60 Minutes - 09/10/23: 9.11 THE FDNY

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

While the nation remembers the terrorist attacks that killed thousands of Americans more than 20 years ago, New York City firefighters who survived after being sent to rescue victims at the World Trade Center will relive a life-changing experience that’s now a part of who they are. “It’s a day that will never leave you,” former Fire Department of New York Commissioner Dan Nigro tells Scott Pelley. Nigro and other firefighters who were at Ground Zero, many of whom fill the top ranks of the FDNY, recall the men, their sacrifices and the tragedy of losing 343 of their colleagues. This segment runs the full hour. Maria Gavrilovic is the producer. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

22 years ago, they answered the call. Send every available ambulance, everything you've got to World Trade Center now. We knew that there could be up to 20,000, 25,000 people in each building. Every firefighter saw the flames and they looked into their own hearts. That's when I said to Pete, Pete, this will be the worst day of our lives. And, you know, that was before I knew the half of it. Main day, main day. We need to collapse. We need to collapse.

And in the darkness, Everybody all right? I wondered if I was dead or alive. Hey, Pete! Chief Hayden! Tonight, The World Trade Center's collapsed. alive. Tonight, the fire department of the city of New York and the greatest act of gallantry ever bestowed on an American city. I don't want this to be something that's in a history book that a page is turned and we're forgotten. I'm Leslie Stahl.

I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Scott Pelley. That story tonight on 60 Minutes. Wendy's most important deal of the day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two breakfast items for $4. New four-piece French toast sticks, bacon or sausage wrap,

biscuit or English muffin sandwiches, small hot coffee, and more. Limited time only at participating Wendy's Taxes Extra. Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale expertise and innovative payment solutions. Learn more at Visa.ca slash fintech. In the neighborhoods of New York, there are 217 firehouses. Each holds a memorial to firefighters who answered the call 22 years ago and never

returned. As we first told you in 2021, 343 members of the fire department of the city of New York perished on 9-11 in the greatest act of gallantry ever bestowed on an American city. This is their story. This plane raced past us along the Hudson River at such a low altitude, I could read American on the fuselage. At 8.46 that morning, Battalion Chief Joe Pfeiffer was blocks away, searching for a routine gas leak. I saw the plane aim and crash into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Holy s***! F***! From that moment, the firefighters of the FDNY would have about an hour and a half to save 17,000 lives.

They knew that they might not come home, but they knew there were people trapped. That's our job. There's no way we were going to stand back and say we're not going in. That wouldn't be the end of it. Our aim was to get above that fire and get those poor people out that were calling us. We're on the floor and we can't breathe. And it's very, very, very hot. And all the dispatcher could say is, we're coming for you. So we like to keep our promises.

You know, we told them we're coming. We're coming. Joe Pfeiffer was coming with a camera. Filmmakers Jules and Gideon Noday were making a documentary about the FDNY. Oh, my God. We have a number of floors on fire. It looked like the plane was aiming towards the building. Engine 6 to 9, Ken.

Engine 6. The World Trade Center tower number 1 is on fire. Engine 1 out. World Trade Center 1060. Send every available ambulance, everything you've got to World Trade Center now. Dispatch launched an armada. Engine 2-1-1, ladder 11, engine 4-4, engine 22, engine 53. 121 engines, 62 ladder companies, 100 ambulances, 750 members of the FDNY. Attention 68 engines, 35 engines, 50 engines, 64 engines, 94 engines, 83 engines. At FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn, 54-year-old Chief of Department Peter Dancy Jr. raced to his car. He was the boss, leading the second largest fire department in the world after Tokyo.

Dan Nigro was his number two. So we went downstairs quickly, got in the car and headed over the Brooklyn Bridge where we could see the damage, see the smoke, see the fire. That's when I said to Pete, Pete, this will be the worst day of our lives. And, you know, that was before I knew the half of it. Pete Gansey's voice was recorded en route. A box is a location. Kay signals the end of a message, a throwback to the 19th century telegraph, which on this day was punctuating the greatest crisis in the department's 136 years.

That's why I want to go. Right away I got a deep sense that we were going to lose a lot of firefighters this day. Division I Commander Peter Hayden met Battalion Chief Joe Pfeiffer in the lobby of the burning tower. Well, I knew that we weren't going to be able to put out the fire. So the order of the day was to search and evacuate as many people as we could, and then we were going to back away. The fire was 93 floors above. Elevators were out.

