An Army of Normal Folks - Tim Brown: 100 Friends Were Murdered on 9/11 (Pt 2)

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

9/11 firefighter Tim Brown helped save lives that fateful day, but he also lost 100 friends who chose to save others knowing it would likely be the last act of their lives. His mission is to honor this Army of Normal Folks and make sure that America never forgets them.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project, reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world. Live from the underground, you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, resilient favela life and much more. All real, completely uncensored. This is Unique Access with access with straightforward underground reporting. We're taking you deep into the dirt without the usual airs and graces of legacy media. A way that showcases what the mainstream cannot access.

Real underground reporting with real people, no excuses. For the past decade, I've been going to places I shouldn't be, meeting people I shouldn't know. I've been going to places. I shouldn't be meeting people. I shouldn't know Now you can come along to Listen to the your way days podcast Reporting from the underbelly on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts a Murder happens the case goes cold then over a 100 years later, we take a second look. I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator. And I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson, a journalist and historian. On our podcast, Buried Bones, we reexamine historical true crime cases.

Using modern forensic techniques, we dig into what the original investigators may have missed. Growing up on a farm when I heard a gunshot, I did not immediately think murder. Unless this person went out to shoot squirrels, they're not choosing a 22 to go hunting out there. These cases may be old, but the questions are still relevant and often chilling. I know this chauffeur is not of concern, you know, it's like well he's the last one who saw our life. So how did they eliminate him? Join us as we take you back to the cold cases that haunt us to this day. New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network.

Listen to Barry Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater

founder Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here and I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday May 6th where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death?

My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti-tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. I just remember everything getting dark. I'm dying. We step beyond the edge of what we know. To open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that Western box. In return.

I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes. My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple. To find, explore, and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable.

To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off. Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen

to your favorite shows. Open AI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not be. An aberration. A symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. And I'm going to tell you why on my show Better Offline, the rudest show in the tech industry, where we're breaking down why OpenAI along with other AI companies are dead set on lying to your boss that they can take your job. I'm also going to be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer. Listen to Better Offline on the

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you happen to get your podcasts. Chris Lowe, The North Tower You see Mr. Kissy Cigar Guy go up. Chris. And then you see some other folks. Yeah, I saw Captain Terry Haddon, my best friend, in the lobby of the North Tower. And I ran to him and he was 6'4", so when I wrapped my arms around him, I wrapped my arms around his chest. And then he comes down on top of me like this huge eagle or something.

Like just, I totally got lost in his hug and he just squeezed me to his chest and he kissed me on the right cheek and he said in my ear I love you brother I may never see you again and I blew him off but I didn't know what he knew you know he had come down the West Side Highway he saw there were eight or ten floors of fire, jet-fueled fire. Eight or ten floors. Each floor is an acre. That's eight acres of jet-fueled fire, 90 stories up. And there's no way,

he knew, there's no way we can get enough water up there. It's impossible. There's no way we can fight these fires. And a lot of the chiefs knew that, and Terry had that advantage, which I didn't, because I was underneath it looking straight up. So when he said that to me, I blew him off a little bit, because we had done a lot of things together. We had done a lot of really crazy, dangerous things to save people.

And we were very good at what we did. We were very good. And we did we were very good and So I thought I would see him again, but he knew better and I didn't see him again and So plane hit the South Tower Chief Donald Burns assistant chief Donald Burns 41 years in the New York City Fire Department probably the most respected fire chief At the fire that day if you looked up Irish fire chief in the dictionary it would be his mug with red rosy cheeks and steely blue eyes and lines of experience permanently etched in his

face and and he was my friend you know. I had mad respect for him and we ran to the South Tower together. After it was hit? After it was hit. We were assigned to open that command post up. Yeah, because now you gotta split forces. Yeah, exactly right. So we're running together from the North Tower to the South Tower.

And I said, Chief, what do you need me to do? He said, in his New York accent, Timmy, there's not much you and I can do. He only talked out of this side of his mouth like this. Not much you and I can do. I've ordered a fifth alarm for our building, but the first five alarms are going to that building. Do your best and be careful. Oh, he also said we're at war.

He did say those words to me. He says that? Yeah, we're at war. He said, you know we're at war. I said, yes, sir. We all knew when the second plane hit that we were under terrorist attack. We didn't know if it was Al Qaeda or if it was China or Russia or someone else. We didn't know.

But we knew these planes were coming for us. As one of our chaplains said, the firemen went to war with only tools of rescue, right? Not knowing that we were going into war. And so Chief Burns and I were running the south tower, a woman comes running in, running toward us, screaming that there were people trapped in an elevator. So I went with her and Chief Burns went to the command post and that's where I encountered people in an elevator. So I went with her and Chief Burns went to the command post and that's where I encountered people in an elevator. It's horrific. They were, the

hoist way doors were open so you could see into the shaft and but the elevator car was stuck and so at the top so you could just see like six inches into the elevator car at the top. You saw feet. You saw feet exactly and the people were panicking and screaming and I remember seeing the men's dress shirts and jackets as they were trying to pull that car down a few more inches so that they could slip out. And two things had happened to these poor people, which the first one I didn't know until later.

But that elevator car had free fall on the 70 floors because the Flight 175 snapped the cable when it came in. So they had taken this horrific ride. until later but that elevator car had free fall in 70 floors because the flight 175 snapped the cable when it came in so they had taken this horrific ride uh 74 stories free falling 70 probably 78 70 somewhere in there how are they not squashed exactly well that's what they expected to be killed on impact but the emergency brakes kicked in and worked the way they were supposed to and stopped it before it hit the concrete pit and But those brakes now were on and no human strength was gonna move that car, right? This was steel on steel saying you're not moving if the plane hit the cable

Yeah, and they're in the elevator shaft. They're a fire or something coming down? Exactly. The jet fuel also had cascaded down that elevator shaft and now was pooling in concrete pit below them and it was on fire so they were getting burned above it. So they had taken a 70-story freefall, they were trapped in the elevator and now they were getting burned. And I'm the first first responder on the scene, but what they needed was a fireman, not a mayor's office guy. With a green hat.

With a green, oh, the stupid green hat. Fair, fair. And they were, no, never, I can't say that. In my horror at seeing this scene, in my frustration in wanting to help them. You've got no tools. You don't have gloves. I have nothing. Right, I don't no tools, you don't have gloves.

