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May 22, 2002 - Art Bell
02:51:38
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Richard Picciotto - World Trade Center Attacks
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Welcome to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from May 22nd, 2002.
From the high desert in the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening, good morning, good afternoon in whatever time zone you may be residing in at the moment.
I'm Art Bell and this is Coast to Coast AM and I'll tell you, we have had a year Uh, my family has really had a year.
And I come to you, uh, this night with one hour of sleep since, uh, actually, uh, since, since you last heard me.
And, uh, then, of course, all the time before that.
So, I haven't been to sleep in a long time.
Uh, maybe one hour of sort of sleep.
Almost sleep.
Here's what happened, uh, during the program last night.
As you know, taking back, you may recall, I had this really horrible, mysterious fever that they still have no idea, really, frankly, what it was.
They don't know.
It came, it ravaged for two weeks on end, and then it went.
Now, about eight days into this odyssey of having this incredible fever, My wife caught the fever, too, which to me suddenly said, it's not the darkest things, you know, the doctors might think it might be.
It's not that.
It's a virus of some kind.
Still, they have no clue, you know, it just brought a fever, nothing else.
Well, my wife got it eight days in.
She still has it.
And during the program last night, she began to have an asthma attack.
She has a real serious asthma.
And it went on during the program last night, and then when I got off the air, it really took a turn south, and she couldn't breathe.
And so we immediately began what we do when she has asthma, and we gave her theopilin, which is a drug she takes for asthma.
Of course, the rescue inhaler.
She also takes Pregnizone when it's really bad.
And so we started on all of that right away.
And it went on and on and on all night and all day.
And at one point last night, she started turning color, started turning blue.
And we were rushing to call the ambulance.
But here in Pahrump, Nevada, we don't have a hospital.
So if you call an ambulance, All they can do is take you to Las Vegas, which is about an hour away, 40 minutes maybe, in a speeding ambulance, I don't know.
No, more like an hour, to the hospitals.
And so we were that close, you know, and we just did all kinds of things to try to get her air.
And it began breaking just a hair, enough so that I didn't pick up the phone and call the ambulance.
And I just gave her massage after massage after massage for, you know, muscles that were contracted and really sore and bad.
And then this morning I began a trek to get her oxygen and I did.
I got her some oxygen and that's helped a lot today too.
Uh, so, uh, some of the drugs are taking hold and, uh, and the oxygen definitely helped.
And so she's better tonight.
But boy, I'll tell you something, folks.
It was really close.
It was really, really damn close.
Uh, you, you, you spend time with the ones you love.
Because our time here is, uh, is all coin toss and a dice throw and all the rest of that baloney.
Scary stuff.
Really scary stuff.
So I'm here with you tonight with about an hour's sleep.
In a moment, we'll look at what happened in the world today.
Some pretty interesting stuff, actually.
In the next hour, we're going to hear from a New York Fire Department battalion commander, Richard Pagiotto.
And Richard, Richard was in the World Trade Center when it collapsed.
He was in it when it collapsed.
When it came down.
And it's some story.
You're going to hear it's really some story.
As we live with the continued threat of just about everybody for everything and every mass kind of killing that one can imagine hanging over our heads.
But that was yesterday's speech.
In a moment, we'll look at what's going on tonight.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from May 22nd, 2002.
By the way, you will not see an updated photograph of me on the website tonight because I look like hell.
Unshaven, unkempt.
Unwashed, and having come through quite a battle, I'll tell you.
All right, what's going on in the world?
Well, this is incredible.
Bones found in a Washington park today are, we now know, the remains of Chandra Levy, the federal intern who disappeared about a year ago, right?
Police announced all this today.
The police chief said the identification was made through dental records.
This is incredible.
Levy's disappearance riveted the nation for months, contributed to the political demise of her hometown congressman, Representative Gary Condit.
Discovery of her remains did not end the mystery of her death.
Ramsey said the manner and cause were still unknown.
The remains, get this now, this is what gets me and I don't understand.
The remains were discovered in Washington's Rock Creek Park.
By a man walking a dog.
Now, those of you who follow the predictions, uh, correction, the, uh, the seeings of Major Ed Dames may say, well, then he was wrong, and he may be.
It's not where he said they'd be.
But there's a couple things about, and he may, so he may be wrong, but there's a couple things about this that don't make sense to me.
Go back with me a little bit, if you will, and remember the whole Chandra Levy thing.
Didn't they have like hundreds, if not thousands, of police and volunteers and dogs going through these parks?
You know, dogs that are trained to go for, um, by human bodies.
They can find them.
And didn't they comb park after park again and again and again and again?
And then some guy walking a dog finds her, you know, remains that have to be identified.
They're so far gone by dental records.
I tell you, something's wrong here.
Probably.
I guess it could be, you know, that they all could have missed this body, this decaying body.
They could have missed it, but it doesn't seem logical to me.
Maybe, maybe, you know, maybe it's the way it happened.
I don't know.
After a Senate panel voted to issue subpoenas today, the White House turned over summaries of dozens of contacts between Bush administration officials and Enron execs.
No instance has yet been found of any Enron person asking anybody in the White House for help before Enron's bankruptcy last December.
So this story is going to be with us for a very long time, this Enron story.
It's what I told you when I first read it.
No, they're suicide bom- oh, excuse me.
Really, uh, they're not suicide bombings, are they?
They're murders.
There's a suicide mob, but they're really homicide bombings, and that's the proper name for them.
Another one in, uh, Israel.
He blew himself up in the central Israeli city of Rishon.
Is it R-I-S-H-O-N?
Late Wednesday night, killing two other people, wounding 27.
It'll probably never stop, huh?
The death toll from a heat wave that has gripped southeastern India, brace yourself, rose to 1,030 Wednesday.
As reports trickled in from remote rural villages, most of the dead were older people, unable to bear temperatures that were topping 122 degrees.
It's the highest one-week death count on record for any Indian heat wave ever.
Said one official, there seems to be no end to our suffering.
Our weather, of course, is changing.
We'll have more stories like this.
Here's an interesting story.
L.A.
voters to decide on secession?
A panel voted 8-1 Wednesday to allow Los Angeles voters to decide whether the sprawling San Fernando Valley, home to 1.3 million people, should be allowed to leave the nation's second largest city.
The decision puts a measure on the ballot.
But the whole thing's probably going to get challenged in court, nevertheless.
That whole San Fernando Valley area would like to simply secede from Los Angeles.
Leave.
I wonder how it would be different if they did that.
Yet another new iceberg has broken away from the Antarctic.
According to the National Ice Center, this berg named D-17 broke off Uh, the Lazarus Ice Shelf, a large sheet of glacial ice and snow extending from the Antarctic mainland into the southeastern Weddell Sea.
The new iceberg is 34.5 miles long and 6.9 miles wide, about the same size as St.
Lucia Island in the Caribbean.
Icebergs are named for the quadrant of Antarctica where they appear.
D-17 is the 17th berg reported since record keeping began in 1976.
You know, that's interesting.
We didn't even begin keeping records of all this until 1976.
Just last week, an iceberg nearly as large as the Chesapeake Bay, called C-19, broke away from the Antarctic.
In March, another giant berg broke free in an adjacent area named B-22.
It measured 2,120 square miles.
Oh, my!
That's bigger than the state of Delaware.
So they continue to break away in the Antarctic.
By the way, I should note, and this goes back about a week or so, but the day following Stan Dale's appearance on the program, you may recall he said, There was a heat bloom that had appeared over Japan.
Actually, two.
One in the Antarctic, as a matter of fact, and the other over Japan.
And the one in Japan, he suggested, was about to cause an earthquake.
Very quickly.
And I had the news the next day.
But, you know, it's been so busy that I haven't had time to get it on the air.
Well, there was.
A moderately strong earthquake which hit eastern Japan Sunday morning.
When was the prediction made?
I think that was Friday night, wasn't it?
So the earthquake occurred Sunday morning.
It was 4.7 and about 50 miles below the ground in the northwest, about 18 miles actually, north of Tokyo.
So looks like Stan hit that one right on the head.
There's a picture, if you can find it on the web, I really should have sent the link ahead to Keith, of the first meteorite that scientists believe may have come from Mercury.
NWA 011 found in the Sahara in December of 1999 was immediately regarded as something unusual.
It clearly had molten A very molten past and was formed from lighter materials than most meteorites.
This implies that it once been part of a much larger body.
It was originally classified with a group of meteorites thought to be from an asteroid.
But, look at this, a detailed analysis showed it to be different.
Now researchers believe that it is the first known Meteorite from our solar system's innermost planet, Mercury.
Rocks blasted off Mercury by a large impactor would have a difficult journey to reach the Earth, say the researchers, but not impossible.
Nevertheless, calculations show such rocks would be extremely rare to find here on Earth.
NWA 011 has an oxygen isotope ratio that indicates it came from a body much larger than a big asteroid.
Japanese researchers say the basalt in NWA 011 suggests the body from which it did originate had a core of molten iron with an outer covering of silicon and aluminum that formed a basaltic crust.
And that means a planet-sized body.
It could be Mercury.
So, There you have it.
Let's move into open lines for what time we have between now and the top of the hour, and see what's going on out there.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Good morning.
Hi.
Hi.
How are you?
I'm, well, you heard.
Yes.
There's been a story on Bill O'Reilly the last couple nights about the Mexican Army crossing into the United States and shooting at our Border Patrol, and I wondered if anybody else had heard anything about this.
Oh, really?
Crossing into the U.S.?
Now, I've heard of the Mexicans firing across the border.
We've had a lot of disputes and controversy about that, but I haven't heard of them actually coming onto U.S.
territory.
That would be a new one.
Yeah, he had an official, and I'm sorry I don't have his name, but he had an official from the Border Patrol that he interviewed this evening, and this man said that on three different occasions in the last, ooh, I can't remember, three years, I think.
Don't quote me on that.
But the most recent one was this past Friday.
And if I remember correctly, the Indian reservation down there had called the Border Patrol because these people were encroaching on them.
And Border Patrol went down there and they actually shot at the officer that was there, shot the back window out of his vehicle.
And he was leaving.
Once he started shooting, he was getting out of there.
I haven't read anything about it, heard anything about it.
Nor have I until just now.
The night before he talked to a congressman from Colorado and he was outraged that this had not hit the press.
Well, I wonder if it's true.
Well, the congressman was pretty adamant.
I think he had the information necessary and this man this evening from the Border Patrol... Anything about the motivation of why?
They are speculating that it's because, you know, they're protecting the drug runners down there.
Yeah, well, anything is possible.
They certainly have enlisted the help of the Mexican Army in the past.
There's no question about it.
You know, corruption is pretty vast in Mexico.
I mean, that's the way that business is done down there.
And throughout several other countries, I might add, south of our border.
That's the way business is done, so it could be that.
But that would be, if true, extremely... Just one more thing we need to worry about, right?
Along with everything else that we've got going right now, we need to begin worrying about our... Well, you know what?
We need to worry about our border anyway.
Our borders.
And we've got an awful lot of miles of borders.
My God, there's a lot of borders.
And they didn't find Chandra Levy until just today.
I just, I can't believe that.
Again, I don't know how many of you are with me on this, but Good Lord, they searched those parks again and again and again.
They went over them with a fine-tooth comb and dogs and people and hundreds of people searching.
And then a guy walking a dog finds the body just about completely decomposed.
I... I don't know.
Maybe that's just the way it happened.
Amazing things do occur.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Good morning.
Art Bell.
No, I didn't catch that part.
It was also on Bill O'Reilly today.
One other thing I was going to ask you about.
uh... is absolutely true is on the news today i live in tucson did you hear
anything about the motivation of why and i know i didn't catch that part uh... it
was also on uh... bill o'reilly today uh... one of the thing i was going to ask you about i
thought you lived somewhere around searchlight
No, okay.
Get out a map and look for Pahrump, Nevada.
Okay, because I just a few days ago drove through Searchlight.
I was going to say, Laughlin's got a hospital closer than Vegas.
Well, yes, if you were in Searchlight.
Right.
But I'm not.
I don't know why I thought you were in Searchlight area.
No.
Check a map.
We're about 65 miles west of Las Vegas.
Closer to Death Valley, actually.
Gotcha.
Okay.
We, we, uh, instead of driving back through, um, we drove over a huge Hoover Dam on the way back to Lapland on our vacation.
Yeah, that's an interesting drive, isn't it?
That's an interesting road.
Yeah, that's definitely interesting.
There's no doubt about that.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right, sir.
Thank you very much for the call.
Have a good morning.
It is, uh, as a matter of fact, because of the terrorism at various times, they've had that road closed.
But it is a very interesting drive.
When it's open, it's a windy, curvy, wild road.
And in the old days, it would have been a really fun road to take with a sports car, you know, at a good speed.
But of course, we don't do that kind of thing anymore, right?
From the high desert, I'm Art Bell.
Open lines next half hour, and then a most incredible story.
Most incredible story maybe in the world.
Coming up, I'm Art Bell.
The trip back in time continues with Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM.
more somewhere in time coming up.
I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you.
I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you
I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you.
No, I don't want to fall in love.
No, I don't wanna fall in love No, I don't wanna fall in love
I don't want to fall in love.
With you Where would I be without my woman?
Lonely days, lonely nights Where would I be without my woman?
www.LRCgenerator.com Good morning Mr. Sunshine, you must have heard
Now, we take you back to the past, on Art Bell Somewhere in Time.
Boy, those are true words they're singing.
Where would I be without my woman?
Good morning, everybody.
Oh, by the way, um, I never got to see whether our friend took the header off the building.
Uh, I later understood, uh, people calling last night saying, you know, uh, He's going to jump off a building, and I said, well, then he's going to squish.
And it turns out he's going to jump into cardboard boxes or something from about 20 stories up or more.
And I didn't get to see it, and I wonder if it came out all right.
I presume it did, or it would have been a news story indeed.
More in a moment.
and open lines through the top of the hour.