So firefighters climbed tight stairwells, shouldering 75 pounds and more. And I thought we would have enough time to get the people out, and everybody that was above the impact of the plane, we were pretty much sure were either dead already or going to die. There was a lot of people jumping out already. 1,355 people were trapped above the fire. The Boeing 767 had severed all three stairwells, leaving one way out.

Jumping, guys, jumpers. All right, Division 1, be advised, Battalion 2, advise you have jumpers from the World Trade Center. We heard a loud thud, and I knew that was somebody that either fell or jumped from the building. The first firefighter killed was hit by a fellow human being. It was happening so rapidly that I grabbed the PA system

at the fire command post, and I said, the firefighters are coming. If you can, hold on. It's something that's going to haunt us probably for the rest of our lives. Tour commander Sal Cassano had arrived precisely 17 minutes after the North Tower was hit. Just as I got out of my car, I heard another explosion. And I can tell you exactly what time it was. It was 9.03, because that was the plane that hit the South Tower. You have a second plane into the other tower,

the tower of the train side of Bolger Fire. Ready to engage. Engine, the other plane hits the second tower, okay? The second 767 exploded into floors 77 through 85.

Now, 2,000 people were trapped a quarter mile high. Cassano ran into the department chaplain, Michael Judge. And I just told him, Father, we're going to be for a bad day. You're going to need a lot more chaplains here. You know, the more and more firefighters, they kept coming in, and they took their assignments with no question. Yeah. Pretty tough to do.

But it's also hard to give them those assignments. It was. It was. But, you know, I could tell when I gave the assignments out, you know, I could see the look in their eyes. I remember seeing firefighters hugging each other and heading up. How many firefighters did you see that day refuse to go up the stairs? Nobody refused to go in. Stay together. Let me know what's going on.

I can remember one lieutenant from Engine 33 coming up to me and not saying a word. And we stood there wondering if we were both going to be okay. And that lieutenant was my brother Kevin. And then I told him what I told many of the other fire officers, I said, go up to the 70th floor. Seventy, they hoped, could be a staging area in the North Tower. In less than half an hour, the FDNY had rescue operations in the North Tower, the South Tower, and the nearly sold-out 800-room hotel between them. From the time the first plane hit the North Tower until the second the tower collapsed was 102 minutes. The things that were going through

Pete's mind in just 102 minutes is just mind-boggling. Sal Cassano was with Chief of Department Pete Ganci at his command post on the street below the towers. This is the only known picture of Ganci that day. Was Ganci the kind of boss that you did things for because you feared him or because you desperately did not want to let him down? You did it because you loved him. Ganci joined the FDNY in 1968. What kind of man was Peter Gansi? You know, Pete, I guess people would say he's my alter ego.

He had a chest full of medals, and he was just a down-to-earth, honest, hard-working guy. You know, he was a paratrooper in the Army, worked his way up to be chief of department in the FDNY. Quite a story. A story of courage over his 33-year career. He won the department's Medal of Valor, crawling into a burning apartment on his hands and knees, grabbing a child who was certainly going to die, and dragging that child out and saving her life. That's the kind of person Pete was. He would put people before himself without

a doubt. He put his firefighters before himself three months before 9-11. Gansey, the chief of department, responded from home to a call of firefighters trapped in a burning store. He went in wearing shorts and boat shoes. He once said his 11,000 firefighters were his children. On that day in Queens, he lost three. On 9-11, the man responsible for firefighter safety was Chief Al Toury, who was tormented by the passing minutes. He asked Pete Hayden if he had considered the threat of a partial localized collapse on the burning floors. I said yes, but we needed to get the people out. There were hundreds upon hundreds of people coming down the interior stairs.

How much time did you think you had? I thought we had a couple of hours. The chiefs knew no steel high-rise in history had ever completely collapsed due to fire. None of us expected the building to come down. We expected the fire to keep burning and conditions to get worse. But if we could just get one route above in each building, Perhaps we can bring some folks down at least. You just needed a little more time. We just needed time. Oreo.

All right. No one would do more with time than Oreo Palmer. That's him on the right with the mustache. He's receiving orders to go to the South Tower to try to clear a path to the trapped souls calling 911. How many people where you're at right now? There's like five people here with me. All up on the 83rd floor? 83rd floor. 32-year-old Melissa Doy was saying the Hail Mary prayer when 911 answered. The once aspiring ballerina was a manager in a financial firm on 83, one of the burning floors in the South Tower.