Right, I don't have gloves, I don't have protective gear, I have nothing. And so I turned to my right, and I started yelling to the people, start bringing me fire extinguishers. Because if you can put a fire out, your problems go away and you have time to rescue them. And so I was screaming at people,

and a fireman, a bumblebee came up behind me and And and I looked over and I looked up at his face and it was firefighter Michael Lynch who I knew from ladder for back in the early 90s and And I knew him well, and he put his hand on my shoulder and he squeezed my shoulder and he said Timmy I got it He was reassuring me the senior guy that he was going to take care of it because he was a fireman and he said, Timmy, I got it. He was reassuring me, the senior guy, that he was gonna take care of it, because he was a fireman, and he had all his equipment, and he had all his tools, and he brought a whole fire truck

full of tools with him, and he was already formulating in his mind how he was gonna get those people out of the elevator, put the fire out, save those people's lives. When I later talked to his widow, Denise, who I hadn't known before, and she had one baby in her lap and the two-year-old boy crawling around on the rug in their living room, I wanted her to hear the story of her heroic husband from me because I was the last one to see him.

And we know in the end we can prove that he saved three women out of that elevator because they identify him by photograph. And so we know he saved at least three before the building came down. So I told his widow in that living room, when he said to me, Timmy, I got it, he may as well have had wings coming out of his back because he was the angel sent

to save the lives of those poor people. And he did save some of them. We don't know for sure how many, but at least three out of that elevator. I've heard you describe the term, I got it means so much more than I got it. Yeah. Tell us.

Oh, it's just, it's, he had the training, the experience, the knowledge, the tools and equipment, because he brought a whole fire truck of tools with him. And he knew how to use them all, right? It's a lot of work, it's a lot of training, it's a lot of experience, it's a lot of dedication, it's a lot of courage and bravery.

And he said with all confidence in the world, I got it. And I knew when he said that to me that there was no one better to take care of those people than firefighter Michael Lynch. So you leave it with him. I got word over my OEM radio, because we had three radios, NYPD radio and FDNY radio and OEM radio. And so over my OEM radio, because we had three radios, NYPD radio, an FDNY radio, and

an OEM radio. And so over my OEM radio, urgent, urgent, urgent, confirmed by the FBI, third plane incoming, it's confirmed, it's ours, impact imminent, get in the stairwells, get protected. So that's why I left Mike the angel at the elevator scene to save those people because I was representing the mayor and I went to the command post, I found a landline that worked. I dialed the operator, she picked up right away

and I said, I'm with Mayor Giuliani in the World Trade Center, I need to talk to the White House immediately. She tried to get through, she couldn't. I said then the Pentagon, and she said the Pentagon's under attack and that's the first we knew of it. At that point you have to be like oh the whole world's coming in. Yeah and we're under it and we're under it and and I talked with the New York State Emergency Management

Office and they assured me that the fighter jets were coming for us as fast as possible. We couldn't do our job and help people and save people if planes kept crashing into us. So we needed air cover. Maybe for the first time in the history of the city of New York, we couldn't handle it. Our army of cops and firefighters couldn't handle it. I've heard you say that's 50,000. Oh yeah, easily 50, probably a little more.

That's 50,000 uniformed. 50,000 uniformed. 50,000 uniformed? Yeah. You guys had to have felt like an army that could handle anything thrown at you. We very rarely asked for help. Almost never. And on September 11th, we needed our heroes

in the U.S. military to come help us. And so they assured me that the fighter jets were coming to protect us. And I just kind of checked that box and went on with my business The lobby of the South Tower now where I am is filling up with the people who are badly injured burned bloody broken Chief Burns ordered me to go find the paramedics and Bring bring them in to the lobby of the South Tower to start getting these people out

So you once described that as obvious. Something you said to me, not to me, something you've said that I've read, it dawned on me how right you were. These are people that went to work that day and they're in suits and flat shoes. They're not in any kind of gear. And they have descended through smoke 70 floors. Finish it. So the stairwells were narrow.

There was only room for single file down and single file up. You think that's big building, but it's small. You get thousands of people down there. The escape stairwells were very small. And it's something that's now corrected in new construction But so imagine going down the stairs to escape this disaster and You were single file so you could only go as fast as the people in front of you and some of those people might be

Disabled some might be injured, some might be elderly. So it is a slow, slow descent. And it was dark and wet from the water, and smoky and sooty. And those folks who did make it out describe being so encouraged when they saw the firemen and the policemen going up. It helped them think that they were gonna be okay.

But after descending through all that crap and you open a door and you end up in a big lobby where you see light and fresh air and firemen everywhere, you collapse. And so what you saw was a lobby of collapsed people. That's right, and it was affecting our evacuation of the building, so that's why I left the South Tower. I went out the door onto Liberty Street,

which was the south boundary of the World Trade Center complex, and the first thing I saw I remember it clearly in seared into my photographic memory is there was a dead fireman in the middle of the street who had been crushed by a woman who had jumped or fallen and she landed on him and killed him and it happened right right before I went out the door it happened right before. Can I ask you a question? I hesitate to even ask the question, but I want everybody that hears us to know this

and the depths of them to never forget. So there's imagery, I can't help but get past. Was there a lot of that? What did that sound like? What was, I mean, we've, anybody's paid attention to seeing the images of the people hanging out of the building with smoke rolling behind them. And you think, oh, they can't breathe.

I don't think what people get is that smoke is 700 degrees. They're literally getting their flesh burned off. Yep, yep. And the people who jumped, they died on their terms. is 700 degrees. They're literally getting their flesh burned off of them. And the people who jumped, they died on their terms. But you see a few pictures and a few videos and they're absolutely gut-wrenching. But what we don't know is what's going on on the ground. So in some of the videos, you can hear the bodies crashing. I would call it like a muffled

explosion each time. Some of them hit the glass overhangs so it was like a muffled explosion with glass. This happened over and over and over and over for these poor people who had no choice. I saw this fireman in the middle of Liberty Street and I saw his buddies, we call it a company, they belong together and they were pulling at what was just one second ago their brother, their brother, and trying to save him, and they tried to do CPR and stuff, and he was gone, but I had, I was very mission-focused, I had a job to do, and I had to leave them to do that.

And I found the paramedics, myself and three paramedics, went running back with the stretcher and all their equipment to go back into the lobby of the South Tower. We were running along the south wall of three World Trade Center. We were on the sidewalk. And when we got to the adjoining two World Trade Center, which was the South Tower, it was set back in the sidewalk a little deeper. So we kind of came around the corner. And when we came around the corner the first steel snapped. How far are you from the door? 20 feet from the door of going back in. You're 20 feet that's yeah I mean

it's right there yeah yeah the door of the tower. We were there. I mean, we were going in. And you hear this first piece of steel snap. All the way up. All the way up. But it must have been loud. It was so loud that it echoed through the canyons of lower Manhattan. It was like a major explosion. And none of us, as I remember it, none of us even looked at each other because we all knew what it was. We all knew it was coming down. At least part of it. and none of us, as I remember it, none of us even looked at each other

because we all knew what it was. We all knew it was coming down, at least part of it. But you're 20 feet from the door. Yeah, well. Of 115 acres of steel. This is time to try to save your life. And we know from experience and from our training that you can never outrun a building collapse.