You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from May 22nd, 2002.
I wonder where they find guys who can talk that fast.
All right, well, anyway, here we go.
A couple of items that have been computer blasted to me here.
John Boyan, Muscle Shoals Alabama says, heard about the border dispute today with Mexico.
If we can't keep Mexican military generals who are corrupt from firing on border patrol, how secure are our borders to terrorists?
Well, John boy, you've answered your own question.
They're not.
We have so many miles of border with Mexico and with Canada that the answer to your question is obvious.
They're not secure.
And I'm not going to run over the whole thing I did last night, but as far as I'm concerned, and I've thought this through pretty carefully, one more big terrorist incident, and there's only one way to handle it.
And that's to meet force with force.
You meet force with force.
If you have people arriving at your borders with murderous intent, and that's what we've got, then you act.
You act.
And what I'm referring to is the use of nuclear weapons.
You don't screw around.
You just don't screw around.
This can't be our future.
Suicide bombers, buildings collapsing because airplanes are flown into them, all the rest, you know, poison chemicals, all the rest of it.
It can't be our future.
That's no sort of future for us and for our children.
So, sometimes you've just got to do what you've got to do and the Bacaw Valley uh... in southern lebanon uh... perhaps the pakistan-afghan border area where we know there's a lot of rats uh... certainly iraq where they're building things to destroy us by the millions kaboom nuclear devices going off that's what i see that's the way i see it getting settled and i and i took uh... you should've seen some of the messages i got today you can imagine
But I say, this is it.
We don't screw around with them, and we don't face... I don't want to face a lifetime of terror for myself and my children and their children.
Growing worse, more dire all the time, mass destruction of people in cities.
Uh-uh.
No, sir.
We have the power.
We have not used it since the Second World War.
We know what it means.
We know how horrible it is.
And still, having thought that out, and knowing all of that, and knowing how it might disturb the world, the sensibilities of the world, that we would do such a thing, I say that's our only answer.
That's what it's going to come to.
And I hope before a lot more people die.
On the first time caller line, you're on the air.
Hello.
That's a hard topic to follow, Art.
This is Grant calling from Largo, Florida, listening on 970 WFLA.
Of course, what a monster.
It's become a monster.
I've seen it start and become so.
What I'm calling about is an idea I have about the storage of information in our brain.
I have attempted to fast blast you, but I got some cookie notice.
I'm not sure if they went through or not, but... Well, when you get a cookie notice, that means you're trying to do it too quickly.
You've got to wait, like, I forget what it says, every half hour or whatever.
Oh, okay.
Well, um, here's my thought.
Instead of the brain being used to store all our information and operating system RAM and hard drives, how about if the brain is just the RAM and the operating system and the hard drive is remote somewhere and we're communicating with it constantly inter-dimensionally or inter-dimensionally.
Well, then that would mean it would have the capability of producing essentially the matrix.
Well, you know, in other words, it could be broadcast to all of us, our environment, everything could really be from, you know, the master hard drive.
You know, that's a possibility, but I was going a different way.
Moreover, whoever is up there in charge of the hard drive, they may be getting really fed up with what's going on down here, and they may be reaching for the reset button right now.
Well, that's the point.
I call it a psychic modem and I think that the idea that we are all inputting to this big thing.
I do believe that the people are unique and that everybody is inputting to this and then unfortunately what's going in, you know, garbage in, garbage out.
And, uh, just a thought, and I do have a personal website I'd like you to see.
I certainly won't mention it, but, uh... Right, no, just, uh, email it to me.
That'll be sufficient, and I'll certainly go take a look.
As you well know, we don't give out URLs on the air.
Yeah, well, you know, if it's a hard drive up there, then maybe they're just getting close to the format command.
You know, they've already got it printed out.
And the, uh, what we'll call the creator's hand is reaching over for the enter button.
That's all we'll say, enter.
And then our hard drive is, uh, the holodeck becomes empty.
Wildcard line, you're on the air.
Hello?
Hi Art, this is Rick.
I'm calling from the jewel of the southern San Joaquin Valley, Bakersfield, California.
Yes, sir.
We're listening on the KNZR 1560 News Radio.
Of course.
And I had a couple quick comments here.
One on the problems with the Mexican border.
Yes.
What I heard on the radio earlier today was that they have documented 117 incidents like this in the past 10 years.
Well, I know there have been many in which, you know, they fired across the border.
Not actually... It makes a difference.
Yeah.
However, they also said it's been a priority of the Clinton administration and also the Bush administration to suppress this.
They don't want it to blow up and be something negative in public opinion.
So it has been going on today.
It was a Humvee and it was Mexican Army, but a lot of these incidents have involved Mexican Federal Police as well.
So they speculated, of course, it's either drugs or people being smuggled, and they're giving them protection across the border.
Yeah, well, they're probably right.
It's one of the two.
Those are the two big businesses that go across the border, right?
Yeah.
People and drugs.
That's what goes across the border.
And I had another question.
How would I find out where I can get you guys when there's a Dodger game on?
Because this station, the Dodgers preempt everybody.
I guess that's part of their contract.
It is.
It is part of their contract.
The station here replays the first couple hours of the show after the show ends, so I can usually get the... You're perhaps answering your own question.
That may be the other way.
And then, of course, you can also go and get a CC radio.
And you can attempt to pluck a station from thousands of miles away, which you'll find you can easily do.
So those are the ways you can go.
Now I know the Dodger.
Boy, I can remember When I used to work at KDWN in Las Vegas, now our affiliate in Las Vegas, the Dodgers would occasionally have a game from hell.
That's what I would call it anyway, because I would always be depending on coming on and, you know, when the Dodgers would push, why I would push.
And they played a 22-inning game.
22 innings!
Now, they would do this, seemed to me, about twice a year.
They'd get into some really incredible game.
22 innings.
And I forget when I finally got on the air, but it was probably around 2 o'clock in the morning, something like that, Pacific Time.
Oh, they can play.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hello.
Uh, hello?
Hello.
Hi, uh, uh, first of all, um, I hope, uh, your, your wife and, uh, your soulmate is on the mend.
A little better tonight.
Good.
I thank God.
Thank you.
And, and I have one the same.
Um, she's my sweetheart.
Anyway, uh, I wanted to tell you, or talk to you about, uh, I used to have a dream as a kid that somehow I was in a khaki uniform.
I could only see through my eyes, right?
I couldn't see myself, but I could see my hands and everything.
I figured that it was sometime during the Pacific War, World War II.
I used to tell my dad who had fought in Europe about things that he went, how the hell do you know that?
I said, well, I don't know.
Well, anyway, as time went by, my mother died and my mother was adamant that I not go overseas being sole surviving son.
Well, after she died, my father signed the papers.
I went over with the 5th of 46, hooked up with the Americal Division in 1968-69 and was on a place Up by Quang Ninh, Quang Tinh Province, and we got overran.
No war stories, but there were only 14 of us, but during the height of everything, I heard my mother's voice as clear as a bell, and that's why I wanted to mention this, about if there are spirits.
I heard her voice clear as a bell saying, you're going to be alright, go this way, and I did.
Out of 14, I was one of four of them that was able to walk off the hill.
That's a war story.
I've never, ever heard her voice again.
Never.
It's often wonderful to know why.
Just one thing.
At the time that it happened, was there any question at all, any question in your mind
even instantly, did I just really hear my mother or did I produce that in my mind?
Well, you know, I've thought about that time and time again, and no, it was my mother's voice.
She was from England originally, and it was her voice just as clear as Isabella, and I didn't know which way to go.
Well.
And she said, go this way.
All right, well then you add to the evidence then.
I don't know what to tell you.
It really, really seems to appear.
You see, there's a really good example of a contemporary event.
You know, a lot of times we argue about whether ghosts or spirits or those who are departed who in some way communicate with us.
Are just endless tape loops or whether they're really conscious spirits that at some stressful incredible moment like that get through to tell us what to do?
Or could it have been inside his own brain?
He certainly didn't think so, did he?
So there must be a hereafter and there must be a continued consciousness that adds to that evidence.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air, hello.
Hello?
Hello.
Yes, ma'am, hi.
Oh, yes.
Listen, when will Ed Dames be on again?
As a matter of fact, you know, it's like within the next couple of weeks.
I know he's coming on.
Well, one more thing I wanted to ask you.
I've been wanting to find this out for some time.
You play a song on your program every now and then, and it starts out with, Ooga, Ooga, Ooga, let's have another cup of wine.
Do you know the name of it?
Uh, I should.
Um, I don't, I don't think you've quite got the words in sequence.
Well, no, it starts with Ooga, Ooga, Ooga.
That's how it starts out.
Is it Ooga Chaka, Ooga Chaka, Ooga Chaka?
Something like that.
Ooga Chaka, well then I know what it is.
Uh huh.
Uh, so I'll dredge it out and, uh, And play it for you before the night ends.
How's that?
Okay.
And I wanted to tell you too, I hope you and your wife have better health.
Well, thank you.
It's been quite a year, huh?
It certainly has.
Let God put his foot down and say, boom!
Okay, sir.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Oh, wait.
One more thing.
You were asking about Ed Dames?
Yes.
With respect to the Chandra Levy?
Yes.
I want to ask you a question.
Do you find it at all odd?
That her remains... Yes, I do.
I just somehow feel that... You know, he said that her body was thrown in the Potomac River.
Yes, of course.
But what I'm recalling, ma'am, is that they searched every square inch of those parks, like, again and again and again.
I saw armies of people and dogs.
How could they have missed it?
Well, the only thing is, unless someone Had her there before when they found out that they were searching.
They took her body out and brought her back in again after they figured they weren't going to look in there anymore.
Well, anything in the world is possible.
Thank you very much.
Who knows?
Maybe the body was, maybe the remains were moved.
Maybe.
Because I just, I find it so hard to believe that they could have missed it.
I mean, I remember watching every single day on the news Just bands and bands of people, you know, arm's length from each other searching these parks with dogs that, you know, are trained to find human remains.
They really are.
And they're very, very good at it.
And there's just something wrong with this story.
First time caller line, you're on the air.
Good morning.
Well, good morning, Art.
I'm glad to get you here.
Great, sir.
Turn your radio off, please.
I just did.
Okay, good.
Well, you're obviously on the road someplace.
Okay, well, I just pulled up to the side of the road, but in fact, perfect timing.
I, um, just listened to the first FM broadcast, and it sounds perfect.
I love it.
Usually I listen to AM all over the place.
Where are you roughly?
Okay, I'm just right outside of Gainesville, Florida, on I-75 right now, but I live in Bright, Colorado.
Well, we have quite a few, uh, actually, FM affiliates across the country.
You'll run into them every now and then.
More and more FM stations are deciding that people like talk much better at night.
Absolutely.
Well, you've been my second seat here for a long, long time, for many years.
Anyway, what's up beyond that?
I was listening to you yesterday, probably yesterday, and you were talking about striking back with a nuclear strike.
Well, you know, that's very interesting.
I feel much the same way.
For terrorists, like the strikers, You know, the alternative, sir, and I've said it and let me say it again, is that us and our children and their children will face increasing terror, they'll face increasing losses of their freedom as we try and deal with it by clamping down and getting to be a police state.
Believe me, they'll erode the Bill of Rights, all kinds of horrible things will happen, including what the terrorists do to us and more.
Well, we have to be feared.
No one fears the United States anymore.
We have power, but it seems like the politicians are afraid to use it.
I agree with you.
I mean, there are not many instances in which I would, but in this instance, if we are hit again, we should use our own weapons of mass destruction.
And we shouldn't use them on cities.
We don't need to do that.
I think make a really good demonstration in basically unpopulated areas, at least by innocent civilians.
There are always going to be some killed, but basically there are areas in, for example, southern Lebanon that can be targeted, the Pakistani-Afghan border that can definitely be targeted, and certainly in Iraq.
In all those areas, we could use nuclear weapons, I believe.
Absolutely.
By the way, how does my evil phone sound right now?
Well, it's a little evil.
What happened is, they took this giant step backward.
Cell phones actually used to sound better when they were analog.
When they went digital, then people started to sound like they were underwater.
The cell phone company sold us a bill of goods that it's so much better.
Mine does both.
Mine does both, the analog and the digital.
Yeah, but the nation is like 80% digital now, so it's mostly going to go digital.
Okay, one more thing before I go.
Yes.
I subscribed to your newsletter about a month ago, and I haven't received it yet.
I really, really want to see it.
I bought it actually for a present for my wife for Mother's Day.
Well, it'll certainly be on the way.
We've had very, very good luck.
Sometimes it does take a while to process, but I guarantee you will certainly begin to get it, and you'll get the back issues, too.
Great!
Well, I'm glad to get it anyway.
Well, I will get it anyway.
Yeah, it's on the way, trust me.
We've had very, very few cases of any problems out there.
Okay, I'm eagerly waiting for it, and I'll let you go.
And keep up the good work, and you're like a constant company every night.
I love it.
Thank you, and take care.
Have a safe time on the road.
Wildcard Line, you're on the air without a lot of time here at the top of the hour.
Hello.
Hey, uh... Turn your radio off, please.
Excuse me?
Turn your radio off, please.
Oh, didn't know my new headset was working so good.
Anyway, I'm sorry to hear about your wife.
One thing before my question, that a lot of things that trigger asthmatic things are stress.
I think the news of what's been going on probably might have stressed her out, maybe triggered that too.
No, that could be.
But likely, sir, she was suffering a fever, you know, 100, 100 and a half, 102, in that range.
So that's very likely the trigger.
Very likely.
Listen, I've got a scoot.
Okay, one thing, the email, the Chinese are going to a manned mission to the moon before 2005.
I sent you an email on it.
Yeah, I heard.
They're looking at that and they're even looking at Mars.
And what are we doing?
We're pretty much in low Earth orbit.
Sad, huh?
Maybe we'll Get some cojones and aim toward the stars one of these days soon.
I'm Art Bell.