Are they going to be able to get somebody up here? Of course, ma'am. We're coming up for you. Well, there's no one here yet, and the floor is completely engulfed. We're on the floor, and we can't breathe. And it's very, very, very hot. The operator was right. Someone was rising toward Melissa Doy. Oreo Palmer ran marathons as a hobby. Battalion 7, Ladder 1-5.

Battalion 7 is Chief Palmer. Ladder 1-5 is a team of firefighters a few floors below. What do you got up there, Steve? I'm still in voice, fairway, 74th floor, no smoke or fire problem. The walls are breached, so be careful. This is Ladder 15's Lieutenant Joe Levy. We're on 71, we're coming up behind you. Fire Marshal on 75. Palmer found Fire Marshal Ron Bucca on the 75th floor evacuating civilians. Battalion 7, right at 15. 15. I'm going to include your firefighters.

Adam, stay away to knock down two fires. You guys have a house line stretch. We can hit some water on it and knock it down, okay? Palmer had discovered the only intact stairway to the top of the South Tower. Unlike the North Tower, the second plane had missed stairway A. Yeah, go on 77 now on the B-stab. Be right through you. If Palmer could clear this stairwell, 619 souls would have a way out. He was five floors below Melissa Doy and rising. I'm going to die.

No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to die. I'm going to have to say your prayers. I'm going to die. You've got to be positive because you've got to help each other get off the floor. We're about to stay. We're going up to 79. Okay. All right, I'm on my way up, L'Oreal. I're about to stay. It's going up to 79. Okay.

All right, I'm on my way up, Oreo. I'm going to die. Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, stay calm. You're doing a good job, ma'am. You're doing a good job. It's so hot. I'm burning up. The ascent of Oreo Palmer

and Peter Gansey's sacrifice when we come back. without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Sometimes historic events suck.

But what shouldn't suck is learning about history. I do that through storytelling. History That Doesn't Suck is a chart-topping history-telling podcast chronicling the epic story of America, decade by decade. Right now, I'm digging into the history of incredible infrastructure projects of the 1930s, including the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more. The promise is in the title, History That Doesn't Suck, available on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. An hour had passed since the attack on the World Trade Center began. In the South Tower,

Battalion 7 Chief Oreo Palmer took the only working elevator as high as it would go. Then he led the men of Ladder 15 on a climb from the 40th floor. Palmer was trying to clear a path to 619 people trapped by fire. This is Palmer's radio transmission from the 78th floor of the South Tower. He's calling the firefighters of Ladder 15, who are coming up with rescue gear from a few floors below. 1045 Code Ones were fatalities, more than he could count. Palmer pressed towards 79, climbing at about one floor a minute. As he rose, Melissa Doy, speaking to 911 from the 83rd floor, thought she heard someone. Wait, wait, wait, what is it?

Hello? Help! Hello, ma'am? Help! Oh, my God. They coming through here now? Find out if there's anybody here on the 83rd floor. Ma'am, I don't know. You stay on the phone with me and we'll... Can you find out if there's anyone on the 83rd floor because...

Ma'am, I already heard somebody. We don't know what she heard. But hearing no answer to her shout, Melissa Doy returned the call. Aureo Palmer knew how dangerous this was. And he didn't stop. A lot of 15 knew how dangerous it was, but we never thought that an entire high-rise building would collapse. There was no history of it anywhere in the world. But this day, history was changing because the planes had blasted away the spray-on fireproof foam insulating the structural steel.

The burning floors were sagging, slowly pulling the exterior inward. EMS Division Chief John Perugia was in the City Emergency Operations Center where he received a warning from an official he believes was an engineer. He said the buildings are severely compromised. where he received a warning from an official he believes was an engineer. He said, the buildings are severely compromised. You can see slight lean. They're in danger of collapse. So I grabbed one of my staff guys, EMT Rich Zarrillo, and I said, Rich, go to Pecansi, don't talk to anyone else, and deliver this message.

The buildings are in danger of collapse. In this four-second video, at far left, you see Rich Zarrillo's blue shirt. He's delivering the warning to Pete Ganci. Zarrillo hardly got the words out when Ganci's attention was drawn to a roar from the south tower above him. Loud noise. I had no idea what it was. All we saw was this plume of dust and smoke and debris. In the moment before, Melissa Doy had given the 911 operator her mother's phone number and the message that her daughter loved her. Then there was silence. Oh, my God.

Melissa, please. You're going to be all right. You're going to be fine. You're going to talk to your mother yourself. But you've got to think positive. You've got to stay calm. Okay, you're going to talking to your mother yourself all right melissa palmer's last radio transmission was battalion 7 to ladder 15 and there's nothing after that. That's when the tower collapses.