It will always catch you and kill you. It happens too fast. We, unfortunately, in the New York City Fire Department, as in other fire departments, deal with burning building collapse often. So we have a lot of experience. So I know that you're not gonna be able to like run back across the street

and get away from it. It's going to kill you. So you have to try and get something over your head to protect you. Some kind of structure over your head at least to give yourself a chance. And I knew that we had just run by the door into the adjoining Three World Trade Center, which was the Marriott Hotel. And that door was particularly the door into the restaurant of the lobby of the hotel called the Tall Ships Restaurant. And I knew we had just run by it, so I was

like, that's where I'm going. And I yelled at the paramedics, follow me, and we ran and ducked into that door very quickly. And so now I'm in the restaurant, in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel. It's as clear as this room here. And snap of the fingers, it's pitch black. The south tower is collapsing onto the Marriott Hotel. The Marriott Hotel is now starting to collapse around us. I hit the floor on all fours and I'm crawling.

Everything that wasn't nailed down was blowing in my face and pummeling me. And you couldn't see because the dust got so thick. It got pitch black. You couldn't see, you couldn't breathe. It was kicking in your mouth and your nose and your eyes and your ears. And I was trying to stick my nose and my mouth

in my t-shirt as I was crawling trying to get away from it and turn my back so that it was my back getting pummeled not my face. I compare the sound to sitting on the tarmac at JFK airport surrounded by 747s that are full blasts and every time you thought it was the loudest thing you ever heard in your life, it would increase by 10, and then 10, and then 10, as the collapse was getting closer.

I knew I was in big, big trouble, and that this was probably the end of it. But I knew that my best chance, my only chance, was to find a vertical column. And I was crawling as fast as I could, trying to get away from it. And I found a very big vertical column, which is a vertical column of steel. I also know from our experience that that's where we find people alive in building collapses because it forms a tent. And there's a space of life, livable space in there. It's like a tent. And sometimes

we, it's where we search a building collapse first for people because we know we can maybe get them alive. And so I'm trying to find this. I find a vertical column. I wrap my arms around it and I'm not just holding onto it. I'm trying to become part of it. I'm squeezing so hard. I'm trying to get into the steel. I'm trying to live part of it. I'm squeezing so hard, I'm trying to get into the steel. I'm trying to live. The helmet blows off my head, the wind was so strong. My pager breaks off my belt. And now all I need is a little brick to hit me in the head

because I have no helmet, I have no stupid green helmet to protect me. I guess it got mad at me. And the wind was so powerful as as the building collapsed it was pushing all that air out and I was in the pathway of where all that air was going so it the wind actually lifted me up off the ground like a flag and so now I'm horizontal and I'm trying to hold on to this this column in in that that was my moment that was my moment when I I thought it was over and so I prayed and I said God I'm not afraid to come to you.

In fact, I look forward to it one day. I look forward to sitting at your side one day, but please not now, because I want to hold my family one more time and tell them I love them. And then I will come to you and I will sit by your side. And then that's okay. I will sit by your side and that's okay. And within 15 seconds, the collapse subsided.

The wind stopped, couldn't see, couldn't breathe, but I was alive. And before we go to what happens next, where you save many lives off a ledge, which I still can't even picture. To give everybody conception of the wind, afterwards when they inspected this area, there were shards of glass embedded in the steel. And scientists looked at it and it proved that the wind at the collapse of the towers was equal to that of a hurricane. It was 185 mile an hour winds. A fire, debris, glass, steel, and body parts.

That's what collapsed for us. The only way I was able to hold on to that column was with God's strength because there's no human strength that can hold on to something like that in that kind of wind. I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project, reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world. Live from the underground, you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, Brazilian favela life and much more. All real, completely uncensored. This is Unique Access with straightforward underground reporting.

We're taking you deep into the dirt without the usual airs and graces of legacy media. A way that showcases what the mainstream cannot access. Real underground reporting with real people, no excuses. A murder happens, the case goes cold. Radio, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A murder happens, the case goes cold. Then, over a hundred years later, we take a second look. I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator. And I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson, a journalist and historian. On our podcast, Buried Bones, we re-examine historical true crime cases.

Using modern forensic techniques, we dig into what the original investigators may have missed. Growing up on a farm when I heard a gunshot, I did not immediately think murder. Unless this person went out to shoot squirrels, they're not choosing a 22 to go hunting out there. These cases may be old, but the questions are still relevant and often chilling.

I know this chauffeur is not of concern. You know, it's like, well, he's the last one who saw our life. So how did they eliminate him? Join us as we take you back to the cold cases that haunt us to this day. New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Barry Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Ronella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here and I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were

here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20-pound anti-tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel.

I just remember everything getting dark. I'm dying. When we step beyond the edge of what we know... ...to open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that Western box. And return. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes.

My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple. To find, explore, and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable. To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off.

Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Open AI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not be, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your boss that they can take your job. I'm also going to be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer. Listen to Better Offline on the iHot Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you happen to get your podcasts. The wind subsides, it's still dark, you're on your hands and knees. I'm bouncing around in there. I desperately want to live.

They call it a fight-flight mode, and that's where I was. And I wanted to get out of there, and I wanted to live desperately. I wanted to get back to my brother and tell him that I was alive, because I knew he would think I was gone. And I wanted my mom and dad to know that I was alive, because I knew he would think I was gone. And I wanted my mom and dad to know that I was alive.

And so I was a little bit desperate in that moment to get out of there. And I bounced around in that restaurant, because it was all changed now, it was all collapsed. And I wound up at a metal roll-down that later on I find out that it separated the lobby of the hotel from the restaurant of the hotel. And at night they would put it down. In the collapse, the roll down gate came down and I got to this gate and I put my fingers under it to lift it up. And when I lifted it up an inch or two, all these fingers came from the other side of people who were trapped on the other side of it, which I didn't know.

And together we lifted up this gate and I said to them, I thought there was a truck bomb. I was like, there's a bomb back there and we have to keep going that way. And they said, no, there is no that way. So what it was is a group of firefighters and civilians who they were saving in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel and the collapse came through right where they were and killed half the firemen and civilians

they were rescuing. But this group, the collapse missed them by inches. All the others were killed. And behind them, they were on a ledge that was seven stories down on that side. It went down into the structure. Into the sub, sub, sub, sub, sub basements. It was seven stories.

Literally, they're on a two-foot ledge. On what used to be the ground. Yeah, which was the floor of the lobby of the hotel. And so we couldn't go that way. what used to be the ground. Yeah, which was the floor of the lobby of the hotel. And so we couldn't go that way. They were stuck. So we turned around. We went back the way I had just come from.

And one of the ladies in the group saw a fireman waving a very bright flashlight. He must have seen us in the rubble. And he was waving his flashlight light at us and he's screaming, come this way, come this way. So we went up and down over the piles of steel and stuff toward him, because we knew that was safety. And as far as I know, that group of people I was with all lived, and to this day,

I believe that's the largest group of survivors in the 16 and a half acres was the group I was with there so. Patty. Patty Brown. Legend. Maybe the most well-known firefighter in New York lore. I think that's a very accurate statement. He was a hero of the New York City Fire Department. He was a captain. He was the highest decorated New York City fireman, murdered on September 11th. Patty had a legendary life.