What a story coming up.
You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from May 22nd, 2002.
Welcome back to another episode of Coast to Coast.
Today we're going to be talking about the first ever real-world earthquake.
This earthquake was recorded on May 22nd, 2002.
It was recorded on May 22nd, 2002.
This earthquake was recorded on May 22nd, 2002.
You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from May 22nd, 2002.
Well, the events of 9-11 are ingrained as heavily in the American mind as anything for this entire generation will likely be.
Although you've got to wonder what's ahead.
Still and all, these events To our children and our grandchildren will be seen on videos and probably 3D vision or whatever they have by then, you know these these events were Well, they changed everything they changed our nation they changed us probably forever Big event coming up in a moment is a man Richard Picciotto New York Fire Department Battalion Commander
Actually, he was the highest-ranking firefighter to survive the collapse of the World Trade Center.
Pitch, he's called, I guess, is a 28-year veteran of the New York City Fire Department.
For the past nine years, he's presided over Fire Department New York's Battalion 11.
Covers Manhattan's Upper West Side.
In 1993, as a battalion commander assigned to Lower Manhattan, He was the second chief on the scene immediately following the first attack on the World Trade Center, coordinating operations and rescue efforts in the North Tower.
It was there, under those front-line circumstances, that he became keenly aware, with the building's entire layout, the substructure of the World Trade Center complex, and insight That indeed served him very well on September 11th, 2001.
It's an amazing, amazing story.
You're about here.
You're listening to Art Bell, somewhere in time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from May 22nd, 2002.
Richard, it is an honor to have you on the show.
Would you like to be called Pitch?
Is that better?
Pitch is good.
Rich, Chief, whatever you're comfortable with.
Well, I don't know.
Let's see as we go.
First of all, it is an absolute honor to have you on the program.
I really mean that.
It's such an honor to have you on the program.
Thank you for having me.
Are you still active or are you retired now?
I'm what's called light duty.
I'm probably going to retire in a few months.
I burnt my eyes.
They're better, but I tore my rotator cuff on September 11th, also my shoulder.
They're looking to operate on my shoulder.
I don't know if, because of 29 years and 51 years old, I don't know if they'll let me come back after something like that.
You're 51 now?
29 years with the fire department.
29 years, right.
Wow.
Well, you know what?
Sounds to me like you've got a really good retirement ahead of you.
Maybe an operation and a little bit of baloney, but then you've got a lot of years ahead of you.
Oh yeah, I'm planning to enjoy it.
I'm planning to enjoy the rest of my life.
I have a new perspective on things and that's what I want to do.
I bet the whole thing did give you a totally new perspective, didn't it?
It sure has.
Well, we'll talk more about that.
You were in, actually, you were involved in, in what way, in the first attack on the World Trade Center, you know, the explosion?
Right, in 1993.
I was one of the first on the scene in 93.
I was a newly promoted chief back in 93, and I was stationed down in Lowell, Manhattan.
When I got there, there were just I think two of the units on the scene.
We got there in the initial stages, and the bomb that went off actually went off in the hotel that was attached to the World Trade Center.
But a lot of the blasts blasted through five floors and went into the lobby of the hotel, which is right next to the World Trade Center.
It was a lobby that was open, and the smoke was cascading through the The lobby and also through the elevator bags.
Were they trying without explosions to knock that building down?
Definitely.
Definitely.
Why did it not come down?
Explosion just wasn't big enough.
It was a big explosion.
Which, like I said, destroyed five of the floors.
But it wasn't big enough because the World Trade Center is a huge complex.
It wasn't big enough to bring it down at that time.
That's amazing in itself.
It really is.
Was it not?
It's simply a matter of size.
If it had been bigger and still in the same place, or could it have been more strategically placed and have brought the building down?
I think if it was bigger or more than one, the possibility would have been there.
So, after all of that, and I guess you were what, in on the investigation of the whole thing?
What did you do in 93?
Well, that 93, when I got there, which was different from this time, smoke enveloped the whole building because the bomb went off in the sub-basement, smoke filled the whole North Tower.
So, the evacuation was, it took a lot longer.
People were panicking a little bit more because almost everyone that was coming down had to come through the smoke this time.
On the North Tower, the plane hit on the 93rd floor, and anyone below that came down in relatively clean air.
And they were able to proceed much faster because they weren't coming down in the smoke.
You know, the estimates of the number of people who were in the World Trade Centers when this all happened...
was really high.
I mean, I think I remember 50,000 or more, they said at first.
Do you have any idea how many people on September 11th really were in those buildings?
Does anybody know?
I really don't think anyone knows.
You know, the security system is You know, they don't track each individual person.
They just track, you know, people coming in and make sure they have security going in.
And that's after September 11th.
So there'd just be like maybe an average for that kind of thing?
Right.
It was early in the morning.
The estimates I heard were anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 people were in the building.
It could be up to 50,000 during the peak when more people are coming in.
This, you know, the first attack happened a little bit before nine o'clock, so some people were still on their way getting to work.
Where were you actually when the first plane hit?
When the first plane hit, I was in my, uh, in the fly house on the Upper West Side on 100th Street.
Did you, uh, you know, I, this is something to ask, uh, since you were involved in what happened in 93?
Did you expect... I mean, you must have known at that point they wanted that building.
They wanted to knock that building down.
So did you expect another attack?
I expected that there was going to be other attacks of terrorism in this country.
I don't know if I really expected that to be another attack on the World Trade Center.
That they would try again.
They would try again, especially not in the same fashion, because they closed the parking lots, the public parking lots.
What they did the last time was they just drove a panel truck filled with, you know, with a bomb, fertilizer, and they just parked it in the parking lot underneath the World Trade Center.
Um, that's been closed off.
You're not allowed to do that anymore.
There's no public parking in the Trade Center, so that, you know, after it was eliminated from the... Obviously, they had other ways of doing it, like they did, you know, I don't think anyone foresaw that, you know, hijacked planes would run into the Trade Center.
There's a big argument going on about that right now, actually.
But really, I sure didn't think about it, and I'm sure a lot of other people Didn't think about it, and obviously you weren't thinking that was going to happen.
No.
So, I heard, you know, some of the harrowing tape, there was tape made of fire department radio traffic on that day, and it circulated on the internet, and I heard it, and it was absolutely incredible.
So I suppose you were in that early radio traffic.
Yeah, yeah.
A couple of things happened.
We have a few different channels.
I don't know what tape you heard.
We have a few different channels.
I'm sure you do.
I heard it.
Well, the channel I was listening to included that poor lady who was screaming for help.
Okay, so that's something different again.
That's the phone conversations from the dispatcher.
Right.
Yeah, they haven't been released as far as I know.
I'm sure there are copies of certain ones out there.
Yeah, it's chilling.
There were people above, you know, on the five floors, stuck above in the immediate minutes after.
Smoke was coming up, heat was coming up, and they couldn't get down.
And they were, you know, doing what they were trying to do, calling 911 or the fire department and asking for help.
Do you think most people in the building even understood what had just happened?
No, probably not.
Probably not.
Uh, you know, they're in their office all of a sudden, their office shakes and immediately fills up with smoke.
Um, you know, they probably thought an explosion happened somewhere.
And then people on other floors, would they have thought, do you suppose, earthquake or bomb, you know, since one went off before, maybe they would have thought bomb?
Yeah, I think, uh, I think people in the World Trade Center were too into a bomb being there because of 93.
And then that's what happened to when the plane hit the North Tower.
People immediately in the South Tower started evacuating.
At one point they say, you know, which before I was out there, some building personnel told the people in the South Tower that it was okay to stay because the emergency was in the North Tower.
Do you know that to be a true story?
No, I don't.
I think it happened.
I don't know firsthand, because I didn't talk to anyone firsthand that heard that.
But from what I heard, most people ignored it.
And then when the Florida public got on the scene, we overruled it and told people just, you know, we issued an order to evacuate both towers.
How long did it take you to get to the scene from the first moment you heard?
It probably took me... I'm on 100th Street, and this is in Lowell, Manhattan.
So it's probably a good, you know, 12 to 15 miles.
Um, the streets were clear.
The cross traffic was clear.
The police had, uh, the streets clear.
You know, we're going down in lights and sirens.
Sure.
So it probably took me, uh, I don't know, around 10 minutes, give or take a few.
We were, we were, we were going down there real fast.
Was the radio traffic accurate?
In other words, um, Was radio traffic reflecting the fact that a plane had hit the building?
Was everybody clear on that at that point or was that like unknown still?
No, that was pretty clear right from the start because they had another chief, Joe Pfeiffer, who was there doing a training exercise.
He actually saw it.
He saw a fresh plane hit because the first plane came in so low.
Especially jets.
No plane flies over New York City that low.
No, of course.
Because it's a no-fly zone.
And when the plane flew that low and that fast, it made a lot of noise.
So people looked up to see what was going on.
You know, it was buzzing them.
And then they saw it.
He actually saw it go in.
So he gave a second alarm on arrival and then responded down there.
When the first plane hit, I guess you could perhaps imagine the plane was in distress and it was an accident?
Or did you immediately click into, no, no, no, we're being attacked?
I clicked into immediately that it was a deliberate act.
I was 99% sure that it was a terrorist act.
1% that it could have just been a stray Pressure to try to commit suicide, but I just knew it wasn't an accident.
I knew it was a deliberate act, and I was almost positive it was terror straight from the start.
By the way, how many men were in your command?
I have seven firehouses on the Upper West Side.
Each one of them has approximately six guys on duty at any given time, and approximately You know, 42, 45 people on duty.
Wow.
That's a lot of responsibility that were on duty at that moment.
Right.
And plus what happened was the change of shift.
So we had guys getting off duty too.
And when they saw it, they jumped on the fire trucks and went down too.
So we had a lot of off-duty guys that were just getting off, go down there.
Like one of my companies lost one of the guys that was just getting off duty and he went down anyway.
So the whole fire department that day, we lost 343 guys.
I believe approximately 70 of them were off duty.
My God.
Coming from home or just getting off duty and being in the firehouse.
You said you arrived pretty quickly because the police had the streets pretty much in order.
When you got there, what did it look like?
It was horrendous.
When I got there, both towers were in flames because the second plane had hit by that time.
Oh.
You know, a tremendous amount of smoke.
People were streaming from the buildings, and people were jumping from the upper floors.
You're a fireman, so your first, I would think, your first assessment when you arrive on a scene would be, you know, strategically, how do we go at this?
Correct.
I was thinking that as soon as I saw it.
You know, I saw it like most people on television when it first happened.
Television saw the first tower, and from that point on, I'm saying, what do we do if we're down there?
What do we actually do?
From the beginning, it was almost impossible to put out a fire of that magnitude in a high-rise building.
If a plane, if a jet like that crashed in the middle of a field, Next to a lake that we have an unlimited water supply, it would still be tough to put the fire out because the jet fuel burns very intense.
You know, you could surround and protect the exposures, but actually put the fire out would be a very daunting task.
Still, as you start to assess what to do, what did you decide?
What went through your head?
I mean, do we try to get this fire?
Is it out?
Get people out?
Get people out and contain the fire.
Instead of putting it out, just contain it.
Contain it.
Hopefully, what I was thinking on the way down and even as I was going up the stairs, if we could possibly, if the stairwells are still intact, you know, the plane could appear as one of the stairwells, one of the three, we could Try to contain just, you know, contain that stairwell, beat the fire back.
You know, have one stairwell, at least one stairwell viable that people can get down and we can get up to try to help them.
And so you imagine actually going up there with, as far as you could go, with hoses and fighting it?
Right, and that's basically what we were doing when I got there.
So you had firemen there with, they were taking hoses up and they actually had them in place and were fighting it already, or what?
I got up to the 35th floor of the North Tower.
That's the first tower that was hit, and that was hit on the 93rd floor.
So, I don't know, because I wasn't up there.
How long did it take you to get up to the, you said, 35th floor, right?
Yeah, it was taking... I had a few...
Responsibilities on the way up.
When I got to the lobby command post, they initially told me that we had people trapped and hurt on two floors, on the 21st floor and the 25th floor.
So I took a company, and I went to their floors first, because that was my assignment.
When I got there, there were a few people who needed help.
They needed help, but they were already getting it by other firemen there.
So once I saw that they were being taken care of, I continued to further up.
Every couple floors, I would step out of the stairwell into the hallway just to check conditions.
And we're carrying, as a chief, I'm not carrying hoses as a chief.
I'm not carrying tools.
I'm carrying a flashlight and a bullhorn, but I have my bucket gear.
And I'm also carrying the mask with the cylinders.
So as a chief, I'll carry approximately 60 pounds of equipment.
And you're making decisions about how to fight this?
Right.
But the flymen are carrying about 100 pounds.
And we're walking up the stairwell, so it's... You know, we're not running up.
We're walking up.
We're trying to pace ourselves.
So when we get up there, we still have some energy left to work.
You've got to be in good shape to do what you do, right?
Without a doubt.
Most flymen are very into physical fitness.
They exercise pretty regularly, I do.
Most of them do.
Okay, so you made it up to the 35th with doing some things on the way and trying to figure out what to do and thinking about all this as you're going.
And you get up as far as 35 and what happens?
When I got up to the 35th, it was one of the floors where I stepped down into the hallway just to see what the conditions are.
It was like a staging area there that there were maybe 10, 12 firemen on the floor, just taking a rest, taking a breather on their way up.
Chief, hold on.
I guess chief works for me.
Chief, hold on.
My guest, a fire chief, Richard Picciotto.
He was there.
He came down, the building came down on him, and we'll be right back.
This is Premier Networks.
That was Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM on this Somewhere in Time.
This is a test.
Yeah!
Premier Networks presents Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from May 22nd, 2002.
My guest, Richard Picciotto, is a New York Fire Department battalion commander who was in The World Trade Center building when it came down.
It came down on top of him and he's lived to be here and talk about it and was on the scene early on making decisions about what to do.