He must have known that with every step he ascended, his chance of survival dropped. Didn't deter him one bit. The only thing that was in his mind was, let me get up there. Let me get as many people out as I can, as quickly as I can. Joe Pfeiffer, next door in the North Tower, was 200 feet from the cas goes pitch black. Everybody all right? Yeah, I'm okay.

And in the darkness, I wondered if I was dead or alive. We've got to get everybody out. Let's go. And I got on my radio. And I said, command to all units in Tower One. Evacuate the building. Joe Pfeiffer was given the order to evacuate. And one of the firefighters was calling my name. Chief!

Chief Hayden! He says, we have somebody down. I felt somebody at my feet. And I saw, this was our fire department chaplain, Father Michael Judge. I removed his white collar. I checked for his pulse and breathing. And he had none.

And I knew he was gone. Several of us picked him up, and we carried him out. The EMTs that had taken him actually took him, not to the morgue, but they took him to St. Peter Claver, which is a Catholic church a little bit north of the Trade Center, and they laid him on the altar, and they called up the Franciscan priests to come down and get him. Tower 2 has had a major explosion and what appears to be a complete collapse. Have them mobilize the army. We need the army in Manhattan. There was a rush of dust with high pressure coming in, you know, with force that I've never experienced before. Gansey's street-side command post had been set up next to an underground garage in case shelter was needed. Captain John Sudnick, Gansey, and the chiefs dove into the entrance.

I just remember the dust that day feeling like it was searing your lungs, like it was, like it felt like you were swallowing glass. Pitch black, pitch black, but we heard voices. Are you okay? Are you okay? And then that's when we made our way back up. And then when we got up to where the command post was, Pete's mind went into rescue mode. Pete Gansey heard on the radio the cries of trapped and wounded firefighters.

And then I remember him giving orders. I need truck companies. I need a rescue company. Tell them to come with me. As he had before, Gansey went into the debris to save his men himself. In the still-standing North Tower, many firefighters refused the order to evacuate while they were still carrying the wounded and disabled. Gansey sent Sal Cassano to set up a new command post. Twenty-eight minutes later, Cassano was on his way back. And then I look up and all I could see was the antenna from the north tower imploding.

The other tower just collapsed. We need to collapse. We need to collapse. I, in my mind, had to be resolved with death. Regina Wilson was on the street below the tower. She was with Engine 219 in her second year as a firefighter. And I prayed, and then I just asked God to just protect me, and if he couldn't, I knew that I would die doing what I love. Inside the collapsing North Tower, the men of Engine 39 were caught in a stairwell. And it started out slow. Boom, boom, boom.

Then it got quicker, where it pretty soon was just like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, coming down. Jeff Coniglio and Jamie Epthamiades were on the stairs near the ground floor with 110 floors above them. It took 10 seconds for it to come down, but it felt like 10 minutes. I saw, I was in the background of a funeral. I saw my casket. I saw my parents, my wife sitting in the front. And as I'm watching this, I'm like, all right, it's going to be quick. I'm just waiting for something to tap my shoulder and figure I'll feel a tap and that'll be it. We'll be gone. You know, we're not going to suffer. James McGlynn and Bob Bacon were in the same stairwell.

You know, the wind actually came up the stairwell, you know, blew me into the air and the landing that I was on just disintegrated underneath me. And I kind of bounced, you know, back and forth and ended up hanging from like a pipe. I think I said a couple of prayers and said, God, please get us out of here. Their fragment of an intact stairwell lay upon a mountain of misery. Sixteen acres of wreckage, 91 crushed FDNY vehicles,

and quiet, like the first heavy snow of winter. Every once in a while you'd hear the radio, the dispatcher on the radio, trying to contact somebody. I'm an ananastate. Any division or any staff chief at the scene of the World Trade Center, okay? Silence spoke of unimaginable loss. Any division chief or any staff chief at the scene of any of the World Trade Center takes... That day, 23 battalion chiefs responded. Only four of us survived.

Joe Pfeiffer thought of the lieutenant of Engine 33, his brother, Kevin, who Pfeiffer sent up the North Tower. I got on my radio, and I said, Battalion 1 to Engine 33. And I repeated it several times, and I didn't get an answer. Kevin Pfeiffer was gone, and so was the crew of Ladder 105, which rolled from Regina Wilson's firehouse. We found the truck. We didn't find the members. What happened to them? They all died. Among them was John Chapura, her mentor and her savior. Regina Wilson was assigned to the doomed Ladder 105, but early that morning before the attack,

John Chapura asked to switch jobs, which put her among the survivors of Inchin 219. I tried to honor him by talking his name, and that's how it is in the African-American culture. When you speak the name of an ancestor or you speak the name of a loved one, then they live. And so every time I say John's name, he lives, and that gives me comfort. It was very hot. Oh, yeah. The men of Engine 39 were trapped in the wreckage near the North Tower lobby.

