|
STORIES OF HEROISM, FAITH ON 9/11
 |
Chief Picciotto relates the harrowing story of 9/11 during Sunday's inspirational service. |
February 4, 2007—On the morning of September 11, 2001, Stephen Wade was lying in bed, suffering from a bout of the flu, when his children called and told him to turn on the TV. Along with most of the nation, NADA’s Utah director watched in horror the terrorists’ brutal and devastating attack on New York City’s World Trade Center towers.
“[The firemen and police] stepped into the disaster to save lives,” noted Wade. Expressing immense sadness he felt for the victims of that attack and the remarkable joy he felt for the heroes and survivors, Wade introduced Battalion Chief Richard Picciotto, one of 20 trapped and saved from the rubble of the collapsed North Tower.
Chief Picciotto noted to those gathered for the morning service, that no matter who and where we were on 9/11, we all shared the experience, and we became one in that moment in time and the days and weeks after.
The 28-year veteran of the FDNY who had a major rescue role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center once again found himself in a life-or-death situation created by terrorists. “From the first moment at 8:45 a.m., my initial feeling was that it was an attack,” he said. “And by 10:30 a.m. I was trapped in the North Tower.”
Picciotto and his group of firefighters had made it up 35 floors using a small stairwell that was filled with civilians working their way down. People were carrying people who couldn’t walk, who they wouldn’t leave behind. And then it happened, the neighboring South Tower collapsed. The force was so great and the noise so deafening that he thought the tower had been bombed.
At that point he turned everyone around and headed down—sure that there was probably a bomb set to go off in the North Tower as well. Picciotto related that on the 27th floor he had to tear a guy away from his desk who didn’t want to leave because he was working on something important. But by the time they reached the 19th floor, everything and every one stopped. The debris from the South Tower had blocked the way forcing them to find another, open stairwell.
Picciotto said that on the 12th floor there were 30 or 40 people—half of them handicapped or elderly, plus the people who were helping them down—who would not leave. The firefighters took those in need down the stairs in their wheelchairs or over the firefighters' shoulders.
By the seventh floor and in a matter of only eight seconds, the North Tower collapsed and “…my life flashed before my eyes.”
“I thought of my wife, my kids and said a prayer—please Lord, make it quick!” He told how then it went silent, black, and very still, with himself and only 12 others encased in fine powdery dust. “We had fallen from the seventh floor to the third and inexplicably found ourselves in a void.” And miraculously, under 110 stories of debris and as the dust cleared he saw light through a crevice, and he and the others climbed and crawled out of the ashes and into light and safety.
“Politicians like to focus on our differences, but on that day we were one.” Picciotto called for all to focus on the common good; to have faith in people, faith in God, and to understand the priorities in life. “You knew what was important on 9/11 and the days that followed—family and friends.”
“And thank God for not answering my prayers to make it quick.”
Audio/Video provided by
AutoNetwork.com
(click the play button)
|