We'll get right back to him.
Stay right there.
Now we take you back to the past on Art Bell Somewhere in Time.
What's your name?
What's your name?
Chief, I'm curious.
Did you believe when you got up to the 35th floor that that building was going to come down?
No.
I wasn't thinking that way at that time.
Okay.
So then, what were your thoughts about evacuating people?
I understand.
Your book, by the way, the name of your book, Last Man Down.
Boy, what a title.
What a title for a book.
Yikes.
You know, I was the last man down, the last man to survive getting down.
But when I was on the 35th floor, all of a sudden, I stepped out and this horrendous noise started.
It was a powerful, like the most powerful noise that I ever heard up until that point.
What kind of noise?
It sounded like something was literally crashing through the building I was in, floor by floor.
From above, like a huge boulder or a bomb was dropped.
It was just crashing through the floors.
Oh my God.
The building was shaking.
You know, this is the North Tower shaking and like rumbling and something was approaching us very fast.
That was, in fact, the collapse coming.
That was the collapse of the South Tower.
Oh, of the South Tower.
That's right.
Nothing was happening in the North Tower other than just the rumble from the building next to it collapsing.
Okay, so you felt that like it was your own building?
Right.
I would have sworn something was happening in my building because the building was shaking and the noise was incredible.
Alright, so at this point you're trying to decide, are we evacuating or what are we doing?
How are you making that decision?
At this point, we just kind of froze.
It was just such a powerful Destructive force is the sound that was coming.
We just froze.
It took 10 seconds for that... 10 seconds for the South Tower to collapse.
So this tremendous noise is going on, and 10 seconds later, there's a deathly silence.
When that building did collapse, it wiped out our...
Our command post.
Wiped out our communication truck.
A lot of communications were bad to begin with, but now they were just about non-existent.
So, you mean you weren't getting information about what just happened?
Right.
Nothing at all.
Oh, God.
So, did you think, Chief, that that was the other building going down?
Did that flash your nose?
You thought it was something in your own building?
I thought it was something in my own building.
I thought something was cascading through the floors.
What I actually thought was maybe some elevator cars broke loose, and they were Tumbling down the elevator shaft.
Yeah, I can see how you'd think that.
But it was something more powerful than that.
But that's all I can really think of.
And I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I was calling, and I And when I heard that... Meaning the other tower?
Well, that's what they meant, but I thought maybe they're talking about radio towers on top of the building, or a water tower.
So, in other words, people understand.
There's various modes and channels of communication.
Some involve repeaters.
You said there was a repeater truck nearby.
And then, of course, on other buildings, probably on the World Trade Center itself, there was repeaters.
I don't know where the fire department had their repeaters.
Maybe on another high-rise in New York, but somewhere around you had repeaters.
Right, and the World Trade Center had them, but they were destroyed.
But then you also had simplex channels, what are called simplex channels, unit-to-unit channels.
Right.
And I presume that's what you were probably talking to somebody on a fairly close floor.
Exactly.
That's what exactly was happening.
Sometimes, you know, sometimes you can hear someone far away.
Usually the closer the better.
Right.
High-rise building for all that steel and electrical equipment.
A lot of times, you know, you just can't transmit to the lobby or outside.
Sometimes you can.
Sometimes you pick up transmission.
Sometimes you don't.
So you were really blind.
Right.
So we did finally pick up a transmission that the tower came down.
The whole building came down.
So at that point, a few things flashed through my mind.
The first thing is I realized that there were hundreds of firemen in that south tower.
Um, and I lost, you know, I immediately lost a lot of friends, a lot of people who I know, um, along with a lot of civilians died.
Um, then my... Yeah, because they, they really, there was that word about don't, don't evacuate.
Uh, I suppose the psychology was that, you know, like the Titanic, it just can't happen.
This building is not going to, these buildings are not going to come down.
Right, right.
And that's, you know, that was some people's view.
And it's understandable.
Right, and well, you know, we never had a collapse of a high-rise building in the history of New York or in the history, like, to that extent, I don't think in the history of the world.
So it was something that was, you know, I won't say it wasn't considered because we did, you know, people were considering the effect of that heat on the metal structure of the building.
What they were considering is an isolated collapse, a couple floors maybe collapsing.
I don't think anyone considered the pancake collapse that actually did happen.
The total devastation that happened, that wasn't considered in the initial stages.
Later on, it was being considered by some of the chiefs down in the command post, or the new makeshift command post.
Some terrorist somewhere must have had an extremely good structural engineer who knew exactly the way those towers were put together and exactly how much heat would be generated from the jet fuel that would be burning and what would happen.
Do you think they knew all that?
No, I don't.
Oh, you don't?
I think it was dumb luck.
They drove a plane into the building.
They wanted to cause a lot of destruction.
They wanted to kill the people from the fire and from the smoke.
I don't think they thought that the buildings were going to collapse.
If they did, you know, they're smarter than I give them credit for.
I think it was just like these suicide bombers, you know, they just wanted the immediate impact
of what they did.
Yeah.
Uh, you were not in the...
You were not on the 35th floor when your building collapsed, were you?
No.
Then what happened, once I realized that the building indeed had collapsed, my attention now turned towards the building I'm in.
Of course.
My mind started racing different things.
What caused the building to collapse?
Um, we had reports of more planes inbound.
Um, we knew we had a report that the Pentagon was hit.
So on, you know, at this point I knew we were under attack.
Oh, you knew all that?
And I, I thought a bomb went off.
I thought a bomb brought the building down.
I was going back to 1993 and saw the devastation the bomb did.
And said, well, you know, they got a more sophisticated bomb, or a few bombs, and they took the building down.
And then I said, well, they probably have the same plans for the North Tower, the tower I was in.
So we already evacuated most of the civilians out of the North Tower.
The North Tower was the first tower hit.
Right.
So I gave the order to evacuate, to get all the rescue workers out, all the firemen out.
Hard decision to make?
It was.
It was the hardest decision.
It crossed my mind, and I made it.
You know, I was trying to get direction first, you know, calling to the command post that wasn't there, asking for direction.
They weren't there.
Yeah, of course.
And the division felt to me, because I'm a chief, and I was there, and I had to make the call.
You were the eyes and the man there.
Right.
I thought about it for a second, and then, this is what I tell chiefs and officers.
You know, you have to go what you've got feeling, especially with life and death situations.
The luxury of time.
Time is what it is.
With life and death situations, every second counts.
So I gave the order to evacuate.
Told the firemen to drop their masks, drop their tools, drop their equipment, and get out.
When we're doing an evacuation, we want to get out of the building as fast as possible.
If we could go back later and retrieve our equipment, we'll do that.
Of course, once you make that decision, then there's nothing else.
It's just go.
Right.
And that's it.
And that's why it's a big decision, because we had literally hundreds of people working their way up.
And when I make that call, you know, they stop and now they're working their way down.
That's what happens for the people who hurt, like, you know, because I gave it over to radio.
And I also had a bullhorn.
I went to all three stairwells and yelled up the stairwells to try to get people, you know, that were further up.
Make sure they heard it or hope that they heard it.
Do you have any idea how many did hear it?
I know a lot of people heard it.
We got a couple hundred people out.
I've talked to a lot of people who heard it and said thank God they heard it because they didn't know what was going on.
There were people above me.
I was on the 35th floor and there were people above me.
I don't know how high the volume got.
Because I wasn't up there, but I do know there was some, you know, some hired 35s into the 40s that heard the order and they evacuated.
All right, so you started making your own way down, right?
Correct.
And what I was doing... Going down the stairwells.
I was going down the stairwell and because now everyone's going down the same, you know, the three stairwells, it was, uh, you know, we weren't running.
We were just totally going down and, uh, I was trying to clear every floor on the way down being, you know, literally being the last man down.
I didn't want to leave anyone behind on any floor.
Oh my God, that's a lot of territory to cover.
Those are big floors.
They're big floors, but you know, there's two hallways.
It's like an intersecting, like a T-Hallway.
Right.
And, you know, you can go down one, look, you can go down the other one and just yell into the officers that are off the halls and look, most of the A kind of open.
Were you getting people?
Were you running into people?
Yeah, a few people.
Most of the people were leaving, but occasionally there were people still on their floors or at their desks.
I ran into one guy at his desk.
He was working on his computer.
I tell the story in the book.
When I yelled to him, he put his hand up and told me he was doing something important.
You know, I gave an incredible look, you know, and yelled at him again, just, you know, we're leaving.
And this is over an hour after a plane had hit his building.
My God.
And he was typing away.
I have no idea what he was doing.
So I wasn't, you know, I wasn't going to leave anyone back.
So I yelled to him the second time to go.
And he didn't even look at me the second time, just like put his hand up, like to shake me off.
So I, you know, I marched over to him with a few five-minute tell, and I just grabbed him by the lapels, yanked him out of his seat, and, uh, you know, kind of tossed him to the fly and then said, uh, you know, if he doesn't walk down the stairs, throw him down.
He looked at me with this, you know, I had a look in my eye that, you know, the flyman had looks in their eyes that they would have thrown him down.
So he just scurried away like incredible that anyone would dare touch him.
That's unbelievable.
Yeah, he's one of the guys I would love to meet.
Yeah, I take it you haven't since.
No.
Uh-huh.
Because we came across a few things.
I mean, I came across firemen that were reluctant to leave because some of them were slow going on their way up, and their companies, like, you know, were going a little faster than them.
You know, they were taking a break.
And they wanted to wait until their company got down.
And, you know, People not wanting to go down without their... Right.
And I just, you know, I wouldn't allow anyone.
Everyone had to go down.
Don't worry, your company's down.
They went down a different stairwell.
I was just forcing everyone down.
I came upon a few Port Authority cops who wanted to go further up.
They had one of their officers in the Port Authority, which the World Trade Center is a Port Authority building, and they were trying to get One of their directors of the Port Authority, I don't know before, and I told them, no.
You know, this is a fire.
I'm in charge here.
You're going down.
You're taking your orders from me.
You're leaving.
In your mind, at this point, had you made the assumption this building was going to come down?
Yes.
I thought the possibility was there.
I mean, obviously, after the other buildings down, you knew all that.
You knew more planes on the way.
You knew we were attacked.
You knew Pearl quite a bit.
So it wouldn't be so really out of line to believe the building possibly may come down.
Right.
And that's what I thought.
I said it could possibly come down.
The other one came down.
Whatever brought the other one down, I didn't know if it was, you know, like I said, I initially assumed it was a bomb, but it could have been a third plane hit or, you know, I didn't think That it was actually structural failure due to the flying, you know, the way it actually was.
But, you know, it really didn't matter why it came down.
The reason, you know, to me, is it came down and this one could come down also.
So anyway, you're making your way down.
You're pulling people all the way.
Right.
Pushing, you know.
I wasn't going to let anyone stay behind on any floor.
I could stay from the 35th floor on down.
When we were at the floors, we left no one behind.
I know there were people above us that were trickling down as we were going.
So there were people above us, but they were trickling down the stairwell as we were going.
So how many were roughly with you, do you think?
Oh, there were hundreds, because we talk about, you know, guys were still coming in.
I got up to the 35th, but there were a lot of people.
But traveling down, on your orders, there were hundreds.
Yeah.
There was three stairwells, and we were going down.
Then what happened, I got to about the 19th floor, and I was in the C stairwell at this point.
There's three stairwells, A, B, and C. I was in the C stairwell, and all of a sudden we just stopped.
It was like a large jam in the stairs.
And I'm calling further down.
I'm actually trying to push my way further down to tell that people keep on moving.
Don't stop.
Don't slow up.
And I got down with one or two flights more, you know, pushing through the people.
Right.
And the word filtered out that they couldn't proceed because there was debris in the stairwells.
What happened?
When the South Tower came down, a lot of debris entered the mezzanine area, that rubble, and filled up the stairwell that we were in.
And it was impassable.
Oh, brother.
It also filled up.
We were in the C stairwell, the same thing happened to the A stairwell.
You know, once I realized that happened, I got out onto the floor and ran to the other stairwell.
It was the same thing, it was just clogged, not moving.
So then I ran to the third stairwell, the B stairwell, and that was moving.
But the B stairwell was closer to the core of the building.
Oh, my God, so there's only one stairwell.
Moving.
So what do you do?
You immediately start diverting the traffic from the other two to B?
Exactly.
I start diverting from A and C to B. You know, filtering people from the two stairwells to the B stairwell.
So at this point, you're probably having to actually call people back up.
Yeah, well, you know, and that's exactly what happened.
Some people were coming up.
Some people were waiting to go down.
You know, some horrendous stories that I, you know, That I could go into how a company split, because some of them tried to go down, say a company was on the 15th floor, almost to the 15th floor, so they didn't want to go back up to the 16th to go down, so they're waiting for the 15th for that to clear out, but if they went to the 16th, which a company split, one of the companies I know split, and some guys
You know, ran up to 16 and ran across on 16 to get to B, and then went down B. And, uh, you know, when I'm talking about company, I'm talking about a company of firemen.
Right.
And, uh, half of the guys lived and half of them didn't.
Um, you know, that's the last they saw each other in one of the stairwells when they split.
Some guys, you know, going down different ways.
Um... What was the lowest floor that you made it to?
I personally made it to the 6th floor.
I was on the 6th floor when this incredible noise, I talk about the incredible noise the first time, now it was intensified 100-fold.
Incredible noise.
I said the building was shaking the first time and it was.
Now it was more than shaking.
It was rumbling.
It was torching us from our feet.
We were like rag dolls.
So did you know this building was coming down?
At that point, yeah, I definitely knew what was happening.
You told me it took about 10 seconds for the other tower to go.
Right.
How many?
Do you think about the same?
It took 8 seconds.
8 seconds?
8 seconds to south.
The north tower, the tower that I was in, was 29 minutes later.
29 minutes after the south tower collapsed, the north tower collapsed.
Eight seconds.
Chief, hold on, we're at the top of the hour.