They could hear, only a few feet away, Battalion Chief Richard Prunty, who was pinned and calling for help. We couldn't get to him, and he was passing out at times. Yeah, he was coming in and out. Did you hear his radio transmissions? The last thing that he said was, of course, about his wife and saying that. Tell my wife and children I love them. Yeah, that they were the most of my wife, that she was the most important thing in the world to me.

Those words were among Richard Pronte's last. The men of Engine 39 were rescued, but 343 members of the FDNY were gone. In a tradition where the job is handed down in families, many lost fathers, sons, and brothers. Guys I had worked with both retired and active, saying to me, Petey, have you seen my son? And a young firefighter coming up, Chief, have you seen my father? I knew him. And I just said no. I didn't have the courage to tell him what I knew to be true.

Among the fallen were Peter Ganci and 71-year-old Deputy Fire Commissioner William Theon, who had gone with Ganci to rescue the trapped. Pete Hayden climbed atop an engine to address the living. I yelled out, you know, we just lost a lot of guys here today. Let's have a moment of silence. And, well, I took my helmet off. And we held it. I held it. And after a while, I put my helmet back on.

They put their helmets back on. I said, okay, we had a job to do. Let's do it. Do you look back and wonder, how did I survive? And 343 members did not. I didn't think about it as much. We were crazy busy. I was working 18 hours a day and then it hit me i says i'm here you know i mean i get home and i'm tired and there was always food on the table waiting for me when i came home that no matter what time i came home and um and I'm lying in bed

and I ask my wife why me? And she said, did you ever think there was a job for you to do? There was a job for Cassano and others to do, rebuilding the FDNY. When we come back, the children of the lost put on their father's uniform. Meet Tim's new Oreo mocha ice caps with Oreo in every sip. Perfect for listening to the A-side or B-side or bull-side. Order yours on the Tim's app today at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Volunteers started fighting fire in Manhattan in 1648.

Nearly 200 years later, during the Civil War, an entire New York regiment was manned by firefighters. Their commander is quoted, I want New York firemen, for there are no more effective men in the country. As those veterans returned home in 1865, the modern FDNY was created. The department's traditions are handed down in families, and so it remains, especially for the children of 9-11's fallen. The late chief of department Peter Gansey had three children. His daughter married a firefighter. These are his sons. Captain Peter Gansey III was 27 on 9-11. Battalion Chief Chris Gansey was 25. How did you learn your father died?

I ran home, and I got in the door right when Steve Mossello was my dad's driver. Al Torrey, who was the chief of safety, I just remember them telling my mom that he's gone. And she said, gone where? Like that, like innocently. And they're like, he's dead. And I remember the scream that she, that she let out. It's, I could still hear it in my ears and it pains me to hear it. The pain of a realization that, that he's never walking back in the door. Pete, what kind of man was he? He loved being around family, but his family was also the fire department. We knew it. My mom knew it, sometimes to his dismay,

but we understood the type of person that he was and why he chose our chosen career. Chris, you were in business and on your way to an MBA. Did 9-11 make you a fireman? Absolutely. Had 9-11 not happened, I would not have been a New York City firefighter. You've quoted your dad as telling new graduates from the fire academy, you will never, ever be rich, but you will always be happy. You'll always be happy. That's hard to explain to people how like you can get injured or you

could get killed, but yet somehow you come home with a smile on your face. Like I enjoy being part of the organization. It makes me, gives me a sense of pride that I'd never felt anywhere else. And, and maybe that's what had driven my father for so many years. My name is Josephine Smith and I work in Engine 39. Josephine Smith's late father, 47-year-old Kevin Smith, was with Hazmat One on 9-11. I always wanted to be like my father. You know, I always wanted to be brave like him and strong and willing. It really just runs through our blood, generation to generation. I just think it's just who we are. It's our passion. It's our upbringing. Somebody else might have thought,

with such grievous loss, I don't want to have anything to do with that. It's not the job that took my father. It was an act of terrorism that took my father. And that made me want to fight even more to protect the city of New York and the citizens. You may have taken my father from me, but the passion in the blood is still there. I'm John Palumbo. I work in 92 Engine in the South Bronx. I'm Tommy Palumbo. I work in 69 Engine in the South Bronx. I'm Tommy Palumbo. I work in 69 Engine in Harlem.

