Matt Komorowski: “The first thing I really felt was the incredible rush of air at my back. And maybe I felt it before everybody else, because I was the last guy.”
Stone Phillips: “Like a gust of wind, behind you.”
Matt Komorowski: “Gust of wind. Wind tunnel. It was the most incredible push at your back, that you can feel.”
Stone Phillips: “A rumbling sound, this gust of wind? And then what happened?”
Sal D’Agostino: “When I hit the fourth floor landing, I remember the plaque on the door. And that’s when the building started shaking. And you heard the rumble. And I said, ‘Oh, here we go. This is it for me.’”
Sal D’Agostino lurched toward a doorway, thinking its metal frame might protect him from what was to come.
Sal D’Agostino: “I didn’t even make it to the doorknob. The door got blown open at me. Just missed my face. Hits my shoulder. And that’s when the gust of wind blew me backwards. I got on my side and I crawled to the doorway, and then I just laid there. And waiting for it to come. This is it. This is horrible, and this is it. And I said a prayer.”
Stone Phillips: “You were ready to die at that point. Expecting to die.
Sal D’Agostino: “Yes. I kept waiting to get hit. Kept waiting to get hit with something really big.”
Stone Phillips: “Tommy, what do you remember?”
Tommy Falco: “I remember I was on the stairs with Josephine. And I imagine we got knocked down the stairs. I just remember laying down, and ‘OK, this is it.’ You know. ‘What’s it going to feel like?’
‘It was the furthest thing from my mind, that building coming down. I didn’t think that building could come down.’
— TOMMY FALCO
Firefighter And I said, ‘This is how it ends for me.’ I just kind of like covered my head. And, you know. Just, you know, it was just shaking and everything coming down, and the noise. It was, it was terrible.”
Richie Picciotto: “We’re like rag dolls. Getting tumbled. And I had that feeling of falling, too.”
After clearing those civilians around the 12th floor, Chief Picciotto had joined up with Ladder 6.
Richie Picciotto: “You know, when this happened, I got hit, I fell. My wife and my children flashed in front of me. And then, I prayed. I said, ‘Please God, make it quick.’ Because I just knew, you know, that we weren’t gonna survive. And I wanted to, I wanted to die quick.”
John Jonas: “I felt the floor actually moving you know, it felt like I was in a funhouse almost. The way things started heaving a little bit.”
Mike Meldrum: “I remember covering up, and saying, ‘This is it.’ And, you know, my kids, my wife. You know, my family. And it rumbled and rumbled. And it was pitch black. And then the next thing I know, I remember the dust starting to clear some. And I’m wondering if I’m, you know, where am I? Am I here? Am I not here? You know, I was guessing. I didn’t know at that point.”
Stone Phillips: “Were you all wondering, ‘Am I alive, am I dead? Where am I, what happened?”
Sal D’Agostino: “Stunned. The dust and smoke was so thick, I remember gagging, and pulling something out of my mouth. And gagging really bad. And couldn’t get a gasp of air.”
John Jonas: “We all had at least six inches of dust on us that we had to use our fingernails to get out of our eyes and our mouths.”
Stone Phillips: “Had it occurred to any of you that this building could come down like that?”
John Jonas: “No.”
Tommy Falco: “It was the furthest thing from my mind, that building coming down. I didn’t think that building could come down.”