He was single. He lived in Manhattan. He was United States Marine Corps Sergeant in Vietnam. When he came back back he got treated like crap like the rest of them did. He had a hard time with that. He realized that he was an alcoholic and he got on top of it and he went to AA. He was a golden gloves boxer. He was a second or third degree black belt in karate. He was a marathoner. He was a triathlete. He was a yogi. Yeah, I mean come on. He was a marathoner, he was a triathlete, he was a yogi. Yeah, I mean, come on.

He was on the cover of Men's Health magazine. He was also, for the ladies here, he was very good looking. And he was a very successful bachelor in New York. I witnessed some of it. Patty was the guy you always wanted around. And he was Captain America. He didn't say it. He just was.

And if somebody was doing something wrong, if he saw somebody getting robbed or someone beating up a girl or something, God help that person. Because Patty was all about doing the right thing, always. What did he do on 9-11? He went up in the North Tower with his firefighters, one of which, Jerry Dewan, was a good friend of mine. Jerry was from, he was a Boston Irish guy, and so he had a little problem.

He got jammed up a little bit in his previous firehouse. So I purposely got him detailed into Patty's command because I knew Patty would help straighten him out and talk sense to him, right? And it was one of Jerry's first tours with Patty Brown as his boss. And they went up together and they died together on September 11th. I believe, I can't prove it, but Captain Terry Hatton, Captain Patty Brown and myself were three musketeers, we were best friends, we spent all kinds of time together on and off

duty and they would compete over who had the more beautiful girlfriend and stuff and I believe Terry and his men got trapped up on the 83rd floor of the North Tower early on in a localized collapse. Terry was screaming for help. We call it May Day. May Day, May Day, May Day. It's the worst thing a fireman could say or hear. It means you're either trapped or your friend is trapped. And so I believe that Patty heard that and was running up the stairs in the North Tower because Terry was one of his best friends and he didn't have to be his best friend.

Patty would have done that for anyone but it was especially important to him because it was one of his best friends and yeah all those guys died in the North Tower. So out of the 343 New York City heroes, New York City Fire Department heroes, 100 of them were from our special operations command, which is where I worked. So our most experienced, well-trained firefighters in the world probably, from Chief Downey, who was our special operations chief,

all the way down to our youngest guy, were murdered on September 11th. took out one-third of our command and and so we lost a lot it wasn't just just 343 firefighters it was all that experience and that we lost and all that experience they would have passed on to the younger firefighters had they lived right so you get out there's still one tower standing yeah I I actually had the misjudgment in my state of fight or flight I thought it would be a good idea to swim across the Hudson River to New Jersey that's never a good idea never a good idea to swim across the Hudson River to New Jersey. That's never a good idea

Never a good idea. But in that state of mind, I thought that was a better option than staying in lower Manhattan and I tried to break through one of the office buildings to go toward the the Hudson River luckily the glass I couldn't break the glass and as I was doing that, I heard my boss, Calvin, over the radio, my OEM boss, over the radio, and he was screaming for help. He was trapped in the rubble. And that brought me back to reality. So I ran up the West Side Highway.

He was able to articulate where he was. And so I was running up the West Side Highway toward him. I got- Are you hearing fear and pain on the radio? Oh, terror. Terror. And you know the voices. Yeah, they're my friends.

They're screaming they're dying. They're screaming for help. They're my friends. All that, like a lot. And Calvin was my friend and I... He's a black guy, dark, dark skinned black guy. And I got to him, and another thing I realized that in that moment we were all the same color because we were all gray from the dust.

All the white boys were gray, all the black boys were gray, everybody was gray and we were all the same. And when I got to him, the firemen had gotten him out of the rubble already and the paramedics had him. And our bigger boss, Chief John Oldermatt from NYPD, grabbed me and said, Timmy, he's okay, he's gonna go to the hospital, he's in good hands. We have to go find the mayor, mayor wants us with him. And so Chief Otamat and I started running north,

up West Broadway, behind Seven World Trade Center, and the people behind me started screaming and I turned around, everybody was running away. We were chasing the mayor. And when they started screaming I turned around and I remember seeing the antenna on the top of the North Tower where I knew all my friends were. I remember seeing it kick over just a little bit and then go straight down and disappear and I knew I knew that was my

friends in there. We got overrun by the dust and debris and we got pummeled again and and all of that stuff. And I kept running north until I found the mayor. And then we had to reorganize because we had lost a lot of civilians, a lot of police officers, a lot of firefighters, and a lot of our command staff was wiped out. 2,977 lives were murdered on 9-11. 343 members of the fire department,

72 law enforcement officers. You personally lost 100 friends that day. Probably a little more, but yeah. Maybe something people need to understand is 400,000 people were exposed to Ground Zero's toxic environment. 5,000 have died from illnesses because of it, including 360 more New York City Fire Department.

9-11 hadn't stopped killing. There are firemen and policemen that I have interviewed in New York who have forms of cancer that doesn't even have names. You're talking to one right now. I don't know if you know that. I did not. Yeah. What do you have? I found out about a year and a half ago I have prostate cancer from 9-11, normal man cancer, whatever, but it's 9-11 related. And we found it, thank God we found it early, through our very good health program. And it's something I will not die from.

It's a slow spreading cancer, in my case. Do you have friends that have died from 911 illnesses? Oh, many, many friends. I visited last week my friend Aaron from Rescue One. He is 50 years old and he has pancreatic cancer from 9-11. 50. I interviewed someone whose husband has a cancer they don't even have a name for.

Because it's just cancer, but it's not even a named cancer because of so much crap that they unheld not only that day but staying on site for two and three days later trying to find life. Yeah weeks and months later that dust kept kicking up and we kept trying to use water to knock the dust down because we were trying not to breathe it but you couldn't you couldn't help it and you know one of one of the

most unusual cancers is male breast cancer, which we have, it's like two or three or four times the average that our guys are suffering from breast cancer and testicle and then, like you said, all the other crazy things. Autoimmune diseases. My friend Mike Morrissey, I was with him last week, he has Parkinson's from it. I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project, reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world.

Live from the underground, you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, resilient favela life and much more. All real, completely uncensored. This is unique access with straight forward underground reporting. We're taking you deep into the dirt without the usual airs and graces of legacy media. A way that showcases what the mainstream cannot access. Real underground reporting with real people, no excuses. For the past decade I've been going to places I shouldn't be,

meeting people I shouldn't know. Now you can come along too. Listen to the your way days podcast reporting from the underbelly on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. A murder happens, The case goes cold. Then, over 100 years later, we take a second look. I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator. And I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a journalist and historian. On our podcast, Buried Bones, we reexamine historical true crime cases.