John, how old were you on 9-11? I was a week away from being eight years old, and I was nine. How many kids in the Palumbo family? There's ten of us, eight boys and two girls. The Palumbo brothers' dad, Frank Palumbo, was 46 when he died, latter 105. In a sense, it wasn't 9-11 that made the Palumbo boys firefighters. It was September the 12th and all the days that followed. My dad's brothers and sisters in the firehouse, they cooked for us.

They drove us places. They took us to Six Flags. I remember going on their shoulders and, you know, they'd take us by the arms and spin us in circles. The firehouse turned out for birthdays and games. The stands were filled at the hockey games, you know. It wasn't the same because you're missing the one person that you want there. But they do everything they can to fill it. You know, they never will, but they did everything they could to fill it,

as hard as it was for them, taking time away from their own families. The firehouse cooked dinner for the ten Palumbos and their mother every Monday for five years until the family moved away. I'm a firefighter in Engine 214, Ladder 111 in Bedside, Brooklyn. My name is Michael Florio. Mike Florio's dad, John Florio, was 33 years old on 9-11, Engine 214, the same house where his son works today. Every day I walk in, my father's picture's on the walls. There's a lot of memorials of him and the other four guys that passed on 9-11. I do have a lot of memories from the firehouse, being a young boy, and just walking in there

every day and seeing his pictures, it brings back those memories. It makes me feel closer to him being there every day and seeing his pictures, it brings back those memories. It makes me feel closer to him being there every day. More than 60 children of 9-11's fallen have been through the training academy on Randall's Island in the East River and are now on the job. To join, they took a written exam that's given only once every four years. About 60,000 applicants take it, and only those in the top 10 percent earn a place in the rank and file. I'm very proud of them. I feel that their fathers would have been very proud of them. Dan Nigro, Chief Gansey's number two on 9-11, was promoted to chief of department and became the city fire commissioner.

Among the others in our story, John Sudnick, a captain on 9-11, rose to chief of department, and so did Peter Hayden. Sal Cassano became fire commissioner. Battalion Chief Joe Pfeiffer became chief of counterterrorism and now teaches crisis leadership. Regina Wilson was studying for the lieutenant's exam. And Oreo Palmer's name lives on the FDNY's award for the most physically fit firefighters. A lot of bravery. A lot of bravery was displayed that day. And followed by a lot of sadness. Commissioner, it seems to be a sad day for you 20 years later.

I think for everybody that was there that day, it has just stayed with them, the sadness. We have plenty of good days, plenty to be thankful for, those of us who survived. But it's a day that will never leave you. Sadness becomes part of your life. Absolutely. Your father survived the collapse of the first tower, and instead of moving to safety, he went to answer the mayday calls from his trapped firefighters.

Receiving report, the firefighter's trapped and down. He knew that the other building was in imminent danger of collapsing. He had decided in that moment that he was not going home. Yeah, I mean, he chose his guys. And, you know, we could get angry about it. And I know my sister and my mother, sometimes we hit our head against the wall. But when the smoke clears and you think about it, it was the only decision. I knew the way he felt about his men and his job in the FDNY, and he was going to stay and see the job through. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself if he left and, you know, one more guy was killed.

It's just the way he was. It was, I have to be there until the last guy is out. Today's recruits were children then. And so they muster before memories three columns of the World Trade Center and 343 lives, which are here, indelible in time. So many of us sacrifice so much that this story can't get lost because the world is changing fast.

And I don't want this to be something that's in a history book that a page is turned and we're forgotten. Two decades later, 9-11 survivors and first responders are seeking medical care at a growing rate. More at 60minutesovertime.com. We cannot do justice in this hour or any number of hours to the sacrifices of the FDNY, the New York City Police Department, the Port Authority Police, and those who fought to save lives at the Pentagon

and on Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. At the Trade Center, 2,753 people perished, but there were more than 17,000 in the towers, and 99% of those below the fires survived. That morning, a witness watched firefighters rush to the stairwells and wondered how they found the courage. After 22 years of reflection, it's clear. They climbed to rise. To rise to the cries 1,000 feet above them. to rise to the defense of the firefighter beside them, to rise beyond duty to a place of selfless devotion. I'm Scott Pelley. We'll be back next week with the season premiere of 60 Minutes.