I live in Eastchester, just north of city, and I've been a volunteer firefighter for the Eastchester fire department for 32 years, since I was 18. My family has been involved with fire department for two generations. Tuesday morning my daughter and I were at home. My brother called me — he used to work for the Port Authority in security in one of the Towers; he just left that job last year. He called me after the first plane hit and told me what had happened. We turned on the television and I was panicking and yelling, running around the house.
As we were watching, we saw the second plane come in. We thought it was a replay of the first one.
The two of us were getting very worked up. I said to my daughter, 'I can't stay home, I'm just getting nervous.' So we went to my brothers' house, and we all watched what was going on. After a few hours we said, that's it, we have to go in and do something. So we went into the city.
