(Editor’s note: This week, 7 News is noting the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks with a series of reports looking back on the events of the day. This is the final part of that series.)
WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – Dave Sherman remembers Ground Zero, where the jets struck and the towers fell, all too well. He remembers the smell.
There’s a smell that I will never forget,” he told a reporter the other day.
“There’s a smell of destruction, collapsed buildings, of – I don’t know – material smells that I’ve never smelled before.”
This is what 9/11 and what came after was like close-up. Big things, yes, the holes in the ground where the World Trade Center towers stood. But details too, what you saw, heard, smelled if you were there.
Dave Sherman and Deb Rieger were both there as part of an ambulance squad sent by Guilfoyle Ambulance in Watertown. They were part of a caravan of ambulances lined up near Ground Zero, there to help first responders as they worked over the giant pile of rubble that had been the twin towers.
Dave remembers “this massive pile, and these men and women diligently foraging through this, hoping beyond hope they’re gonna find somebody.
“And you’re just thinking, hopefully, you’re praying that somebody will come out of this. You’re praying for it.”
Deb remembers a long, long line of photos and messages from families, families of police officers, firefighters, other first responders, civilians, all lost on 9/11. They called it the “Wall of The Lost.”
“Their families were literally begging for their return. ‘If this person’s found, please notify us.’ They didn’t care how they were found, they wanted them to be found – and this wall went on for a long distance, and it was covered in plastic.
“And I remember looking at it and reading some of those pictures myself and I just broke down crying,” she said.
Another detail, jarring to emergency workers used to the police running security.
“That was the first time I ever worked on a scene where it was being secured by the U.S. military. The amount of military that was around, the military aircraft that was flying overhead, constantly,” Dave said.
“I know a lot of people were thinking, is it gonna happen again?”
Deb has a large collection of photos from the trip. She regularly takes part in “stair climbs” to honor the first responders who climbed the stairs of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11, trying to rescue people.
And she wonders if that day could have been different.
“What would have been if there had been stricter security at the airports, stricter people getting on airplanes. nobody really knows.”
Dave worries that 20 years on, people are forgetting what 9/11 means.
“We’re all used to war, we’re familiar with war. Militaries going after militaries,” he said.
“It’s a whole new era. Somebody with certain beliefs going after other people because of their beliefs, and it didn’t matter if it was men, women or children. Didn’t matter if none of them were military. Didn’t matter to them.
“And it bothers me that as Americans, people are forgetting that.”
“20 years ago – in history, really just minutes.”
“There’s an old saying out there; those who don’t remember history are bound to repeat it.”
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