FIRST RESPONDERS NEVER FORGET
At ground zero, they saw pain and grief, but also ‘the best of humanity’
Ted Jankowski was relaxing and enjoying a clear, beautiful September morning at his home in Queens, N.Y., when he got the call. On the phone was a friend calling to tell Jankowski, a New York City fire captain at the time, that something terrible had happened at the World Trade Center.
“I turned on the news and saw a gaping hole in the north tower,” said Jankowski, Stamford’s Director of Public Safety, Health and Welfare since 2012.
The then-15-year fire veteran jumped immediately into action. He
called his friend Daniel Thomas Suhr, the most senior firefighter working that day at his post at Engine Co. 216 in Williamsburg, and explained what was going on, what the company needed to do.
“I let him know that this looks like a possible act of terrorism, to keep members close and to be aware of potential secondary devices,” Jankowski said.
Jankowski recalls Suhr promising him that he would do everything in his power to keep his crew safe before hanging up.
That phone call marked the last time Jankowski ever spoke to Suhr.
As Suhr and his crew of 14 other firefighters approached the World Trade Center later that morning, a person lept from one of the burning towers and landed on him, killing him in the collision.
Suhr is believed to be the first firefighter to have died on 9/11, and one of the more than 400 first responders who suffered the same fate.
But Jankowski said his death wasn’t in vain.
After Suhr was struck and killed, the remaining members of his crew carried his body away from the scene and to safety. While they were transporting his body, the two towers collapsed.
“Because of his supreme sacrifice, there were 14 firefighters that survived because of what he did. He was a man of his word,” Jankowski said of Suhr.
By the time Jankowski joined his crew at ground zero, both towers had already collapsed and rescue efforts were underway.
The images of that day, Jankowski said, are still seared into his memory.
“Ground zero was like a scene out of hell so horrific with catastrophic devastation and death everywhere — fires burning, dust and rubble everywhere, the distinct smell of destruction and the remnants of lives lost,” he said.
About 45 miles north, around the same time Jankowski was making his way to Ground Zero, Stamford Police Sgt. Sean McGowan was working an extraduty job in North Stamford when he got a call from his father saying a plane had hit the World Trade Center.
“I remember thinking well that’s bad, but at the time I thought it was a small plane that had hit it. I didn’t realized what had really happened. So we just kept working,” McGowan said.
A little later that morning, a truck driver stopped by the construction site and gave McGowan a clearer picture of what happened. Both towers had been struck by commercial airliners, the driver told McGowan, and New York had descended into chaos.
McGowan, who had served four years as an New York Police Department officer before coming to Stamford, said he couldn’t just sit at a roadside job when he knew that so many of the people he had worked with and known were dealing with something of that magnitude.
“I turned to the construction workers and say ‘Hey, something big is going down in our country and I’m going to get out of here and head down to the city,’ ” McGowan said.
So he left the job, met up with his then-partner Kris Engstrand, who now serves as police union president, and the two made their way into New York City.
The drive took longer than usual, he said, as many roads were congested with people walking in the northbound lanes away from the city because subways and trains were shut down. Other routes were completely closed off to the public, but McGowan said that problem was solved with a quick flash of their police badges.
Along the way, McGowan remembers coming across a construction worker who flagged them down from the side of the road. The man, he said, was a steel worker who wanted to help with the cleanup efforts, so McGowan said they let him climb into the backseat and they drove on.
McGowan doesn’t know what time they got to ground zero. When they arrived, it was getting dark, but rescue efforts were still underway.
The three joined what was called the bucket brigade, a team that passed 5-gallon buckets full of debris down a line to investigators, who sifted through the debris in search of evidence and human remains.
Every so often, the cleanup and rescue efforts were interrupted by the sound of alarms indicating the possibility of another building collapse in the area.
“It was surreal,” McGowan said.
For three days, McGowan and Engstrand stayed to clear away the debris and aid in rescue efforts. And with each day, more and more Stamford police officers took time off from their day jobs to come and help.
One of the many officers who joined McGowan was now-Police Chief Tim Shaw, who was a narcotics sergeant at the time.
Unlike Jankowski and McGowan, Shaw had no ties to the city, nothing drawing him to the scene of mass devastation except an urge to help in a time of extraordinary need.
“One of our officers, Officer Felix Martinez, got a call from someone who was down there saying that they need help, that there aren’t enough people down there, so we took it upon ourselves to take some time off and get down there to help,” Shaw said. “We played a small role, many people played bigger roles, but we went down there because we felt helpless and wanted to do anything we could to help.”
Shaw said he can’t remember what day he, Martinez and other officers left to help at ground zero. He said he can only remember small details, like picking up cases of water to bring to the workers and getting the equipment to aid in the cleanup upon their arrival.
Another thing that sticks out in Shaw’s memories is the “eerie quiet” that blanketed the rescue site, despite hundreds of volunteers working to clear away the debris.
In the days leading up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Shaw said he spoke to McGowan and a few of the other Stamford officers about their experiences at ground zero. He said it was the first time they had all sat down and discussed what had happened that day.
One thing he was surprised to learn in their discussions was that each of them who had been there that day kept a piece of the gear —the helmet, gloves or knee pads they received upon arriving on the scene — and had stored it somewhere safe.
“I told them my stuff from that day was in a box in the attic, and what was interesting was that every person who had been there with us said something similar. ‘Oh, my stuff is in box’ and ‘All my stuff is stored somewhere else.’ Nobody let go of it, but nobody ever used it again,” Shaw said.
Shaw said he thinks each of them realized they were a part of something, something that, 20 or 30 years down the line, they’d want to one day reflect on.
“It’s interesting because we never talked about it. It was something that we hadn’t touched since we boxed up those boxes,” Shaw said.
Jankowski doesn't often talk about his experience that day either, but he said even 20 years on the men and women, some of whom were friends and coworkers, who lost their lives that day, and those who have since died or are still suffering from related illnesses are a constant presence on his mind.
In the wake of 9/11, Jankowski and his wife decided to have another child and named him after Suhr. His youngest son is not only a living reminder of the sacrifices made that day, but also that even in the darkest times, there’s a light to be found.
After two decades, Jankowski said it’s the little pinpricks of light that shone through what was the darkest times in his life that stick with him the most.
He remembers the crews of workers from surrounding towns, cities and states — people like Shaw, McGowan, Engstrand and Martinez — coming in droves to the help the cleanup efforts. He still thinks about the candlelight vigils and other acts of kindness he’d see in various neighborhoods on his way home from the cleanup efforts each night.
One moment that Jankowski vividly remembers came after a half-day of grueling work, when he put down his gear to take a breather. The countless hours of digging through debris, looking for possible survivors or remnants of those who had died, were starting to get to him, Jankowski said. As he looked up, however, he recalls seeing a woman pushing a grocery cart filled with sandwiches she had made and water she had bought to hand out to the weary workers.
“This horrific event also brought out the best of humanity,” Jankowski said. “For me, I use this tragedy as a compass in everything I do. It is a reminder of the human condition, the vulnerabilities and fragility of life. The sacrifices made that day will always be remembered.”