I am embarrassed to say as a 9/11 first responder that I’ve never returned to ground zero. I doubt I ever will be able to bring myself back there. I was an AEMT in NY. I slept through the 1st phone call to come help at a “plane crash”. The first tower fell on Zack Zeng my trainee
The minutes I lost missing that call saved my life. When I arrived we worked through the day and night, side by side with strangers who we just somehow blindly trusted each other with our lives. We didn’t care where someone was from, their race, gender, or economic status,
who they loved, or their political affiliation. We ran to help because, that’s what Americans do, what NYers do, & more universally true, what good human beings do. There were times there that i thought I wouldn’t make it home. That I was a goner.
But then I’d feel the turnout coat and boot of another responder, then their arm & torso, and id feel someone grabbing my hips, lifting me up out of a hole. In a burning pit of hell during one of the worst chapters in our history, I wound up seeing the best in humanity.
That day showed me who we all really are, more good people than evil. More of us who want to help than those who want to hurt. Leaving those memories from ground zero behind wasn’t easy. PTS after posed as big a threat to me & many others as being in the pile.
sometimes flashbacks can slip my dreams into nightmares, and I have a weird rash. but I got off easy compared to the thousands of first responders who are suffering with cancers, falling between coverage gaps, and fighting to stay alive.
It’s not a story that you’ll hear about in the news often enough. We lose heroes to 9/11 illnesses nearly weekly & we can’t let them die in silence without a voice & the care & benefits they deserve. Which is why rather than think about politics today or assign false praise,
today @realDonaldTrump @RudyGiuliani we need to focus on the heroes who are going to die unless we help them. @brianstelter the media needs to cover these illnesses & Please all of us, donate to 911healthwatch.org