Using modern forensic techniques, we dig into what the original investigators may have missed. Growing up on a farm when I heard a gunshot, I did not immediately think murder. Unless this person went out to shoot squirrels, they're not choosing a 22 to go hunting out there. These cases may be old, but the questions are still relevant and often chilling. I know this chauffeur is not of concern. You know, it's like, well, he's the last one who saw our life. So how did they eliminate him? Join us as we take you back to the cold cases that haunt us to this day. New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Barry Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Rannella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here and I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come

to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti-tank mine. podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When we step beyond the edge of what we know. To open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that Western box. And return. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes.

My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple. To find, explore, and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable. To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off.

Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Open AI is a financial abomination. A thing that should not be. An aberration, a symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. And I'm gonna tell you why on my show Better Offline,

the rudest show in the tech industry, where we're breaking down why OpenAI, along with other AI companies, are dead set on lying to your boss that they can take your job. I'm also gonna be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer. Listen to Better Offline

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you happen to get your podcasts. There are 69 children of former fire department people who died that are now New York City Fire Department. Yeah. Yeah. I was with, we have a proud tradition with the bumper stickers on some of the cars said, on heaven and earth, still the greatest job in the world. And we believe that. I was with the four, two of the four Asaro children the other day at the 9-11 Museum.

The four children, three male and one female, are all New York City firefighters following in their heroic dad's footsteps. Carl Asaro, who I, as far as I know, I was the last one to see him alive. And all four of his children became New York City firefighters. Tell us about, is it Chris? Chris Blackwell?

Junior. No, Michael Lynch. Michael Lynch, Junior. Right, right, so what an amazing story. So Michael Lynch, Senior, was the angel at the elevator scene, right? He saved-

Who saved the three ladies. Who saved at least the three ladies. He was 6'4", 6'5", he was very handsome. He was a professional. They were trying to bring him into special operations command when he was killed because they had that much respect for him. When I went out to his home in Long Island

to tell his wife that her husband was a hero and an angel in his last moments, remember she had a little baby in her lap and she had the two-year-old boy crawling on the carpet. So I told Denise the story and then I said, I gave her my card, because I didn't know her personally before, and I gave her my card because I didn't know her personally before and I gave her my card and I said one day when those boys are older and they want to know

about their dad tell them to reach out to me and I'll tell them about their what a hero their dad is was about 20 years later I got an email from Michael Francis Lynch junior and he said my mom told me that if I wanted to know about my dad's last moments that I should talk with you. And I said that's correct. He told me I've done everything that I was supposed to do as the man of the house since he was two years old. He went to college, he graduated, he got his bachelor's degree, did everything

right. He took care of his little brother, he took care of his mom, his mom had a girl later on and so he took care of his little sister Elizabeth. He said, my mom now told me that I have to go live my life for me. And she said, you're the first step. So I met Mike at my favorite watering hole, O'Hara's, in my regular seat, just saying, and Mike and I drank all the beer in O'Hara's together. Every drop. Every drop. And we-

And toasted his dad. Yeah, we did, and we laughed and we cried and we hugged, and one of the most important things he said to me was please never leave me because every one of those kids has abandonment problems and many of them had have said that exact same thing to me many of them who I mentor and I said I promise Mike I will never leave you. I will always be here for you. I'm not your dad. I'll never pretend to be your dad, but I'll be your uncle or I'll be your friend, whatever you want. And and so I said to him, you know, what do you want to do? He's like, I want to be a

Green Beret. I was like, don't sign anything because they lie. And I said, come with me me and I brought him up and down the East Coast to meet my army, Navy, friends, SEALs, Delta guys, intelligence community folks, all of them and of course every one of them embraced him and took them under their wing so now he had all these uncles and aunts in some pretty amazing positions who wanted to help him. And he came back later on. He met one of my best friends, Navy SEAL Jason Redmond. And so a couple months later, I said,

so Mike, what do you want to do? He said, I want to be a Navy SEAL. I kind of figured it would come to that. And so we started getting him in with the right people who intentionally drowned him five times and dropped him in the woods in some godforsaken place and said, good luck. And they gave him a real rough time, as they should.

And he came back to me after that and kind of sheepish and he was he's the same as daddy six force very handsome he came back to me he was a little afraid to tell me I was like Mike just tell me what's going on he said well I decided to go back and be a green beret again I said that's okay that's that's a very noble thing to do and I get it and so in it by by by December of this year, he should get his Green Beret. He's passed on through everything, he's done very well, he excels at this stuff and by the end of this year, he will be, I believe, will be a Green Beret. This is why,

to be able to tell a beautiful story like this, if I had committed suicide back then, which we had a lot of, and my family was afraid I would do that, if I had done this, I wouldn't be able to witness this thing, this Michael. I love this man, and I'm so proud of him, of what he's done with his life. I never would have been able to enjoy this with him if I had taken my own life. Now the story. I mentor a lot of these young people. I work a lot with the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the greatest charity in the history of America, in my opinion. And so I know the Siller family, the Siller family runs that. Stephen Siller had the five children.

I don't know if I talked about that earlier. One of the young girls is now all grown up. I didn't know her before, but someone told me she wanted to go into the FBI. So I was like, give me her phone number right now. And so we got her into the FBI. She is now in the FBI. She's very happy working down in the DC area. I invited them to our proper Justice League cigar night at Shelley's

back room in Washington DC because I wanted my FBI and CIA friends, I wanted all them to know these kids because it's why they do their job, right? These kids are why. So I brought them together, a bunch of the young people, and it's the first time Michael and Genevieve met. Oh wow. Michael Lynch, Genevieve Siller, and on Sunday she sent me the picture of the engagement ring on her finger.

No! The children of fallen firefighters nine and one are now engage and and gauge in the fb i'm great yet he's gonna be a great ratio in the fb i they just sent me there you're allowed to tear up man that's a lot of them and really proud of them and happy for them and and they will carry on the story and the tradition.

And yeah, you know, the stories of the greatest evil, something good can happen. It's beautiful. Yeah, beautiful. Questions come after one more thing. This one, this part of the story is, it was a lot when I heard it. Was it Friday before? Oh yeah. Tuesday? Yeah. Friday before the Tuesday, so it would have been September 8th 2001. It was a warm day out. I had just been turned down by a lady who I loved very much. Actually the only woman I ever asked to marry me and

she said no. What is wrong with her? And in the end she was right but into this day we're good friends so but I was not in a good place. I had the blues and I was depressed and very sad and lonely. And I left work at Seven World Trade Center that Friday evening and I wanted to go over toward the Hudson River where I was on the water, have a beer and just, I guess, feel sorry for myself or whatever.

And I got over there and they put the beer on the table for me. And I didn't even touch the beer before I started feeling very bad, feeling very ill. And I felt this freezing cold come over me. And I started shaking and my body actually decompensated. If you don't know what it means, basically all your pores open up and you just soak your clothes.

