 9/11 we decided to do this,” he explained.
In September, Fortis’ team beat 116 countries to take first place in a competition in Warsaw, Poland.
“I think we’re the best agency in the world,” he said. “The resources we have now, the different vehicles and equipment, is like something out of the movies.”
TODD MAISEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWSA firefighter covered in dust stands before a burning vehicle on Sept. 11, 2001.
Lt. Eric Berntsen was showered with debris from the second tower falling around him on 9/11.
“I was 27 — I was a kid,” Berntsen, now 41 and with Ladder Company 87, said of his experience that day, when he had three years on the job.
Berntsen heard the explosion from the first plane hitting from his Engine Company 212 firehouse in Williamsburg, Brooklyn — and watched the second plane hit from their roof.
After racing to the scene, he was about to enter the trade center when the first tower fell. He was later blown off his feet and covered with debris from the second tower.
The memory of that day colors every emergency he responds to now.
“It’s definitely more serious — the whole world is different,” he said. “You have to worry every time you get a call. Something suspicious, unclear circumstances — you have to be on your guard.”
But it hasn’t shaken his love for the job.
“It makes us train harder and try to be more vigilant,” Berntsen said. “The training is definitely 10-fold what it used to be.
“Every procedure we have came from some sort of tragedy,” he added. “We have binders and binders of learning materials and it all comes from experience.”
More than anything, 9/11 taught him the quality of his colleagues.
“It’s the people that make the department, not a book or training manual,” Berntsen said. “The type of people who go into public service, who want to work hard and risk everything to help other people.”
bpaddock@nydailynews.com
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