We'll be right back.
Eight seconds for that building to collapse on top of them.
Now, I saw, like you all did, I saw the zillion tons of wreckage and I would not imagine how anybody, anybody, On the seventh floor or whatever could come out alive.
We're going to find out how.
The trip back in time continues with Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM.
More somewhere in time coming up.
If you could read my mind, love, what a tale my thoughts could tell.
Just like an old time movie about a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong with chains upon my feet.
You know that ghost is me And I will never be set free As long as I'm a ghost you can't see If I could read your mind, love What a tale your thoughts could tell Just like a paperback novel The kind the drugstore sells When you reach the part Where the heartaches come The hero would be me
Now, we take you back to the past on Art Bell Somewhere in Time.
My guest is a New York fire department battalion commander, the highest in command.
One of the World Trade Center buildings when it came down on top of him.
That's exactly where we were in the story.
Eight seconds it took that building to fall.
Richard Pigiotto has written A book called Last Man Down.
And that's in the literal sense.
He was the last man down with the building.
And we'll continue with that story.
You might want to check out, you definitely might want to check out his book on my website.
There'll be links over to Amazon.com and so forth.
We'll get right back to Richard.
You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from May 22nd, 2002.
Okay, Chief. Welcome back.
So, you know, here's this hundred times stronger sound crashing down from above, and you said later you found out it was eight seconds.
I'm sure it seemed like more than that at the time.
It's funny, something like that, how time freezes very fast and very slow at the same time.
Yeah, that's how it freezes.
You freeze.
Right.
Well, my mind was going a mile a minute.
My mind was racing.
My physical body, there's this fight or flight instinct.
You try to run, but you know, eight seconds, you really can't go that far.
You know, it takes a second to realize what's happening, a second to... You know, it's just like, you know, you didn't have enough time and then... Did you understand it was coming down on you?
Yeah, yeah, because the way it was...
You know, once I realized the other one came down, and it's actually funny because some of the guys that I was trapped with, we were, you know, I'll go into it in a minute, didn't realize that the first building had actually come down.
The south building came down.
They just, they never knew that.
Oh.
So, you know, actually that's, you know, one of these old, you know, say ignorance is bliss.
Yeah.
You know, that was, they didn't realize.
I did.
I knew the south building came down and then the way, The way this noise was, the way the building was shaking, I mean, we were being tossed around.
And logically, in your mind, you had to think, I'm going to die.
Yeah, it's the end.
It's going to be, it's going to be, you know, it's going to happen.
And basically, I thought it was going to happen quick, you know, and I was praying that it was going to happen quick.
A lot of things flashed in front of your mind in that eight seconds.
Like I said, that eight seconds, it's exceedingly fast and exceedingly slow.
Well, we've all, you know, everybody has seen the pictures a million times of that wreckage, and it does not seem possible to me that anybody, period, could have survived being inside that building when it came down.
It just absolutely doesn't seem even remotely plausible.
Not even remotely.
How could you have survived this?
Well, what happened is...
In the stairwell where we were, the stairwell stretches from a little bit above the lobby because where the lobby was was crushed.
So a little bit above that, maybe half a floor above, to approximately almost the fifth floor of the C stairwell basically was intact.
It wasn't really intact, but it was semi-intact.
It was filled with debris.
Uh, it was black because, uh, it went black almost instantly.
We lost lights and, um, we filled with debris.
Like, the stairs were torn aside in some places.
The landings weren't there.
You know, some places they were.
It was almost like a funnel or a cave.
Um, but in this one little air pocket or void were 12 firemen, myself being one of them.
It was this woman, Josephine, who we, uh, which I didn't talk about before, how I came across this group of people.
Um, if you want, I'll explain some of that.
Yeah, sure.
Um, and this one Port Authority cop.
We were all in this one void.
We were, we were the last people to leave, you know, getting out of the building.
Um, and we just happened to, you know, be in the right place at the right time.
Um, I'm not understanding how the building came down around what you're calling a void.
Yeah, it's, uh... I have a couple pictures I wish I could show you.
I was here to show you that pile of debris, all the different piles of debris.
Oh, yes?
In the interior of one of the piles of debris, the stairwell was, you know, remained.
It was like a void.
It was just like air pockets.
We weren't all together.
We couldn't see each other, but we could yell to each other and we knew we were all there.
And how much was on top of you?
There was a lot on top of us, but what happened, most of the debris spread out.
I don't know if you saw pictures recently of that big excavation.
The towers were sitting in the middle of this big, big hole.
uh... supplies are in the last of all when the powers fell late
they spread out so that the brief you'd be a hundred fours of house to the brain
filled in this big area that they caught the bathtub and you know i i don't know how because it could happen to
south tower but it could have lost our just one little area remain
remain standing with debris all over us.
After the eight seconds, I mean, the light's out, sure it's black, but I'm sure you firemen had light.
Yeah, we... You had light, so you're saying, you must have stood there, or sat there, I don't know what position you were in.
We were tossed around, I was thrown.
I started around the sixth floor, where I ended up was, where the third floor was.
Yeah, so I was, oh God.
So didn't you ask yourself in that instant, You know, I, my God, I seem to be alive.
Actually, I said just the opposite.
I said, I wonder if I was dead.
You thought you were dead?
I was black.
I was, I was basically covered.
I had maybe six inches of debris, dust and rubble on top of me.
And I thought I was dead.
They couldn't see anything.
And again, The silence.
You know, after this immense, tremendous noise, loudest noise I've ever heard in my life, in eight seconds it was over.
And then it was like, deathly silence.
There was no after effect, no after noise.
It was just deathly silent.
You didn't hear anybody else moaning, crying, yelling?
No.
Nothing.
Nothing.
You know, the fourteen of us that were there actually saw, you know, everyone was going through the same thing.
They were all like semi-buried.
And, uh, stunned.
I was black.
I had, you know, like I said, at first I thought I was dead, but then I realized that, you know, my body's still here and relatively unscathed.
My shoulder, like, I tore my rotator cuff.
I bagged up my knee.
My eyes were all scratched, but no life-threatening injuries.
And even though it was dark, I felt that there were other people with me.
Like, you could be in a dark room and you feel a presence.
You know, someone else is there.
You weren't hearing it, though.
I wasn't hearing it.
I just sensed it, though.
I just knew, you know, I thought I knew that there was other people there.
And I called out in the darkness, is anyone else here?
And I started getting responses.
Yeah, I'm here.
I'm here, too.
Me, too.
And they came from above and below me because this void was like a cave, like a vertical cave.
So, it was a total of 14 responses?
Yeah, it wasn't 14 responses initially.
There was, you know, some people responded, others didn't.
Some people were hurt, some people were in shock.
So, I identified myself.
I'm Rich Picciotto, Fire Department Battalion Chief.
And then other people started identifying themselves, and they were mostly firemen.
Some of the fly men carried their flashlights in straps around their shoulders or around
their waist.
Those of them that did, turned their lights on.
And then through all this dust and darkness, we could see a little bit of rubble that was
all around us.
But one of the guys below, when he turned his light on, he felt my light that I was
holding in my hand and I must have dropped in the process.
So that I had a light.
And basically once we knew people were there, I thought everyone just stay where you are.
We don't want to bunch up, we don't want to move, we don't want to cause a secondary collapse.
Right.
So I said, just stay where you are.
Don't touch anything.
Just, just look.
You know, turn your lights off, look around, see if there's, you know, just see what you can think.
Um, if there's any way out.
And, uh, basically there wasn't.
No way out?
No, there was one doorway further down on the second floor level landing where the second floor was.
I was on the third and there was a couple of guys down there.
Uh, there was debris all backed up against it.
So after a few minutes, I said, okay, let's try to, you know, clear out that debris around the doorway and then see if we could force the door open.
Right.
Which we did.
And it just led to nowhere.
It just led to compacted debris on the other side of it.
So, you know, you weren't getting through that.
Oh my God.
So it's like, it's like you're... We were entombed.
Yeah.
Entombed.
Not like.
You were entombed.
Um, and you know, then we started calling for help on the radios, but, and then, Again, I'm the chief, and we're all professional firemen, so you have to realize what we had, what we didn't have, what resources we had.
I was telling the guys, turn off your radios, turn off your flashlights.
It's long-term survival.
We have to save the batteries we have.
If you had to turn your light on for something, turn it on.
Do what you have to do, and then turn it off again.
Were you all firemen, or were there any civilians with you?
No, there was one civilian.
I'll get into that, too.
There was one civilian, a 60-year-old woman from Brooklyn, Josephine, who worked on the 83rd floor.
She worked her way down to the 83rd, but she had bad legs, and she was exhausted.
And then there was one Port Authority police officer who was with us also.
So then just one civilian, really?
Yeah, we had one civilian.
And she slowed you up, didn't she?
Yeah, that was Josephine.
Now what happened, I'll backtrack a little bit, on the way down, after we were filtered to the B stairwell, I was still trying to do a quick sweep of every floor.
And on the 12th floor, when I did a quick sweep, there was a fireman there, that directed me also, and said, you know, Chief, we've got a problem in here.
And I go to one office, and There were approximately 50 people in this office, just sitting there, just stunned and just sitting at desks, sitting on desks.
I'm looking at them saying, you know, this is another surreal experience.
You know, what are they doing there?
What it was, these people were, most of them were handicapped and non-ambulatory.
They were in crutches, wheelchairs, walkers.
They were the real slow ones to get out of the building.
And, you know, most of the people as they got out passed them.
So it was approximately 20 people like that, and maybe another 30 people that were helping them.
And when they got to the lower floors after the first tower had collapsed, and the stairways filled up with debris, they couldn't get by.
So they just started congregating on the 12th floor.
They, you know, met, started talking, and just sitting in an office waiting for someone to come and help them.
Once I realized what happened, I took all the helpers and got them out, had five of us escort them to the B stairwell, and then we started taking the wheelchairs and the walkers and whatever, doing what we had to do, putting them in chairs or carrying them, assisting them also.
Josephine was at the end of this group.
That's the woman that we were caught with.
Yes.
Yeah, we resisted her walking with a half carrier, you know, what we had to do.
And I was pushing everybody, you know, trying to get everyone.
Uh, Josephine was going agonizingly slow.
The first few floors that didn't matter because we were all going, so it was like a conga line.
You know, you're only going as slow as the line could go.
Right.
But then, when we got to a couple of lower floors, like half a landing opened up, then a full landing would open up between us and the people in front of them.
And I'm telling the company that had Josephine, I said, you know, pick her up, get a chair, put her, you know, we've got to go faster.
Because, you know, I'm coming down from the 35th floor, now I'm down to the lower floors.
I said, okay, a couple more minutes, we're out of this building.
And that's, you know, all I want to do is get out of that building.
So actually, though... Her pace saved me.
Saved us.
Yeah.
Because if you'd have been just a little quicker, you'd have been dead.
You'd have been dead for sure.
Yeah, we would have been in the lobby or outside.
And when the building came down, it was a little slower.
I was on... Either way.
Yeah, either way.
We had to be that one spot where we were because that's just the small group of us that were in there, survived.
Well, yeah, but this story's not done because here you are, the 14 of you.
Ultimately, you found out in this, in Doomed.
In Doomed, yeah.
How in God's name did you get out of there?
I was calling for help on our radios.
Like I said, I told everyone else to turn them off except one.
Let's just leave one radio on because our radios are notorious.
When the batteries go low, it's like a cell phone.
They don't just slowly die out.
They just quickly go.
So I was, you know, and I knew that was going to happen.
Better to use one radio at a time.
Use one radio, of course, for help.
And if that one, that one goes dead, then use another one.
Of course.
So I told everyone to shut their radios off.
We were using one at a time, called for help.
Smart, yeah.
Eventually, I, uh, we made contact, I'd say approximately two hours after we were laying there.
Two hours in there?
Yeah, we made contact, um, with someone on the outside, actually another chief who I know, a guy named Mark Ferrand, um, And I'm telling him, Mark, at the time I didn't even know how many people there were of us, because we were stretched out.
We counted, but we did some double counting.
We counted the same person twice.
So I thought there was approximately 20 of us.
So I told Mark, there's 20 of us.
We're in the North Tower, the B stairwell, approximately the third floor, because that's where I was.
And his first response back is, Richie, where's the North Tower?
Oh, God.
Chief, you know, we didn't really get these stories.
I mean, the stories that were coming out for, it seemed like, days where there were no survivors.
Right.
There just, there were no survivors.
So I, you know, when you were in communication, that wasn't hitting the media.
Somehow that didn't get to the media, believe me.
Yeah, I know.
Well, we were the only survivors out of both, you know, out of I won't say we're the only survivors.
We're the only survivors that were actually in the buildings when they collapsed.
Either either tower.
I don't think anyone survived from the South Tower.
I understand.
And the North Tower was just a group of us.
But I mean, at the time, you know, everybody was on edge for any word, any possibility of any survivor.
So I'm surprised when that radio contact was made that it didn't flash across and somehow get out, but it didn't.
Yeah, well, you know what it was, too?
It was a whole, it was a total of We were out of there, you know, five hours later.
So after us, there was no one else got out.
So we were in, you know, the beginning, you know, when it was all pandemonium outside.
Did you have any way of knowing how much debris was around you?
In other words, whether you were totally hopelessly buried or there was some You said you didn't even know what tower you were in.
No.
I knew what tower I was in.
They didn't know where the tower was.
Right.
But you would have no way of really knowing how much was around you, would you?
No.
I just assumed that there was... I assumed, wrongly so, that there was over a hundred feet of debris on top of us.
Which also would have been a death sentence.
Right.
Well, I thought... Like I said, my mind had a hundred...
A hundred thoughts a minute.
One of them was previously we had a fire last Father's Day.
Father's Day fire, they called it, where we had three firemen in a two-story building that collapsed in Queens.
They were alive.
They were in the basement.
We had radio contact with them and we couldn't get to them in time because any type of collapse and any type of rescue is a hand operation.