It's a nervous kind of reaction. And I didn't know what was happening. I was in complete fear. I didn't even what was happening. I was in complete fear. I didn't even touch my beer. I put a 20 on top of the beer on top of a $20 bill and I walked out and I walked five miles home and I could feel the evil around me and I didn't know what it was. I didn't recognize it. Of course I didn't know what it was. I didn't recognize it. Of course I didn't know what was coming at that time but I was scared out of my mind.

So we hear that, right? I believe you. I hear it, I feel it. I've heard you tell that story. I've feel it. I've heard you tell that story I've read it and I've heard you tell it before and it never changes What makes it crazy is Some years later your interaction with a Navy pilot. Yeah So in my I call my lost years after I retired like Like so for 2004, five, six in those years,

I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. And my friends. Or even to keep it. Yeah, even to keep it. Yeah, those were my hard years for sure. I was very lonely again. I was, I had, you know, all my guy friends were gone. I had no one to hang out with.

And so I thought, I like to travel travel maybe I'll be a flight attendant and then JetBlue hires retired New York City firefighters to be flight attendants their number one flight attendant was a retired New York City fireman I was like I'll give it a shot so I I went and did the training and I did a few flights in the end it wasn't for me but on one of my flights from LA to New York on JetBlue I was a flight attendant in the back of the plane and now you know I'm making I'm not making this up because I would never tell this I was a flight attendant so you know I'm not making this up so I'm in the back of the plane and there's an extra pilot on the plane it's a east west coast flight and

and so one of the pilots came back to take a break stretch his legs or whatever there's an extra pilot on the plane. It's a east to west coast flight. And so one of the pilots came back to take a break, stretch his legs or whatever. He came back and sat with me in the back of the plane. And he was like, what'd you do before? I was like, fireman. And of course, as soon as he said that, he's like, 9-11. I was like, yeah.

So I tell him the story. And then I tell him the story of the Friday night before the Tuesday and Which at this point was just a weird night to you yeah, it's just before this conversation right it didn't makes it doesn't make any sense and I and I had forgotten about it for a long time and then for some reason I came back and And so I'm telling the story and he just sits there and nods his head and this guy's a Navy Former Navy power fighter. Yeah. Yeah. Now he flies for jet blue, right and He had his bag with him and he waited till I was done telling the story and he goes I want to show you something

and he reaches in his bag and he pulls out a Book that's covered in a leather case with a zipper. It's all worn. And he goes like this with the zipper and he undoes it and he opens the book up and it's all highlighted in yellow, pink, blue highlighter throughout the whole book. And he's just he's going like this through the book and he comes to a page and he puts it to me and he says, read this. What's the book? The Bible.

He's a student of the Bible. And he goes right to the page. He has it like memorized. And he says, read this. And it describes what happened to me in the Bible. And it's called spiritual discernment. And when you're at your lowest emotionally, sometimes you are able to feel other worlds, other spirits. And I believe, and he believed, and I think he's right, that

I was feeling the evil gathering at Ground Zero before the following Tuesday. And it's called spiritual discernment. And look, I'm not a conspiracy guy at all. I'm the opposite. But this actually is true. This is what happened to me. And all I did was tell this guy the story, but he understood what I was talking about because he read about it in the Bible. The reason I wanted to tell you the story is this. I don't know why you're alive, but you were 20 feet from the stupid building when it fell.

You should be dead. Yep. You survived a fire hurricane with glass flying to there. And I don't know why, but there's a reason. Your talk about what you just said says an enormous amount about your faith, I think. And And before we open up for questions, with that faith in mind and that duty and service and the heroic actions of yourself and the friends you lost, as you consider and look on those who attacked our country and you. How are we to reconcile humanity, evil, grace, forgiveness? I am not proud of this,

but I'm not a big forgiver right now. And maybe I'm wrong for that, but I believe in proper justice for those who did this, who happily admit they did this and happily say they would do it again if given the chance. They have said that in court. I have witnessed these families suffer for the last 25 years, including the children who grew up without their dad, without their mentor, without their spiritual guide, or without someone who has a rolodex to get them a

job at the FBI or be a Green Beret or whatever, right? These kids, you know, didn't have that chance. So I'm not big on forgiving the guys who planned this and anyone that supported them. And maybe I'll learn better as I get older or maybe in another life and I'll be more forgiving. But I don't feel, I feel proper justice is correct and we have not done that. And it's, look, I'm part of the team doing it

and it's just shameful, shameful. What's the point? Which is why we cannot forget. Yep. Because it will happen again if we lower our rates. They want to do it again. They wanna do it bigger. You know, these Islamists.

And look, I've been accused of being all those Islamophobe and racist. I've been accused of all of that. No, you're very careful to say terrorist after it. Yeah, yeah. Well, so everybody knows Islamists are the Muslims who want to impose what they believe on you. And if you don't comply with them, then you pay believe on you and if you don't comply with them then you pay a tax and if you don't pay a tax then they kill you. Yeah we're not talking about. We're not talking well it's a certain group but they're look look who are the people who is the group of people that suffer the most at the hands of Islamists, innocent Muslims. They're the ones that suffer the most. And I have lots of Muslim friends who...

Look, we had this Afghan female tactical platoon. Nobody knows about them. 60 Afghan women who fought with our Tier 1 forces in Afghanistan for the purpose of taking the women and children on a raid so that the men wouldn't touch them, right? So these women would win fighting with our guys but then they would take the women and children and protect them. So 60 of them, of course, when we pulled out they became the number one target of the Taliban and

so 40 of them made it to America and we were able to get them help. We took them to the 9-11 Museum, the Statue of Liberty, because that's what they hoped for, for the women and for their girls. And then we took them to O'Hara's. They don't drink, but we had a good time anyhow. But there's a lot of good people of all faiths. I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project, reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world.

Live from the underground, you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, resilient favela life and much more. All real, completely uncensored. This is unique access with straightforward underground reporting. We're taking you deep into the dirt without the usual airs and graces of legacy media. A way that it showcases what the mainstream cannot access. Real underground reporting with real people, no excuses. For the past decade I've been going to places I shouldn't be meeting people I shouldn't know. Now you can come

along too. Listen to the your way days podcast reporting from the underbelly on the iHeart radio app, apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. A murder happens. The case goes cold. Then over 100 years later, we take a second look. I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator. And I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson, a journalist and historian. On our podcast, Buried Bones, we reexamine historical true crime cases. Using modern forensic techniques, we dig into what the original investigators may have missed. Growing up on a farm when I heard a gunshot, I did not immediately think murder. Unless this person went out to shoot squirrels, they're not choosing a 22 to go hunting out there.

These cases may be old, but the questions are still relevant and often chilling. I know this chauffeur is not of concern. You know, it's like, well, he's the last one who saw our life. So how did they eliminate him? Join us as we take you back to the cold cases that haunt us to this day. New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network.

