20 years ago today, a terrorist attack planned by the Al-Qaeda organization claimed nearly 3,000 lives in the United States, becoming the eternal pain of the bereaved and survivors. The captain of the First Brigade of the New York Fire Department, Joseph Pfeifer, witnessed the despair of the North Tower of the World Trade Center and heard the cries of the wounded everywhere. He was the first firefighter to enter the building after the incident and one of the last to leave, but his brother, who was also a firefighter, was not so lucky.
“The Sun” reported that Pfeiffer rushed to the scene after seeing a plane crashing into the North Tower, set up a command center in the lobby to guide tourists and employees to evacuate, and then accidentally amidst chaos Found younger brother Kevin. Kevin is also a firefighter, but he was supposed to take an exam that day, but he still went to the scene to rescue him. They looked at each other and exchanged questions about "Are we going to be okay?" but they didn't talk much.
As the person in charge of the disaster relief scene, Pfeiffer ordered Kevin to lead the team to the 15th floor. Unexpectedly, this will be the last side between him and Kevin. As many as 343 firefighters failed to get out of the World Trade Center alive, and the 42-year-old Kevin was one of them.
The World Trade Center was designed to withstand the impact of a plane crash, but it was designed to withstand the impact of an elevator shaft, but it was ignited by many hijacked aircraft fuels. The South Tower was attacked later, but it collapsed first because the lower floor was hit, making the building unstable.
Pfeiffer heard the ominous rumble of the South Tower,Immediately start running at the fastest speed. When he saw the steel and glass that were about to fall from above a photographer, he quickly jumped forward to protect him, and in the next second he was enveloped in darkness. It was a sunny day, but everything turned black and nothing was visible. All the noise stopped, and there was silence all around, as quiet as it was snowing, making you wonder if you were still alive.
The north tower fell into darkness after the collapse of the south tower, the windows were all smashed, and the fallen building debris killed people around him. Then the cries of the fleeing people broke the silence. Many people were burned or seriously injured, and many people on the high floors could not stand the fire and smoke. They chose to jump off and Pfeiffer could hear them falling to the ground. Crash. He hurriedly ordered all the firefighters in the North Tower to evacuate, and then found a priest lying at his feet, dead.
After 29 minutes, the North Tower also fell. After Pfeiffer got away fortunately, at first he still had a glimmer of hope that Kevin would survive, but the next day it was clear that the hope had been lost. After 26 hours, I knew we would not find more people.
Kevin’s brave deeds were not widely known until afterwards. According to witnesses, he stayed on the 9th floor on the way downstairs and directed other firefighters to evacuate from another safer staircase, which not only saved the life of the same robe , Also saved many other people, which made Pfeiffer very proud.
before retirement 3 years ago,Pfeiffer is the head of the anti-terrorism and emergency preparedness department of the New York fire department. He once assisted the 2012 London Olympics organizers to develop an attack contingency plan, and believed that he had a mission to make changes. After 20 years, the 65-year-old Pfeiffer hopes that people can remember the heroic actions of the ordinary heroes who rushed into the World Trade Center to save people and helped each other in the building.
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