You can't bring heavy machinery in.
Because if there is a void, you bring a bulldozer or a crane on top of it, it's just a... You collapse it.
...crush it.
So it's a hand operation.
When we had this two-story building in Queens, and we knew we had three flymen in the basement alive, we couldn't get to them in time.
So you thought you were probably in that situation?
I said, well, if we can't get to guys with a two-story building, what chance do I have with a 110-story building?
Yeah, that makes sense to me.
Hold on, Chief.
We'll be right back.
From the high desert, I'm Art Bell, and this is Coast to Coast AM.
You try and imagine, you close your eyes, you listen to this, and you try and imagine.
Try and imagine.
This is Premier Networks.
That was Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM on this Somewhere in Time.
in the sun waiting for someone to take her back some say he was a sailor who died at sea
some say he was a prisoner who never was set free lost upon the ocean he died during the mist
dreaming of her kiss better than the cold tell me lies tell me sweet little lies
tell me lies oh no no you can't disguise You can't just die.
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.
You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere In Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM, from May 22nd, 2002.
My guest, New York Fire Department Battalion Commander Richard Picciotto, and he's the last man down.
Where did we leave off?
Well, he was entombed.
He, and it turns out 13 others, I guess a total of 14, were entombed.
In what he certainly thought, and had every right to think, was an area, some little void, with hundreds, you know, 100 floors above him, collapsed on top of him.
And that's entombed forever.
It really is.
And that's certainly what you would think.
You'd have no reason to believe anything else at all.
And if it was a lesser number of floors, if you imagine some collapsed outward, there would still be 50, 60 floors Collapsed on you there would be no way out of that and that's sort of where we Will pick up here in a moment.
and stay right where you are.
You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM, from May 22nd, 2002.
You noticed there was an extra commercial in there.
You're right.
Absolutely correct.
Good observation.
My sleep-deprived mind missed one a little bit earlier, so you did get an extra one there.
All right, well, so we're back in this building, in this void, in the black, in this impossible area, and you're just radioing another chief, you say, and you're in contact.
He wants to know what building you're in.
I presume you immediately tell him which building.
But, I can't imagine... How did the communication go from there?
I mean, you said it was a couple hours?
Yeah, it was... You know, I was happy to finally make contact with anyone.
Of course.
But then, you know, when he's the first thing to tell me, they have no idea where the North Tower was or is.
You know, I could just picture what kind of devastation is out there where you don't know where a 110 story building was.
Yeah.
So I'm thinking that you were probably thinking that you were in a hopeless situation.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
I was hopeless.
I mean, we explored any possibility that we had initially without climate all over the place.
Again, we didn't want to move that much because I didn't want to cause a collapse.
So I was in contact with Mark and I had Um, I had this bullhorn that had a siren on it.
It was a pretty loud siren.
Um, so every once in a while I would tell him to just listen for the siren.
I would have the siren sounding in the, uh, you know, where we were.
And it was loud.
It was almost as loud as a siren on a fire engine.
Um, and they couldn't hear it.
So I said, well, you know, you can't, you know, even though they could hear me on the radio, on the handy talkie, they couldn't hear me.
They couldn't hear the loud siren, so I said, you just have to move and, you know, we'll wait 15 minutes and I'll do it again.
Oh my God.
What were you saying to the others at this point?
I was telling them that, you know, we made contact with someone.
And then I was telling them, you know, and then I said shut everything off so, you know, I'll be the main, you know, main communication to the outside world, basically.
Yeah, but you were dealing with mostly other firemen.
Right.
And just one civilian, so they pretty much knew what was up, too, didn't they?
Right, and we were all... There wasn't a lot of small talk, and not where I was, anyway.
A little bit above me, there was another whole company, a six-truck with a good friend of mine, Jay Jonas, was the captain of that.
He's a friend of mine, and we didn't even see each other face-to-face for a long time because we didn't want to take the risk of climbing up or down.
His company was taking care of the woman, Josephine.
there wasn't a lot of small talk we were and i was focused big baby on
the communications out uh...
but they had to know probably the same thing you knew
Yeah.
You know, if the siren isn't getting heard, that is so... You know, imagining all these floors on top of you, that sort of says to you, uh-uh.
Yeah, it's just, you know, it wasn't pleasant.
It was one of the things I talk about in the book again.
I prayed for a quick death.
And now, you know... You didn't get one.
I didn't get one.
So, you know, it's...
as a result of my way i think it's one of the worst ways you know being
buried alive or you know yeah that's not a bad study one of the worst way is that uh...
is that a pleasant thought but we did make the contact with
So at some point he heard that, sir?
Well, a lot later.
What happened then is we were laying there in the dark, and I told everyone to shut off the flashlights, because if we kept them all on for a couple hours, they'd be gone.
What was your air like?
The air wasn't that bad.
It was very dusty.
Guys would cough, and it was dry.
Well, you know, again, we didn't have an option, so... But you think not as bad as the air outside?
I don't think it was as bad as the air outside.
For whatever reason, you know, everything got pushed up, and what we were was... Well, there's a reason.
You were sealed up in a void.
We were sealed, right.
Then what happened, you know, hours later, as we're laying there in the darkness, I'm laying on my back.
It was almost like a funnel-shaped area we were in, but the guys that were above us had more room.
And down where we were, it was more compacted.
There was more debris fell down.
I'm laying on my back, just on this debris, and I'm looking up, and there was no stairs on top of me.
This one section was clear to the top of the cave, or whatever you want to call it.
And I'm slowly noticing, in the blackness, a little bit of gray.
And then it's getting a little bit brighter and a little bit brighter.
And I thought it was a hallucination.
You know, I'm seeing things.
And I just kept on staring at it.
And it's getting a little bit brighter and a little bit brighter.
And then I called up to the guys above me.
I said, Jay, do you see that?
He says, yeah, what is it?
I said, I don't know.
So we're just all looking further up at the top of this cave area.
And all of a sudden, it's like a shaft of light is coming through.
Oh wow.
And what happened, there was this little crevice in this, this debris.
There was this crevice going out, and it was always there.
We never saw it because of this tremendous dust cloud that was outside.
So it was black, there was no light to be coming through.
Right.
It was so black, oh I've got it, yeah.
And also, outside, the surrounding buildings were on fire.
We had, we had Buildings ranging from 9 to 47 stories.
Six World Trade Centers, a 47-story building that was completely engulfed in fire.
That eventually collapsed also a few hours later.
Right.
So all that smoke obscured that whole area, if you remember.
Day turned to night.
Day turned to night is what happened.
So that was going on for hours while we were there.
Then when that started settling, some light started filtering through.
So after a while, this light is getting brighter and brighter.
I called up to the guys above me and said, can we reach that?
And initially they said no, because they thought it was too unstable.
So after, again, a little while longer, I'm just staring at it.
And then I said, I've got to get further up.
I've got to see where it goes.
So I told everyone to stay where they are.
I climbed up to where the other guys were a little bit higher than me.
We talked for a few minutes about, you know, other things, what we could do, because the first time I actually saw them face to face, and then I said, I'm going to go further up to that light, I'm going to see where it leads.
Could you tell, were you able to tell roughly how far away the light was, and then by that, were you able to judge how big of an opening it might be?
Not from the perspective of where we were, because it was coming at an angle.
But once I got up there, it opened up to a bigger area.
And I climbed up, and basically I climbed down, and all of a sudden I'm on top of this huge pile of debris.
But I'm outside.
I can see the sky.
Wow.
It was like, you know, hallelujah, we're out.
Even though I'm out, you know, and I was talking to Mark.
How big was the opening, actually?
It was big enough to crawl through.
To crawl through?
And then it opened up.
And then it was almost like a balcony, almost, on the side.
You know, just an area.
And, you know, I was in contact with Mark this whole time.
And actually, like, you know, there were other things that happened.
So then it wasn't a siren at all?
No, it was just that no one could get anywhere near us.
It was you climbing out, crawling out.
Right.
Well, the siren, after I got out, I still didn't see any of the rescue workers.
Now, this is hours later.
Yeah.
They were being held back because of all the surrounding buildings, which, again, one of them eventually fell, 47-story building eventually fell.
So, you know, And they didn't know where we were.
So then once I got out, I'm on top of this pilot, Josephine couldn't leave and some of the other five were bagged up, you know, that they couldn't climb out.
And two of the guys are actually buried that, you know, they were alive, but they were in a separate void.
I didn't want to leave that area until we had help there.
So now I'm saying, you know, tell Mark, Mark, we're out.
I could see, you know, I could see daylight and I was, I would turn the siren on again.
Yes.
The key on the siren, he still couldn't hear it.
What?
So they kept on, you know, they'd move around and then they finally heard it.
Um... And, you know, I had to try to get to us.
Um... Holy smokes.
So it took them, I don't know, another hour, hour and a half to actually get to the area where we were.
And they just followed the sound.
And followed the sound, but a lot of times, sometimes they'd follow the sound and they'd just be cut off, they couldn't get... And they were crawling over debris.
Crawling over debris, crawling over debris to try and get to you, and it took them that long.
Right, and then they just couldn't leave because it would be a share wall of debris, so they would have to backtrack and go through another building to try to come through from a different area.
Eventually, you know, eventually they heard the siren, so that was great that they heard it.
But, you know, it took them like two or three attempts from different areas after they heard it to actually get to where we saw them.
There's a lot of hours now.
Did everybody in the void areas that you knew to be alive Get out?
Remain alive?
Or did you lose anybody in there?
We lost a couple.
A couple?
Yeah, we lost a couple guys that were crushed.
They were alive.
I was talking to them earlier.
But they just had too many internal injuries.
Right.
But when I talk about the 14 of us, the 12 flying in, the civilian and the cop, they're the ones that got out.
That survived.
Then how did they, did you, once they finally got to you, I mean after all this time and they finally got to you, then how were you extracted?
Well, when they got to us they were at the bottom of this rubble and we were on this, you know, this high part.
Right.
We did have a rope with us a life-saving rope that we carry and basically I tie the
rope around myself and I use the rope to climb down from point A to point B to C and tie the
rope off at various spots and then the other guys behind me could use that rope as a
hand guide to help them climb down and then the guys at the bottom used the same rope to
climb up and they were able to relieve us to take care of Josephine and the injured
guys and dig for the other two guys.
Then, you know, a couple other things were going on.
The area where we were was outside was Secret Service bunker.
Oh.
And so they had small arms ammunition and, I don't know, grenades or whatever the hell were going off during this.
And the guys that came in, Mark Farrand directed another company, 43 Truck, to come in to us.
They came in through 5 World Trade Center.
That's eventually how they came in, and that building was on fire when they came through it.
When we tried to extract ourselves, the way they came was cut off by fire, so we couldn't go out that way.
Some of the previous ways that they tried to get to, we couldn't go that way, so we kind of just had to hunt and peck on the way out.
Try this way, try that way, try a different way, until we eventually just climbed over the rubble up and down.
These tremendous mountains of rubble, and that was almost an hour just to get out of the rubble field.
Yeah, an hour going over a rubble field to get to just the edge of, I guess, the damage.
Yeah, right to get the edge of, you know, ahead.
I was in radio contact with Mark and a couple guys from 43.
Thank God we were, because when we climbed down and we were walking through this rubble field, it looked like just a nuclear attack.
You saw nothing other than destruction.
That's because it did look like a nuclear attack.
And the surrounding buildings were on fire.
Actually, Chief, are you aware that they've actually measured the energy in the In the planes hitting the buildings, then the buildings actually collapsing, which is where all the energy was.
They've measured the amount of energy, and it comes out in kilotons.
Oh, I can imagine.
I mean, uh... Kilotons of energy, like a nuclear blast.
Yeah, and if you saw it, that's, you know... I mean, I'm sure you saw pictures, I'm sure you saw video clips.
Of course.
But being there, it's just, you know, words and film don't do it.
The immense-ness of it, it's just indescribable.
It's what everybody said who's been there, that the words just... And television doesn't do it either.
Right.
To understand, yeah, just like a nuclear attack.
Well, actually, it was in the kilotons, so it was sort of a nuclear attack.
And just crawling over that debris, that must have been like crawling over a... I don't know.
A destroyed world, a moonscape, or something.
Yeah, and what was really amazing, to me, is other than steel, twisted steel, and just concrete dust, there was nothing recognizable.
You know, you had office buildings, you had rugs, furniture, chairs, computers, glass.
I didn't see a single piece of glass.
I mean, everything was pulverized.
Pulverized?
There was just nothing recognizable.
It was just all Metal and very little concrete, really, either.
I mean, it was just all metal and dust.
That's absolutely incredible.
I guess the concrete pulverized as well.
Right.
So all that would survive would be the twisted metal and just fields of that and enough to climb over for an hour to get out of there.
How were you physically by the time you finally got out?
How were you physically?
I was exhausted.
I was exhausted.
My eyes were burnt.
At the time, my eyes were my biggest concern because my corneas were scratched and a lot of that smoke was very acrid.
So then what kind of vision did you have?
I had blurry vision.
It was terrible.
Once I got out, that was the first thing.
They had a triage area set up.
I was just taking bottles of water and pouring it on my eyes.
Then I was directing other people into where we got out, 43, the guys that came and climbed up.
They remained with the injured.
The injured that couldn't move and Josephine and we're digging for the other two guys that eventually they dug out.
But I had to get them more help because there's only a couple guys there.
So once I directed more people into them, told them where we were, we were the only survivors, then they put me in an ambulance and called me off to the hospital.
And I guess you feared for your vision.
My vision was my immediate concern because my eyes were just You know, I was exhausted.
I was physically exhausted.
But, you know, I didn't know if I was going to stay or if I was going to lose my vision.
It was so bad.
You know, and then when they, at the hospital, when they checked it out, I had all scratches and burns.
That smoke, it was caustic or whatever, and like peppered holes into my corneas.