Listen to Barry Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here

and I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we step beyond the edge of what we know. To open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that Western box. And return.

I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes. My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple. To find, explore, and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable.

To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off. Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Open AI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not be, an aberration, a symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. And I'm going to tell you why on my show Better Offline, the rudest show in the tech industry, where we're breaking down why open AI along with other AI companies are dead set on lying to your boss that they can take your job. I'm also going to be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer. So, that's a story. And in the context of an army of normal folks, it's really hard to say that Tim and his brothers are normal, but I think of the office workers

helping one another down the escalator. I also think of the cognitive decision of these firefighters saying, I may not not make it but I'm going anyway Yeah, and then I think of the work that the ones that have survived have done to support the children of firefighters And and to keep the awareness going and so this whole story is wrought with stories of heroic normal folks seeing areas and Eden filling it from firefighters to civilians to now. And it's why we celebrate your story, Tim, and it's why I wanted to be told for that,

but also to challenge us to remember there are 23 and four year old people walking the face of the planet right now that weren't even alive when this happened and is incumbent upon us as a nation to remember and respect and honor. Does anybody out there have any questions for a firefighter, Tim Scott? You do, Alex has got a microphone. Yeah, coming your way. Please say your name. Thank you.

Harold Daniels here in Memphis. I don't know what it's like to be a, I know New York City firefighters are the best in the world. I do know that. Thank you. I'm a first responder myself and I do a lot of stuff with the health department and training and I work Katrina pulling bodies out of houses

and stuff during Katrina and babies and kids and where people got up to the attic with water rose so high they got their attic they didn't find their way out. Can you hold the mic up a little bit? So I experienced that but my question to you and I'm going back to the Forrest Gump movie where Lieutenant Dan asked Forrest G, why did you save me? I wanted to be with my man. Has that ever entered your mind about all the friends that you lost that you wanna know in yourself and you might fight it in your dreams or fight it loud

and say, God, why am I still here? Why didn't I go with my friends? It's a really good question, thank you. Funny, Lieutenant Dan is actually a good friend of mine the the actor So it's a it's a good question. Uh, I i gary sanis. Yeah gary. Yeah. Yeah, so um I I know what my mission and my purpose is so i'm lucky compared to a lot of people This is my mission and my purpose working with the three-letter agencies Going around the world and being able to say thank you

to our heroes who serve overseas and our partners from different countries and things. So I have a very full, meaningful mission. If I had heard my best friend, Terry Hatton, screaming for help on the radio, I would have been up those stairs, you know, just like Patty was. I didn't hear him and I didn't know he was in trouble. I am happy to be alive. I am happy to be able to impact especially the lives of like Michael and Genevieve, you know, and bring them together, right? Do I wonder why I was spared?

I guess I used to, but I don't think I, I don't question that anymore. Do I miss my friends like crazy every day, 100%? Do I think about what life would have been like with them still in my life? Yes. My best friend Terry Hatton's wife Beth found out she was pregnant two days after 9-11.

And they were around 40 years old, so they hadn't had children before. And she made it through some rough times in her pregnancy and had a healthy baby girl named Terry with an I named after her dad. And so she's my little pal now. And at that, around that age, 23, 24, 25, they start wanting to know more about their dad and stuff. She didn't know her dad. So I'm getting closer with her again. And I hope to help her understand her father and what a hero he was,

and then help her with anything she needs. And man, there's nothing more fulfilling than that. So thank you. Anybody else? I actually have more than one question, so I'll start with the easy one. You said as a teenager that you were going through the madness of your own family and you found the profession which you eventually entering in firefighting. I work with kids and I'm curious how you found that

and what led you to finding that. Did someone help you? Did you accidentally discover it? Or how did you find that? Because we need that for more people. Yeah, good question. Thank you. Yeah, I was, how blunt can I be here? As blunt as you want. Yeah, I was, how blunt can I be here? As blunt as you want, it's a worry. Yeah, I was smoking a lot of weed and failing out of school and I hated the world. I had no purpose, no mission. I wasn't enjoying anything. A house caught on fire across the street from where I lived and my father and the boys, we all went running down

and to see our neighbor's house burn up. There was a young guy there. I was 15, he was 16. He was my friend, Jay Walsh. He lived all the way on the other side of town. I was like, Jay, what are you doing all the way over here? He was 16, so I had his license. He goes, well I came in my car or whatever, and he goes, I'm a junior fireman like that. I was like, you're a what? He's like, I'm a junior fireman. I was like, what's a junior fireman?

He said, come down on Wednesday night and see if you like it. We train and drill with ladders and hoes and all kinds of stuff. Learn EMS stuff and all that. And so I went down the following Wednesday. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. And I went down the following Wednesday and attended. And it was great. I loved it. I had a great time. A few days later he called me up and he said,

Tim, you can either be a junior fireman or be stoned. You can't do both. In other words, knock it off. And so because of Jay, and I tell him, he's my friend to this day, all he had to do was tell me that that was available and then smack me around a little bit and say, stop being a jerk. And that was it.

I got on the straight and narrow and I became a junior fireman and EMT and it was the best thing that could ever have happened to me. So I highly recommend it especially for kids who are maybe on the wrong track. Okay and I want to thank you for being willing to just constantly relive that trauma and share those stories because I think that's so powerful. One of my other questions is I'm a school counselor and you went through trauma I cannot imagine.

And you've spoken of the several years when you were in despair and discouragement. Are there any specific things that helped you to get through that trauma? What can we do for people that have had insurmountable trauma so they can be more like you and find the hope and the purpose in what they've been through. My mantra is truth in history, which means tell the whole truth, patience and grief, and resilience of the human spirit.

I find that patience, you can pray to God all you want. I was praying to meet good quality men similar to the friends I lost. God didn't answer me in that way. He answered me in a different way, and I won't get into it right now. I think it's too long of a story but he answered me in other ways so you have to pray but don't expect that specific prayer to be answered but God knows what's wrong with you and and and will help you. Patience in grief means a lot of patience. It doesn't mean a month. It doesn't mean six months. It means five years or 10 years of patience. And that's hard.

But eventually, you find the life, laughter, and love in what I call the Tim 2.0 again in your life. The other thing that I, or two more things, I went through 10 therapists, and I stayed at it. I went through 10 therapists and I stayed at it. What I tell, what I speak to our first responders in military and our veterans, and I tell them that I went through 10 therapists before I found my dear Ashley, who I just clicked with, and she didn't pretend to know what I went through. What she did is she gave me tools to put in my toolbox so I could help myself such as

compartmentalizing grief no I had never heard of that before and I was able every morning to mourn for an hour and then shut it off and try and have a productive day, right? Admiral, Make Your Bed, sorry, I'm losing his name right now. Yeah, thank you. Admiral McRaven. He is, yeah, he is writing the foreword to my book. But he has a very simple book, New York Times bestseller called Make Your Bed.

