By Helen Bezuneh, Particular to the AFRO
Regina Wilson appeared up from her place on the hearth engine to search out her imaginative and prescient clouded by billowing clouds of white smoke.
She couldn’t assist however be surprised by what she was seeing: automobiles had been ablaze, buildings had been on fireplace and screaming individuals–coated in ashes–ran by the streets of Decrease Manhattan.
She’d by no means seen town like this earlier than– and she or he’d seen some emergencies. In any case, she was a firefighter with the New York Metropolis Fireplace Division, on the daybreak of a brand new millennium.
However this was totally different. This was September 11, 2001.
“It appeared like a warfare zone,” Wilson advised the AFRO. “It was onerous, as a result of normally we have now to suppress the sensation of battle or flight once we’re feeling scared or don’t know the place to begin and don’t actually know what’s taking place. It was simply one other kind of sustainability that you just needed to hold.”
“You needed to dig deep for it to be able to keep targeted on what you had been doing as a result of there was a lot uncertainty of what was gonna occur subsequent–what’s gonna explode?” Wilson stated, recalling the anxious questions operating by her head. “Is anyone gonna shoot me? Is a constructing gonna fall? Is a automobile gonna explode? It was the weirdest feeling.”
Moments earlier than, Wilson was only a second 12 months worker with the hearth division. She was on the fireplace station making ready to begin a day on the hearth truck when a coworker, John Chipura, requested if they may change positions for the day.
Realizing he wished extra expertise on the truck, Wilson agreed. She can be on the engine, and Chipura can be on the truck.
It was a choice that saved her life.
“It was an indescribable, clear, stunning, brisk day,” Wilson stated. “But it surely ended up being one of many worst days.”
As she moved her belongings from the truck to the engine, she heard her fellow firefighters loudly cussing within the kitchen. Working in a FDNY firehouse, it was initially handed off as regular. However then she walked into the room. There, she watched as a tv newscaster defined: a industrial plane had simply flown into one of many two towers that made up the World Commerce Middle.
These on the truck had been instantly dispatched to the burning buildings in Decrease Manhattan’s Finance District. The engine adopted behind roughly 40 minutes later.
The engine sped by the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel and was approaching its finish when Wilson says she and her colleagues felt their rig shake in a matter it had by no means carried out earlier than.
The primary constructing, the South Tower, had fallen. Nonetheless, they pressed towards the towers.
By way of the blinding smoke, a lady approached. She was coated in mud and having an bronchial asthma assault. The primary responders washed her face down and instructed her to stroll away from Floor Zero. Then got here a deafening noise: the North Tower was falling.
“My boss advised us all to only run. So we ran again to the engine that we had been simply attempting to get to the command publish. I jumped on the again and he advised us to place our masks on,” stated Wilson. “I keep in mind attempting to rush up and put my masks on as a result of all I may see was this huge cloud of black smoke…I had simply put my masks on once we simply obtained consumed by this thick, black smoke.”
Wilson advised the AFRO she feared she was residing her previous couple of moments on Earth.
“I used to be like ‘one thing’s gonna fall on us, we’re gonna die at this time.’”
Because the smoke cleared a bit, the firefighters sprang into motion, grabbing tools to assist in any approach they may.
“We needed to draft water from the river to be able to put fires out,” she stated. “We spent more often than not attempting to gather it and hook up with the marine models in order that we may draft water to place out a few of these constructing fires and automobile fires in all places. You simply didn’t even know the place to begin.”
The chaos unfolded on dwell tv with viewers around the globe watching. From Wilson’s viewpoint, the truth was grim: each single individual on her firm’s truck died at Floor Zero, together with Chipura, the person who switched positions with Wilson.
Chipura was one in every of 343 firefighters who died that day.
As she lives within the shadow of that disastrous day, Wilson finds that her skill to manage modifications from 12 months to 12 months. At occasions she is glad to recollect the individuals and the great occasions, however there are darker moments.
“Yr to 12 months, it conjures up totally different ideas,” she remarked. “Generally the load of the second can get to me– simply interested by John and what his life may have been.”
Wilson stated she lives life to the fullest as a result of she doesn’t need to take as a right the truth that she continues to be right here, when extra 2,990 individuals perished on that day.
“I’m right here from that change. I used to be okay this 12 months, final 12 months I used to be a multitude.”
Wilson’s firehouse has a memorial march yearly, with firefighters coming from internationally to affix. After they’ve breakfast collectively, they get on the subway with flags that characterize each firefighter and officer who died of their battalion. They then march to the World Commerce Middle, do a remaining salute, have a second of prayer, and stroll their flags again to Brooklyn.
Because the president of the Vulcan Society, a fraternal group of Black firefighters in New York Metropolis, Wilson considers it particularly urgent to enhance public consciousness of the Black firefighters who risked their lives on that fateful day.
“I believe one of many largest issues because the president of the society shouldn’t be solely ensuring that the members are ready, but in addition ensuring that we’re not forgotten,” she stated. “There have been 12 Black firefighters that died throughout 9/11– but when we don’t converse their names and don’t inform their story, they are going to be forgotten.”
Wilson stated the 12 Black firefighters are remembered by way of a group backyard in Brooklyn.
“Yearly we go and pay our respects and pay homage to these Black members that handed away as a result of the media doesn’t acknowledge their lives and their function.”
Wilson additionally goals to highlight the extra normal experiences Black firefighters have on the job, day after day. On Sept. 11, 2001, she was the one lady in her firehouse, and was one in every of two Black individuals in a category of 300.
“Being [in] an atmosphere the place you aren’t even capable of relate to somebody who could also be feeling the identical issues, or experiencing comparable issues and tips on how to course of it was a bit onerous,” stated Wilson.
As she strikes ahead in life, Wilson takes the teachings she discovered on Sept. 11 alongside together with her.
“There have been a number of classes I discovered: survivor abilities and being okay with being alive–being purposeful in regards to the that means of the time that I’ve, and never desirous to dishonor myself or dishonor John.”
Wilson depends closely on her religion and believes her life was spared for a cause. “God spared me for no matter cause. If there was a function available, then I need to discover the aim.”
“It’s a must to love what you do, you must love the group to be able to serve them the best way that’s carried out with firefighters,” she added. “One of many largest issues that I took away from that’s that love and respect–if you come collectively– [can] be essentially the most stunning factor on the planet.”