So they, you know, gave me all sorts of medicine and steroids and eventually, My vision came back, but I breathed all that junk in.
Alright Chief, I'll tell you what, we're at the top of the hour.
I have a couple more questions and I want to open the phone lines if that's alright with you.
Sure.
All right, stay right there.
The trip back in time continues with Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM.
More Somewhere in Time coming up.
We were gonna go on the way and we were gonna go on the road.
And we never had a doubt.
We were running with the night, playing in the shadows.
Can't touch you at night, till the morning light.
Oh, oh, oh.
you I'm a bad boy!
So hello, you and me.
All for one, one and three.
Give it all we've got, lay it down.
Take it ever so gently to the sound.
It's a wonderful night.
Hanging in the shadows Just you and I
Girl, it was so nice Girl, it was so nice
Girl, it was so nice Air Networks presents Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from May 22nd, 2002.
Just running with the night, and New York Fire Department Battalion Commander Richard Pagiotto.
And we're going to take questions now.
You have questions for the Chief, and I bet you do about all of this.
This has got to be one of the more incredible stories I've ever heard in my life, and this is what long-form talk radio is for.
Because you will never hear anything in the kind of detail you just heard of like this in any other media.
That's what long-form talk radio is for, and certainly we've achieved that.
So if you have questions about what this man went through and or what he thinks now
Now would be the time and those would be the numbers The new version of the coast to coast am app is here now
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Check out our new app at the Google Play or iTunes stores, or link from the Coast website.
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Music.
All right, back to my guest.
I've just got a couple of other questions for you, Chief, before we go to the phones.
You know, sort of standout questions.
Whenever anything like this happens, and there's never been anything like this, but I mean, in tragedies where a lot of people die and a few people live, you know, like air crashes, airline crashes, that sort of thing, and about a couple people walk away or a few, there's this big deal the psychiatrists talk about, about guilt, you know, you form It's hard for a lot of people to understand why you'd feel guilty to be alive, but I'm told it's true.
It's definitely true.
I know it's true of the fire department.
There's a tremendous amount of guilt.
I mean, I went through it.
I went through all different emotions.
I don't know why either, but it's there.
You feel guilty for surviving when so many others didn't?
Did you do something right?
Did you do something wrong?
It's just fate.
I think I did a lot of things right that day, but I know a lot of firemen also did a lot of things right and they're not here to talk about it.
It's just fate, what happens.
Are you a religious person?
Are you a religious person?
I am.
I was raised Catholic.
I still believe, you know, in Catholic religion, but I'm not overly demonstrative in the Catholic faith, although I believe in it.
But, you know, I know I'm a good person and I believe what I believe.
Yeah, and what do you believe about why, you know, you said it, I mean, a lot of them were doing everything absolutely right and they died.
And so few lived, and you lived.
You're one of those 14 people who lived.
Do you question your own faith?
Do you ask yourself, you know, why God would have let it happen this way?
Or is that answered in your faith?
It's kind of answered in my faith.
It has to be.
If it was up to me, if I made the rules, I wouldn't have it unless some people die.
That's free will.
That's part of how the human race works.
It's not always nice.
We have to realize that there are people who want to destroy our way of life and we have to defend it.
Jan, I want to ask you about that, too, in more detail.
What's the New York Fire Department like now?
How's morale?
How's it functioning?
Well, it's tough.
We're basically working down there.
We're finishing up.
We'll probably finish up within, I think, May 30th or a bit less.
You know, it'll be over, the official recovery will be over.
We still, you know, we haven't recovered more than half of our members, so that's tough.
You know, guys, we're still grieving, we lost 343 members.
Were people, you know that's something that a lot of people have asked about.
You said, you know, the mortar and the brick vaporized a lot of it.
You didn't see a lot.
It was metal.
So you have to presume that human beings were vaporized.
They were virtually vaporized.
There was nothing to find.
Right.
Yeah.
And basically, I mean, you know, that's what we've been doing down there for the last eight months looking.
And, you know, you found some, but didn't find a lot.
You know, mostly found nothing.
Yeah.
So the families, the poor families, most of them don't have anything to bury.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
It's unfortunate, but that's true.
Let's go to and ask you about this.
I mean, our own vice president the other day said another attack is likely.
So I wonder, you know, how you feel.
You said we have to defend ourselves.
We're facing the situation now where our generation, probably our children, I mean, now they're saying, you know, we're going to have the suicide bombers here in America.
Not if, but when.
You know, they're coming.
And there's going to be more of this and awful biological threats and nuclear threats.
And oh God, it's a different world we live in now.
Since 9-11, it's a whole different world.
So, I wonder how you feel about this.
If we're attacked again, Chief, are you willing to say what you think our response should be?
Yeah, I'm willing to say it.
We have to, you know, there are people, and we know who some of them are, I mean, there are countries that have said that, you know, If given the opportunity, given the chance, if they had the technology, they'll destroy us.
That's right.
You know, they said it.
If someone's going to destroy my family, I'm going to try to destroy them first.
Yeah, they proved it.
Yeah, and they proved they'll do it.
So now, you know, Bush declared a war on terrorism, and that's exactly what it is.
It's not a war against any race of people, any type, any color, any religion.
It's a war on terrorists.
We have to see that war to the end, which means eliminate them.
Eliminate the terrorists.
I don't care what your race, color, creed, sex, nationality, borders.
Nothing matters.
I don't care what country you live in.
We should go after the terrorists, whoever they are, and eliminate them.
Well, I guess we're in the process of trying to do that.
Trying to do that, right.
Yeah, it's a pretty tough job.
You know, I've had some comments the last couple days.
You know, as far as I'm concerned, there are certain areas of the world, if we're attacked again, the Bacaw Valley, you know, in Lebanon, where a lot of rats are holding up, and the Indian-Afghan border area, where a lot of rats are holed up, and then, of course, there's Iraq that's manufacturing stuff to kill millions of Americans.
i think that uh... we should use every power at our disposal and that if that
means using tactical nuclear weapons and sending a message that'll be remembered
uh... to to some of those areas then uh...
i i i i see that as something as an option yeah i get what we have to defend
we have to defend our people and we have to defend our country
We have to defend all innocent people.
I mean, that's what this country does.
Some people say that, you know, we're aggressors, we're capitalists.
You know, we could take over any country we wanted to.
I mean, we don't... When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, we took it over.
We didn't keep it.
We gave it back to the people.
That's right.
You know, maybe we should have kept it.
Maybe we should have kept that oil.
You know, Saddam Hussein was trying to keep it.
If he got it, what would he have done?
He would have tried to strangle us.
Well, it seems to me, Chief, if we just let this go and we have generations now of terrorism and we're going to start living like Israel lives every day, then We need to take extraordinary measures, because we'll start to lose our rights.
As they clamp down more and more, if it's a slow ratcheting up of terror, then our Bill of Rights is going to be at risk.
It's going to naturally be at risk, because we're going to have to clamp down on everything.
Our Bill of Rights is going to be at risk.
I think most people would Give up certain rights.
They obviously would.
Because it's for their own safety.
It's for their own protection.
I know.
You don't have to get on a plane.
If you don't want to be searched, don't get on a plane.
I don't disagree.
Don't get on a plane and say, well, this is my satchel and you don't have the right to look at it.
That's ridiculous.
Of course it's ridiculous.
Yes, and there are going to be reasonable measures, but it will erode Oh yeah.
If we can identify the people that are doing it, we have to go after them.
again in some way i think that our response should be really harsh and that's and we've got the weapons uh... we've
got the weapons and were attacked
and these people want us dead you know they don't want much talk to us they
just want us dead and so i think we have a regard them the same way
uh... yes yeah if you know if we can identify the the people that are doing it
you know we have to go after them they'll not stop
well we have to destroy them because that they're going to try to destroy us
And, you know, you can't give them a second, third, fourth, fifth time, because, you know, maybe after the eighth, ninth, or tenth time, they'll succeed.
That's right.
You know, so, you know, we already gave them more than one chance.
You know, it's the old thing, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
You know, they attacked us twice so far.
They attacked the World Trade Center twice.
They tried to bring the building down twice.
They succeeded the second time.
Maybe if we had a stronger response the first time, the second time wouldn't have happened.
That's right.
And they had the opportunity to have a strong response and passed.
Right.
All right, let's try a couple of phone calls here.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with the Chief.
Hi.
Hello, my name is Joey.
Hi, Joey.
Chief.
Yes.
I know, first of all, I just want to say we love you in South Texas.
I'm calling from South Texas, McAllen.
And we, uh, I mean, what you did out there and what you guys did out there, it's, it's an honor to know that we have people that, uh, that are so, I mean, awesome, really.
I just want to let you know, my question was, uh, on September 11th, your, your, your title was chief and, and being a chief is the highest, you know, uh, authority in the fire department.
At the time, did you, Did you not want to be the chief, knowing that you had to deal with a lot of decisions, and did you regret any decisions that you made at the time?
No, I wanted to be the chief.
I wanted to be the chief my whole career.
I guess it's the type of personality that goes with the fire department, and that studies to become a chief.
I studied hard.
These are life and death decisions.
Someone has to make them, and I feel I'm competent to make them.
they're tough decisions to make but I felt competent to do it.
He asked you also if you regretted any decision that you did make.
I do not regret a single decision I made that day.
Now believe me I went through every decision I made numerous times.
You know we talked before about that guilt feeling and that guilt feeling is there
but when I step by step go through every decision I made I'm happy with every decision I made.
That's an amazing thing to say for a day of that magnitude, with all of that happening.
Yeah, I'll speak for myself.
I'm happy with the decisions I've made, and if you're not, you have to live with yourself.
Yeah, well, that causes a lot of trouble for a lot of people, you know, when they have to live with something for the rest of their life, you know, it affects them psychologically.
So that's incredible to be able to say that of a day, you know, as you rumble back over it, and that's got to be a lot of comfort for you.
It is.
You decided to write, what made you decide to write a book?
I get asked that a lot, and it was a combination of things.
First of all, after any major incident I'm in, I take notes.
I write down what went right, what went wrong, lessons learned, just for future reference, for teaching, to talk to other chiefs, to talk to flymen for training.
In other words, you're doing what a chief does.
That's right.
I did it at the World Trade Center bombing.
I wrote a lot of stuff.
I never did anything with it, just had it.
I talked about it with other people.
This time I was doing the same thing only I had a lot more stuff to write down.
Then once I started writing it became cathartic for me to put it down on paper to get timelines.
When I was doing this what were other people doing?
What was happening after the first hour?
i was trying to make this communications who was here in the who was about you
I was doing a lot of data gathering, I'll put it.
But then also in the weeks and months after September 11th, I was attending a lot of funerals and a lot of memorials.
The fire department, especially the New York City fire department, is a very close community.
I spent 29 years in the fire department.
I know a lot of people.
Stories get out real quick.
Of course.
A lot of people knew that I was in the building when it came down.
I was trapped.
They knew my story.
So at these memorials and funerals, they were coming up to me and talking, you know, asking what happened.
And I was talking to, you know, I must have told the story hundreds of times, you know, and it'd be, you know, an hour, two hours, three hours talking.
And then a lot of flyers were encouraging me, you know, you really should write this.
So people, you know, more people know it.
I was already writing, not writing a book, just writing what went on, and then I decided to write a book initially just for fun.
It is cathartic, isn't it?
It definitely was for me.
I wrote a book about my, by comparison, totally average life.
I went through a lot of emotions writing that and it really takes you back to it and you sort of relive it.
Right.
You really relive it.
So that's incredible.
How big a book is it?
I think it's like 300 pages, 300 and some odd pages.
That's pretty good.
There's a lot of detail in there then.
Yeah, I go into a lot of detail in a lot of areas.
I go into a lot of different things in the book.
All right.
Let's try one quickly for the bottom of the hour.
What's the Rockies?
You're on the air with the Chief.
Hi.
Hello.
Hello.
Yeah, this is Joe.
I'm calling you from Main Street of East Los Angeles over here at KFI.
Yes, Joe.
Welcome.
I'm really appreciate Chief.
Yes.
Well, first, I'm very frustrated when you were naming the people responsible, you didn't quite You know, give the target who they were.
Right.
You know, what frustrates me is that these were Saudi Arabians who did this to you.
And most of all, this was Saudi money who they fund and paid for the madrasas, which basically are suicidal jihad sociopaths And they sent him out into the world to do specifically what they did to you.
There's absolutely no question about it.
It was Saudi money.
It's Saudi money that did this to you.
And to hear you not mention a word of that frustrates me to the point where you have no clue as to how frustrating that is.
I'm mentioning it, but you don't.
And I think you have to identify who did this to you, because here's another thing, just so you can understand.
At the bottom half, there was a Bank of Nova Scotia, which is New Scottish, which is basically the Masonic Bank.
Alright, well listen, we're going to hold it there, caller.
Masonic Bank.
I can see where that's going.
Do you want to respond to that at all?
I'll definitely respond to anything.
I talk about what I know about.
I know a lot of the hijackers who were Saudi.
The Saudis are supposedly our friends.
They were our friends when they were afraid of their oil fields.
Kuwait was being invaded and they were the next on line.
I think all people have to realize that this is not against the race and that's what I said and you have to come out on, you have to make a choice who you're going to support.
You know, just because an Arab's an Arab, you don't support him.
If he's a terrorist, he's a terrorist.
That's right.
I came out against the terrorists, and I said, I don't care what race or religion you are, we're going after them.
Chief, hold on.
Bottom of the hour.
I'm Art Bell.
This is Coast.
You are listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from May 22nd, 2002.
It is the night, my body's weak I'm on the run, no time to sleep
I've got to ride, ride like the wind To be free again And I've got such a long way to go To make it to the border
of Mexico So I ride, ride like the wind, ride like the wind
I look for the sun, oh I was born a son of a loneliest man, I was put to mine,
with a gun in my hand, lived my life like the wind, right like the wind.
I was born a son of a loneliest man, I was put to mine, with a gun in my hand, lived
my life like the wind, right like the wind.