It's just that simple. Get up in the morning, it doesn't have to be your bed, but do one or two or three things that make you feel good about yourself every morning. And force yourself to do it. And you'll be amazed at how it changes your disposition for the rest of the day. how it changes your disposition for the rest of the day.

Yeah, oh, and another book you guys can look at if you want is by a Navy SEAL called Touching the Dragon. And basically the dragon is that pain, right? So my dragon would be the loss of my friends, right? My friend Donna's dragon was, she was on the 78th floor of the South Tower. She actually gets hit by the plane when the plane comes into the building and it slams her against the wall and it explodes

and she gets all burned up. and she has to claw her way out from the bodies of her dead burned friends and so that's that's her thing was she's burned pretty badly and she she felt like she couldn't go out in public and we got her through that so that was her dragon once I helped her to face her dragon, and not just to touch it, but I say, if I wrote a book like that, it would be like, punch the dragon in the nose. Don't just touch it. And that's what I try to do. I try to punch the dragon in the nose every chance I get,

because that dragon's not going to take that power away from me and make me unhappy. And so those are things for the kids that I think can be really helpful, all those things. Because that dragon's not going to take that power away from me and make me unhappy. And so those are things for the kids that I think can be really helpful, all those things. I'm happy to talk with you more. And last one is because of what you're sharing, and I can remember through all of us, Ken, exactly where we were when it happened. And as you mentioned, we're moving more and more away from people being able to remember the experience. What do you find impactful for us to share with others so we can make sure

that people never forget? And it's not just some story. I find that the kids I work with, they have no idea and they don't get it. Do you have anything that you've seen to be impactful? I mean other than I mean I think if they heard you they might get it. A couple of things the the Tunnel to Towers Foundation t2t.org has a whole educational section or curriculum for kids and the 9-11 And the 9-11 museum also has curriculum for kids. If you go to New York, go to the 9-11 museum if you've not been. Yeah, 100%.

Phenomenal. Yeah, and bring the kids to that. So there was one, two, yeah, I'm just based on the, oh. Oh yeah, the conspiracy theory stuff, so there's a big big bit a big push for whatever reasons I have my thoughts but There there's been some people including Mel Gibson and Senator Ron Johnson Who have decided to get on the conspiracy theory train? It's BS. It's not true, I was there. Seven World Trade was my office.

I was there through the whole thing. NIST, National Institute of Standards and Training did a scientific evidence-based investigation that proves that conspiracy theories are not true. And the reason I get angry about people that espouse that is because it takes away from the truth that Islamist al-Qaeda terrorists murdered 2,977 innocent human beings in America. It also diminishes the heroism of your friends. It does. It does.

Which is unacceptable. That whole conspiracy theory thing is so wrong. It's so offensive to us, to the families, and to the heroes that were murdered that day. Last question. So, several years ago I visited a friend in Connecticut and took the train from Connecticut to New York and I was kind of shocked being my first time in New York how large a place it is and so I just wonder like when you guys work in the fire department and you're pulling from all these areas

like how many departments are there and do you rotate How do you get to know so many firemen or you just stay within your? Fire. Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay, so yeah. Yeah, so the New York City Fire Department is probably now Under 10,000 somewhere around 8,500 or 700 Firefighters and so of course I was mostly a Bronx Harlem guy But starting in 90 And so of course, I was mostly a Bronx Harlem guy. But starting in 91 or 92, I was in special operations. And once you're in special operations, you work in all the special operations firehouses throughout the city.

So that's where I got to know this whole group of firefighters. I knew around 100, there's a couple other guys that knew around a hundred who are alive but there are two guys I know of that knew 200 just because of the way their careers went and so they're if it's possible they're they're hurt twice as bad as me. It's it's breathtaking and look it took a long time but we got it back up and the fire department's back to where it a friend

of mine said that he said the fire department will recover but not for 20 years and that was a true statement. What's that? Yeah, yeah. Sure that's okay. This will be the last one. And I'm staying around, so. This is a very difficult question to ask, so I'm not enjoying doing this, and I hope nobody takes offense, but I don't know a lot about the procedures

of how you handle going into situations like that, as a fireman? Has things changed since 9-11? Do you think they should change? It is, so just so we know, has the fire department changed operational procedures and such in policy since September 11th? And yeah, I mean, the answer is of course yes.

We sent everything we had to that scene, and that's one of the reasons we lost so much of our leadership and so much of our special operations command. So now, since then, we hold back. We won't send our entire special operations force to one emergency. We won't send our leadership to one emergency anymore. We got a lot of federal money to help us recover. Back then we probably had four fire boats. Now we probably have close to 30 fireboats in New York City. We've built two new state of the art communications,

the 911 communication centers in kind of secret places, one in Brooklyn, one in the Bronx. Secrets out. Well, you're not going to find them, but they're completely redundant with each other. We have built new firehouses that are, people don't know, but there's big, huge office spaces underground,

and they're wired to be, so that our fire department headquarters can move to any of these firehouses in case something happens at our headquarters. So we're, you know, we're more, we've responded more to what could happen if we're attacked. They call it a coup and cog,

continuity of operations and continuity of government. And the local fire and police departments really haven't, the federal departments do that a lot, but the locals hadn't done that before. But now we have done that. We do a lot more training now than we used to do we've done that we've done an awful lot to improve our chances of helping people in our chances of survivability ourselves thank you everybody here Tim's gonna hang around maybe have another beer. Maybe Alex will actually pull some money out of his pocket and buy

Before we before we finish up Just quick quick plug We will have another live interview on June 12th, and it's another 9-eleven survivor named Father Mark Hanna. Father Mark will be here. He saved 50 lives on 9-11. After 9-11, Father, well, Mark became a Coptic priest and hence the Father title. It's part of our Lunch and Listen series that we've been doing at Crosstown Concourse, so you show up around 1130, sit there and eat your lunch and meet

somebody really special. You can learn more and RSVP at fathermark.eventbrite.com as we continue to do our part to try to keep your story, your friend's heroic story, and our collective memory as a nation alive so that we don't live through this misery again. Tim. Thank you, brother. Thank you so much for coming to Memphis and I know that everybody here and everybody listening, one learned a lot and two joins me in saying thank you for what you've done but thank you for representing the heroes that can no longer speak for themselves.

And I for one, sir, believe that's why God kept you alive that day. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. God bless. And thank you for joining us this week. If Tim Brown has inspired you in general, or better yet, take action by becoming a firefighter or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. If you write me anytime at Bill at normal folks dot us, I will respond. And if you enjoy this episode, please share it with friends on social subscribe to the podcast rate and review it. Join the army of normalfolks.us, consider becoming a premium member there.

Any and all of these things that will help us grow, an army of normalfolks. I'm Bill Porter. Until next time, do what you can. I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project, reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world. Live from the underground, you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, Brazilian favela

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