SEPTEMBER 11 TEN YEARS LATER

WHAT WERE YOU DOING THAT DAY?

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU HEARD THE NEWS?

WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS THEN?

WHAT ARE THEY TODAY?

WHATS YOUR STORY?

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Great touching story

Our teams train together and we work together and we get dispatched to major national tragedies like Oklahoma City. I was at the Northridge earthquake (in 1994). I was in Atlanta (in 1996) when the bomb went off at the Summer Olympics. You see it, you train for it. But this was beyond my scope of comprehension.
The very first night we were there, we went below ground and came out with a piece of elevator door probably about the size of a football. Stuck in the door was the full left hand of a woman with her wedding ring, and part of her right hand with her keys dangling from it. To this day we don’t know whether she was trying to get in the elevator or was on the elevator trying to get out. That was probably the defining moment for me, realizing what we were going to see, what we were going to do.
I haven’t been into a doughnut shop in 10 years. There was a doughnut shop at the World Trade Center, and one of our first assignments was to remove bodies that had burned to death there. The combination of rotting doughnuts and dead people, the smell stuck with me. When I came home, my family stopped on the way to church and walked into a doughnut shop and my wife said I turned as white as a ghost. I was shaking. There are smells, there are sights, and there are sounds for all of us, I think, that trigger something, that make you remember.
On Sept. 21, we recovered the bodies of two Port Authority police officers. They were evacuating people when the towers came down. They were below about five stories of rubble, about 50 feet below ground. One of the officers, I had to amputate his right leg so we could get his body free.
We got a letter later from the officer’s family, and I was able to meet them in 2003. They knew what we had done: we’d cut off his leg to bring him home. They were grateful because they were able to say goodbye. I met that family, and for somebody to tell you that (his voice wavers and his eyes fill with tears) — there aren’t any bad days. Not anymore. Not after that.
My wife and I don’t go to bed angry at each other now, not ever. Before, every once in a while we’d have an argument and go to bed and still be a little mad. That doesn’t happen anymore. Both our faith and this experience made me realize how important it was for me to let her know how I feel about her every single day. And how I feel about my son. I have a grandson now. He just turned 1 in June. It makes me realize how important my family really is.
You know, it’s routine to go to work and it’s routine to come home. They did the same thing on the morning of the 11th. They expected to go home. They didn’t. So there are no routine days anymore. Any day could be the day that you don’t come home. Look at that San Diego cop who was shot and killed a few weeks back. And the other San Diego cop who was killed before that.
On the day we recovered the two policemen’s bodies at the pile, on the way out, we came to what is like a snow bridge in a crevasse. I stepped on about a 45-degree slope and I went through up to my armpits immediately and my legs are just swinging free below me. I teach confined-space rescues. We tell you, if a guy goes through, let him go. You try to reach him, the hole gets bigger and everybody goes.
The three men who were with me, Capt. Ron Edrozo, firefighter Ed Cardenas and firefighter Dave Tegardine — they didn’t do that. They knew the risks they were taking. They turned around and grabbed my arms. They pulled me to the point where I could crawl out. I looked down the hole: It was 65 feet to active flame and rubble below me. I would have died from my injuries, burned to death or died on impact. They risked their lives to save mine.
Probably 70 or 80 percent of our team came back with what we call kennel cough. It’s a dry cough, comes up every two or three months, lasts three or four days. I’ve had pulmonary function tests, I’ve had lung X-rays, nobody knows the cause. The primary cause of death for people who worked at the pile has been respiratory related. So we’re all wondering.
For me, the lesson of 9/11 is, as prepared as we were, we weren’t prepared. Our national psyche, we weren’t prepared. It always happened to somebody else. The last major attack here was Oklahoma City and that was homegrown. I think it made us realize how dangerous the world really is and how fanatic the other side is. I don’t know that we understood that before.
I think for a brief moment, like Pearl Harbor did, like Oklahoma City did, it brought us together as a country. There weren’t political parties. We realized we were truly Americans. I wish that moment was still here today. I really do. I see the divisions that have happened. Whether I disagree with what the president has to say, he’s still my president. I wish that civility was still here.
Brian Kidwell, 55, is a San Diego city firefighter. When the twin towers fell, he was a volunteer with an urban search and rescue team from San Diego County, one of 28 in the nation. California Task Force 8 spent 13 days combing what came to be known as “the pile.”

Story was written by: John Wilkins of the Union Trib

HOPE RISING EVENT IN SANDY UTAH

September 8-13, 2011

10000 South Centennial Parkway Sandy City, Utah

COME AND JOIN US FOR THIS GREAT EVENT!

 BRAVEHAVEN MEDIA 

WILL BE AT THE FIELDS ON WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 7 & 10, 2011

WE WILL BE CONDUCTING INTERVIEWS AND ENJOYING THE ATMOSPHERE OF 

PATRIOTISM, REMEMBRANCE AND HONOR.

COME AND LOOK FOR US, SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS.