Forces Beyond
Theresa Tobin Former lieutenant in the NYPD’s public information office
MY FAMILY ALWAYS upheld public service. Four of the five of us kids went into law enforcement, and the sister who didn’t married into it. From the earliest age, I knew this job was about helping people. It’s not the cops and robbers you see on TV. The bulk of our calls are from people who need help—people who are in crisis, people who are crime victims. A lot of the job is about being a calming presence, helping people navigate difficult situations. That was what made me come home feeling good at the end of the day.
When 9/11 happened, I was working at the NYPD press office. We’d gotten a call telling us that a plane had flown into the North Tower. As we drove over, there were all these sheets of paper floating above FDR Drive. I was expecting to see a small Cessna hanging off the side of the building. A few minutes after I arrived, the second plane hit the South Tower. There was a deafening roar as the plane flew low overhead. Then there was a huge fireball and glass crashed down, popping out of the building from the heat.
I crossed paths with Joe Dunne, the first deputy commissioner of the NYPD, who told me to get onto an emergency service truck and grab a Kevlar helmet. Debris was falling everywhere and I had to go into the buildings to coordinate the press response overhead.
It was remarkably calm inside the lobby of the North Tower. People were evacuating as police officers directed them: “To your left. To your left.” So, I made my way over to the South Tower and saw a news photographer snapping photos. Leading him out so he wouldn’t slow down the evacuation, I said, “Just walk backwards but keep clicking. I know you have a job to do.”
All this time, I was wearing my civilian clothes and was wearing loafers, but I realized it was going to be a long day. So I went to my car to grab my sneakers. I’d gotten close enough to my car to pop the trunk with the remote when the rumbling started. I wondered, “Where’s that train coming from?” But there was no elevated train in Lower Manhattan. Before I could reach my car, people were running toward me, screaming, “Go! It’s coming down!”
A massive force suddenly lifted me out of my shoes. I was completely helpless, like a leaf blowing in the wind. Firetrucks were moving around in the air like they were children’s toys.
I was thrown over a concrete barrier onto a grassy area outside the World Financial Center. I could feel with my hand that blood was trickling down the back of my neck. There was a chunk of cement wedged into my skull. My Kevlar helmet had taken the brunt of the force and saved my life, but the helmet had split in two.
The day turned pitch-black. People were screaming as we were buried under debris from the tower. A firefighter with a flashing beacon was close by and said, “Pull up your shirt. Just cover your mouth.” There were explosions going off. Big gas tanks were bursting into flames. It felt like we were being bombed—but who was bombing us? There was no context for what was happening. The sound distortion made it hard to figure out where people were.
After I got myself free, I heard people coughing and throwing up. I spat out what I thought was a chunk of cement but it was one of my wisdom teeth. A firefighter saw me and called out, “EMS, she has cement in her head!” The medical workers didn’t want to risk pulling at it, so they bandaged me up with the piece still lodged in my skull.
My car was in flames. So were a firetruck and an ambulance nearby. There were abandoned radios on the ground belonging to police officers and firefighters, but when I picked each one up and tried it, there was no response. Meanwhile, people around me were still screaming for help. You don’t walk away from those situations, you just ask yourself, “Where is that voice coming from and how can I get that person out?” Just about everyone we helped free from the debris or pull out from under a truck was a rescue worker in a blue or black uniform.
Moments later, another group of people were running
I was completely helpless, like a leaf blowing in the wind.
toward me, shouting, “The North Tower is coming down!” I thought if I could make it to the water, I could jump in and the surface would take most of the impact. But something whacked me hard on my back. I fell down and knew I wouldn’t be able to reach the water in time.
I made it into a nearby apartment building. At first it seemed like there was no one inside, but when I opened the door to the stairwell, I saw a line of people. Some of them looked like they’d just come out of the shower. There was a baby crying in its mother’s arms.
I said, “All right, get into the lobby and stay away from glass.” I went to the door and through the falling ash I saw two guys from our Technical Assistance Response Unit. I called out, “These people need to be evacuated!”
A police detective saw me and said, “Listen, you’ve got to get medical attention. You have a plate of glass sticking out between your shoulder blades.” There was so much adrenaline flowing through my body that I hadn’t even been aware of it. When I got down to the pier to evacuate to Ellis Island, I heard someone say, “EMS, we have an injured officer.” I remember thinking, “Where’s the injured officer?”
The emergency workers were wonderful. From Ellis Island, they transported me to a hospital in New Jersey. I wasn’t able to lie down on a stretcher, so they loaded another person in an ambulance next to me. His name was David Handschuh, a photographer with the Daily News. He’d taken a photo of the fireball exploding on the side of the South Tower before he was lifted into the air, like I had been, and buried in debris. He was really concerned about letting his family know he was still alive, so I asked the EMS technician for a pen and wrote down David’s home phone number on the wristband they’d given me. The ambulance ride was bumpy and he winced every time we got jostled. I held his hand and told him to squeeze mine every time he felt pain.
From the emergency room, I went straight into surgery where the cement was removed and my back was stitched up. Because I’d suffered a severe concussion, they weren’t able to give me any anesthesia. My ankle was swollen, but my skin was so full of lacerations that they weren’t able to put a cast on it.
My brother Kevin, an NYPD detective, had somehow tracked me down and he met me in the recovery room. He drove me back to headquarters, where I spent a few more hours working before my condition got worse. Several of us went to a hospital on Long Island for treatment. Then Kevin drove me to my sister’s house, and I stayed there for several weeks until I recovered and could work again.
We lost 23 NYPD officers that day and 37 Port Authority police officers, including three women: Port Authority Captain Kathy Mazza, EMT Yamel Merino and NYPD Officer Moira Smith. We lost 343 firefighters. I often think about my cousin Robert Linnane from Ladder 20 who died—he was rushing up through the North Tower to help people when it collapsed. There just doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason about who made it and who didn’t. You made a left and you lived; you made a right and you died.
I’ve had a lot of different jobs in the years since then. I’ve been promoted up the ranks, and been the commanding officer of three different units. Now, I’m the Chief of Interagency Operations, where my role is to work with other agencies, creating programs that improve our public safety responses and give people better access to services—especially in the areas of mental health, homelessness and substance misuse. One program my office developed is our co-response unit, which teams up NYPD officers with trained clinicians from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene so we can address issues before they reach a crisis point.
I’ve never had another experience like 9/11. It’s extremely unusual for police officers to be at a scene and be unable to help so many people. That feeling is something all first responders remember from that day.
That’s one reason that every year on September 11, I call Joe Dunne, who told me to put on that Kevlar helmet. I want to always be a reminder to him that there are people he did save, people who are still alive today because of him. Including me.