“It’s enough to break the bravest of the brave.”
Twenty years later, these first responders still carry invisible scars from 9/11: PTSD.
Twenty years later, these first responders still carry invisible scars from 9/11: PTSD.
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00:00People look at us as the heroes and we look at ourselves as, you know, being brave and strong and, you know, all these words that mean, like, we're not supposed to hurt.
00:10I am always about two seconds away from crying because I'm full.
00:17I was sick, actually, and I was going to tap out and go home sick the night before.
00:30And my mentor, you know, a good friend of mine in the firehouse named Brian McAleese convinced me to stay.
00:38He goes, don't tap out. And I said, I'll stay. You know, why don't we switch positions?
00:45We were about 20 feet from the door of going back into the South Tower when it collapsed.
00:50We were right on the sidewalk. And we knew it because the sound of the steel cracking was so loud that it reverberated through the canyons of lower Manhattan.
01:03So we ended up switching. And that decision saved my life and it cost Brian his because he ended up being on the back step and he went into the buildings.
01:15And I ended up driving and surviving both collapses. So I carry that guilt with me pretty much for the past 20 years.
01:24I found a vertical column. I wrapped my arms around it and I held on as tight as I could as the Marriott Hotel and the South Tower collapsed on top of me.
01:37The wind was so strong that it blew my helmet off my head. My legs were up in the air. You couldn't breathe because of the thick dust.
01:46You couldn't see. And I remember thinking how unfair I thought it was that I wouldn't be able to hold my family one more time and tell them I love them.
01:57And then as fast as it started, it stopped.
02:00So once like the dust settled down, we knew that, you know, that those seven guys were missing. Most likely, most likely had died.
02:07Yes, it was. It was very, very. It was a very heavy time, you know, because you were spending pretty much all your free time going down to the site and helping dig and helping search and trying to do whatever cleanup you could.
02:21And then at the same time, you would come back here to the firehouse and wash up and you would actually have to work your regular shift.
02:37I will tell you going to five funerals and wakes day after day after day and even maybe worse than that, choosing which of your friends you're not able to attend because there are too many others.
02:55While your friends are still in the rubble missing. It's enough to break the bravest of the brave emotionally, mentally.
03:14It wasn't a lot of people that I would ever show that side of me to that the days where I could hardly get out of bed or, you know, when I was drinking too much or disappearing for three days at a time.
03:25I've come to learn these are, you know, some things that happen with someone who's suffering from PTSD. I was searching for chaos while also simultaneously searching for more armor to put on myself to prevent myself from ever having to look inside.
03:43We all pushed through for like that first year. You know, we did what was necessary to kind of keep the firehouse going and to, you know, do what we could for the family and stuff like that.
03:52But then once that first first anniversary came up, so 9-11-2002, that was kind of like the breaking point for I know for myself and for a lot of us, it was at that point that I was just like, I need a break.
04:05I've learned how to push through it and to understand it and to accept it. You know, it's just, look, I got hurt bad, man. And it's okay to cry about that, right?
04:28But I also am a very happy person. I still have PTSD. You know, I know I do. I will have it forever. It's just I've maybe learned how to manage it.
04:41You know, in every aspect of my life is I call it like from post-traumatic stress to post-traumatic strength. That has been my mission.
05:04I like to speak out on PTSD now because I wish that there had been people who I would recognize, people like me that I could see that would stand up and say, hey, it's okay. I told the story of who I thought I was supposed to be in my life and it was supposed to be this tough, strong guy.
05:24But I realize now that, you know, the strongest thing I've ever done is admit that I was weak. And when I made that admission to myself and now to the world, it's given me the inner strength that I thought I always had for other reasons.
05:40I would say to people who are suffering with PTSD or other mental and emotional problems, just see if you can get by every day. One more day, one more day, one more day, one more week, one more month. And then you can't predict what's coming into your life. You can't predict who's coming into your life.
06:04Myself as a senior lieutenant on the job, and I have a lot of young guys under my care and my charge, to let them know that it's okay, that there's a lot of our job that is not easy to deal with and it's okay to not be okay with it.
06:25I miss my friends every day, but I hope that they're living vicariously through me right now.
06:46Even with all this pain, I still feel like the luckiest man in the world.
06:51If you had a broken leg, you'd go get it set, right? And mental illness and mental injury, kind of in our society, we kind of feel like it's not something we like to talk about, but I'm here to tell you that maybe it is something that we should talk about.