And I've got such a long way to go, way to go, to the water, to the misty coast, so I
ride like the wind, right like the wind.
So I ride like the wind.
I feel like I'm gonna hang, I was nowhere in sight when the church bells rang, I was
nowhere in sight when the church bells rang.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM, from May 22nd, 2002.
Good morning.
I doubt you've ever heard a story like this.
Not a real life story.
Probably not, ever.
And certainly not in this detail.
If you have any questions for the Chief, That's what we're here for right now.
It's all yours.
Coming up.
stay right there you're listening to our bills somewhere in time tonight
featuring coast to coast a m from may twenty second two thousand two
well i want to get another year ago with the chief and will try and lay in uh...
heavily to be the telephones uh... this last segment of free can chief
First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Chief Richard Pigeotto.
First, sir, I'd like to say thanks for taking my call.
Sure.
Good morning to both you and the Chief.
My question to the Chief would be, he says that he wants to kill all the terrorists.
The only thought in my mind when he says something like this is, it's the first thing you think of when something like this happens.
But, Coorhead should prevail over a period of time, and you'll realize that an action like that is only going to cause more terrorism.
Alright, that's certainly a widely held view, Chief.
I can assure you, I get lots and thousands of emails about this.
And they just say it will be a cycle of increasing violence.
Yeah, well, that's what a war is until some side wins.
We've declared a war on terrorism.
What are you going to do?
If you know they're there, are you going to let them go?
Let them do it again and again and again?
It has to be stopped.
I don't see how anybody else can develop any other rational point of view than that.
Yeah, I mean, you know, if you say that, it's going to be escalated.
That's what war is.
It's escalating violence until one side enforces their will on the other side.
We're right.
They're wrong.
I mean, it's very simple in my mind.
It's very simple.
They started it.
They want a war to the end.
So that's what it's really going to be.
Hopefully we'll prevail and hopefully people in this country will realize that.
They're calling the nature of the war.
They're the ones calling it.
They're saying they just want us dead.
So I guess we have to look at it that way.
If they want to crawl away into a hole in a mountain and stay there, fine, stay there.
But don't keep on making threats.
I'm with you all the way.
Wild Card Line, you're on the air with the Chief.
Hello.
Hello.
Going once.
Hello?
Yes, hello.
Art?
Yes?
This is Steve from Aspen, Colorado.
Hi, Steve.
I uploaded two of the pictures that the chief was talking about, the Keith.
They're on the webmaster's site.
One of the wreckage, all that was left after the two buildings collapsed was the six or so stories where the void was.
That's one of the photographs that you can see.
And the other one was walking out Over the debris field with all the white powder.
So those two pictures have been sent to Keith.
Would those be two of the ones, Chief?
Yeah, actually.
Hi, Steve.
How you doing?
I actually know who Steve is.
I recognize his voice.
Oh, so these would indeed be the photographs.
These came from the Chief, and he just forgot to send them to you.
If he told me he was going to be on, I would have sent them earlier, but I have a question for him.
All right, Keith, so you sent them to Webmaster?
Webmaster, right, about a half hour ago.
All right, thank you.
And I have a question for Pitch.
He just alluded briefly to what happened on his way down between the 35th and the 7th floor, but when he got to, I think, the 10th or so, he found a whole batch of people just kind of sitting there, and that's a fabulous little sub-story.
I'd like him to just tell that, if he would.
Sure.
Good to hear you.
Thanks.
Yeah, what happened?
We kind of glossed over that one thing.
When I was going down, two of the stairwells were blocked and the third one was clear.
We were going to the third one.
I was still doing a quick sweep of every floor.
I come into this room and there were approximately 50 people there.
There were 20 disabled people.
I'll say roughly 20.
I didn't count them.
and another you know about thirty people that will help with the right
uh...
you know what we stopped the evacuation to get them out of we were
you know it was slow going because uh...
you know the the helpers were fast we we were able to push them out quick
uh...
you know some of them didn't want to leave for some of the help of these you
know uh... various
uh... people down from the fifty sixty seventy four and they felt the responsibility to get them all the way
down Yeah, of course, but they gotta go.
I mean, they have to go, and we could do it better, faster, and we had to get them outside, and they left.
They were good.
Then we started getting the wheelchairs and the walkers and getting the people out.
And, you know, I was being at the end.
Push, you know, when I say pushing, I'm not literally pushing them, but you know, tell the firemen, come on, keep on going.
We gotta get, you know, we gotta get all these people out.
We gotta get them out.
Um, you know, I never stopped to get their names or anything, you know, it was just too much.
Um, I've talked to some of the firemen since then that were involved in that.
And, uh, you know, some of them lived, you know, got outside the building.
They got, you know, half a block away, a block away.
And some of them lived, and some of them didn't.
I'm assuming that's the same with the people.
I wish I could do more.
I wish I could say that they all got out, but I just don't know.
Yeah, there's so many things about that day.
We're never going to know.
No.
We're just never going to know.
We're never going to find the bodies, and we're never going to know.
Our support was done to us.
I used to the Rockies.
You're on the air with the Chief.
Hello.
East of the Rockies, are you there?
Going once, going twice, gone.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air with the Chief.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I've heard stories where Bush has kind of ignored warnings about hijacking, and I was wondering, do you think he's partly to blame because he didn't do more to get the security better in the airports before the attack happened?
All right, let's take that question.
Chief, a tough one.
Yeah.
It's a tough one.
I mean, look, the warnings go back to the last administration, really, and then now apparently to this administration, too.
How are you digesting this present controversy, you know, where we are with it right now?
Personally, I think it's spin, it's political spin is what's going on.
Um, there are warnings and there are threats coming in every day, hundreds if not thousands of threats a day.
Um, there are people that have to put some kind of, they have to put them in some kind of order.
And put some kind of validity on every threat.
I mean, if some crackpot calls up and says that there's a bomb on this place, that place, or the other place, do we just close that place down?
New York City yesterday, they closed down the Brooklyn Bridge for hours because there's a threat of a bomb.
Now, I don't know what the validity of it was, but obviously it was pretty, you know, pretty good.
Statue of Liberty, too.
New York City gets threats daily.
Just New York City gets hundreds of threats a day.
I mean, if terrorists know that they can destroy a country just by making threats, they'll make phone calls every day.
And they do.
We have agencies.
I don't think Bush or anyone in our government, and I hope not, intentionally knew that this was happening and says, well, I'm just going to let it happen or I'm going to ignore it.
I think it's just, based on the volume of threats that we get, Um, you know, it was, unfortunately, it was, you know, it wasn't, you know, it's easy to, the Monday morning quarterback to say, after all, you know, this threat should have been taken seriously.
I know.
Well, every threat should be taken seriously, but when there's thousands of them a day, you have to, uh, somehow rate them and, you know, if you get a threat from, from someone who you know who's inside armed, you know, a double agent, you take that a lot more seriously than, uh, An anonymous phone call.
Yeah, absolutely.
Alright, first time caller on the line.
You're on the air with the Chief.
Hello.
Hi, Chief.
Hello.
I'd like to be one of the first people.
I'm just a citizen.
I'd like to thank you for saving hundreds of American lives.
There's hundreds of people that are alive because of your efforts.
That's a pretty big thing.
Thank you.
I know all the firemen saved a lot of people's lives that day.
We all did what we had to do.
Yeah, it's really sad to see this stuff happen.
Do you guys, after all this has happened, do you sleep?
Do you have any problems?
Are you guys on vacation because of this?
Well, you already said he's on light duty, but a good question is, do you have nightmares about this?
Yeah, without a doubt I do.
I think about it a lot.
It's something I never want to forget, but I hope I can compartment it.
I hope I can just think about it just for a few minutes a day instead of a few hours a day.
Is there any one particular memory that's imprinted harder than others on you from that day?
I have a few memories.
The one is just the initial realization that when the tower I was in coming down, I was in a stairwell.
And how has it changed you psychologically?
It's put different priorities on my life.
I don't really get upset over small things.
Most of the time I don't.
But that's imprinted in my memory.
And how has it changed you, do you think, psychologically?
It's put different priorities on my life.
I don't really get upset over small things.
Most of the time I don't. Sometimes I do.
I think I realize life is precious.
Life is good.
I want to enjoy it.
I'm going to enjoy it.
You do what you have to do.
Life is good.
I was always put off until tomorrow.
I always enjoyed life.
I always had fun.
More conscious that there can suddenly not be a tomorrow.
Oh, without a doubt.
Alright, Wild Card Line, you're on the air with the Chief.
Good morning.
Hi, this is Larry in Fort Lauderdale.
Hello, Larry.
Hi, I just wanted to echo what the previous caller said before in 2.1, is that I do think, and I know that you probably don't like the use of this word, I think that you are the epitome of the modern American hero.
And I know I speak for thousands of callers that can't make it through tonight.
And I don't think that came through on some of the first phone calls that came in.
We'd just like to emphasize that.
I know it was a call.
You were doing your job.
But if you look at the enormity of what you were facing, we were all hurt emotionally.
You were hurt physically.
And you're probably among a select few of survivors that were hurt physically from this.
And for that reason, I think that we do have to have an aggressive response.
And someday we may be able to cure these people through some non-violent ways, but right now, people that would do what they did to you and those buildings need to be removed from this planet so we can get on with our business.
Yeah, and it's what they did to me, but it's what they did to us, what they did to you also, and all the people in this country.
And, you know, I have to say this other thing, too.
You know, they tried to destroy this country.
The result was so opposite.
They made this country so strong, so united.
I love America.
It's a great country.
In our time of need, New York's time of need, the fire department's time of need, America's come through so tremendously, especially the fire departments, the volunteer fire departments, the professional fire departments.
The generosity and support we've received has been overwhelming.
You know, anyone who sees that you attack this country, you're going to pay the consequence.
You know, there was a lesson of World War II, you know, the awakening of the giant.
The Japanese feared that and knew that would happen.
Now, that lesson is well etched in history, so these terrorists, they knew That they were going to do this.
I mean, they knew that there would be a terrible, they had to know there would be a terrible backlash worldwide, which has, of course, occurred pretty much, except in some countries, of course.
But, you know, they had to know it, and they didn't care.
They did it anyway.
I mean, that's the thing you've got to understand.
They just don't care.
They just want to kill us.
They're the ones that have set the way this is going to go, and I don't see it can go any other way other than to kill them.
Right.
You know, when it comes down to kill or be killed, you know, I'll kill.
I don't want to kill anyone, but if it comes down to kill or be killed, I don't want to be killed, so I'll kill.
Well, that's what it's down to.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with the Chief.
Good morning.
Yes, good morning, Art.
My name is John.
I'm calling from Yonkers, New York.
Good morning, Chief.
Good morning, John.
Yeah, I live about 20 miles north of the former World Trade Center site.
I was home that day, climbed a hill here in Yonkers and saw the towers burn.
I don't have to say much more than that.
It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen in my life.
Thousands of people lost their lives in Manhattan, and here in the Northeast, in the New York metro area, we're grieving the loss of those people and will for a long time.
But at the same time, there are millions of New Yorkers who have also lost something very important, a very important part of the heritage that used to stand proudly in Lower Manhattan.
Now, as you know, there's a lot of controversy going on right now exactly how the World Trade Center site is going to be redeveloped.
Obviously, the centerpiece will be a memorial of some kind.
But at some point in the future, New Yorkers will overcome their fear of super high-rise buildings.
And at that point, a decision is going to have to be made.
Now, obviously the Twin Towers will never be rebuilt, but do you as a native New Yorker, and I assume you're a native New Yorker, believe that something, something perhaps like the CN Tower in Toronto, or maybe one of the super high-rise designs currently being kicked around now, should be built at the World Trade Center at some point in the future, maybe around the end of this decade, to prove to the world that New Yorkers will not be defeated Really good question.
I mean, what kind of... should it be a memorial?
Should it be buildings again?
What do you think should go there?
Yeah, you know, I think it definitely should be a memorial.
You know, I think we all agree on that.
It should be a memorial for all the lives that were lost and there should be a special memorial for the firefighters.
That's my personal opinion.
And then I also believe the site should be rebuilt.
But I don't want to see a target.
And I think if you built a super...
You know, a super high rise, another tower, twin towers, some would say triplet towers, three towers, to show them that way.
You know, we're not afraid.
We've had two acts of foreign terrorism on this soil, and they've both been against the World Trade Center.
And, you know, I hate to say it, but if we build another target, it'll be attacked.
I don't know when, I don't know where it will be attacked.
I just don't want to see that.
You know, I have no problem putting five, fifty or sixty-story buildings there.
You get the same space.
I don't want to see a target.
Well, there's other cities and other really big buildings, aren't there?
Yeah, there are.
But this has become, this site has become a target.
And if you make it something that'll have a big impact, it'll, you know, You know, these fringe groups and these radicals will attack it.
You know, that's my belief.
Yeah, well, history's on your side.
So, a memorial?
A memorial?
You know, I'm not saying you have a 60-acre memorial.
I have no problem with rebuilding the site, putting high-rise buildings there.
I just don't want super high-rise buildings.
Super towers there anymore?
I can't tell you what an honor it has been to have you on the program.
I didn't even have a clue of the magnitude of the story that I was going to hear.
It's an amazing thing you've lived through, Chief.
Somebody said you were a hero earlier.
The last question I've got time for is how do you feel about that?
People think you're a hero.
How do you feel about that?
I've said it.
I think all firemen are heroes.
I know a commissioner a long time ago said it, that firemen prove they're heroes the day they put on their uniform.
It doesn't really matter.
It's just a willingness to put their lives on the line for their fellow man, and that's what firemen do.
So in that respect, we're all heroes.
I was in the fortunate or unfortunate spot to To help people.
And that's what I was trying to do.
Alright, Chief.
We are out of time.
My friend, thank you so much.
The book is Last Man Down.
Goodnight, Chief.
Thank you.
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