Heroes To Us, Brothers To Them
As survivors of the attack on the World Trade Center raced down stairwells to escape, they passed firefighters climbing up the stairs, toward the inferno.
Now, hundreds of those men are missing and nowhere is the loss felt more keenly than in Squad 18. A third of this elite squad is missing and the survivors have been working around the clock to find their brothers.
In a break from their work, four squad members told CBS 60 Minutes II Correspondent Vicki Mabrey what it is like to be first at the scene of a disaster like the Trade Center fire.
“You're heading up them stairs, “ said Gary Moore. “Some guys are going quicker than others. You're going to just keep lifting your leg, one after the other, to get up there. Cause you know you've got to get there. Nobody else is going to do the job.”
Fear is there but it’s a controlled fear. “You are concentrating on what you have to be doing, and getting that job done, “Moore said.
No one knows how far up the tower the members of Squad 18 had gotten before the building collapsed, but their colleagues suspect that, being first on the scene, they were pretty far up the tower, something that meant no time to escape.
Everyone on duty from Squad 18 - Lt. Billy McGinn, Eric Allen, Manny Mojica, Andy Fredericks, Dave Halderman, Larry Virgilio and Timmy Haskell - was buried in the collapse. Since then, the surviving squad members have worked 24-hour shifts, digging through the wreckage to find their brothers.
“Who knew them better,” said Dan Castallano, ”than the guys they worked with, and spent time with in the firehouse? We knew them the best. We're the closest brothers. Even though the whole fire department's a brotherhood-- we were-- we were the closest ones. So, we go in and get them.”
So far, they have found bodies of four of the seven missing squad members. But the work is arduous.
“You dig and you dig, and then they cut, and they dig, and you cut, and you dig, “ said Moore . “And-- you know? You're on your hands and knees. You- know, there's not much room to operate. “
Besides being cramped, conditions are hellish. “That's what it really reminds me, when I kind of had hell in my mind, is just-- metal at all kind of different angles,” said Pete Campanelli. “Holes, steam, smoke rising. It's-- it's horrible.”
But still they labor on.
“Your brothers are down there,“ said Moore. “And we want to get them home. Whether it's good news or bad news, you want them out of there, and you want to bring them back.”
And when they find a fallen comrade, they “mourn their loss, but, you know, celebrate their life.”
They remembered Manny as a big, burly biker – tough guy with a heart of gold. Larry was the most cultured of the group - he'd go to see opera, and Shakespeare. Andy was family-oriented; his fist love was his family, his second love was the department.
Eric was described as a jack of all trades.
“You need something, Eric was right there,” said Campanelli.
“And if you didn't need something, he could tell you what you do need,” added Moore.
Lt. McGinn was always known as an aggressive firefighter. “I could picture him just jumping off that rig and getting up there, said Castallano. “Two steps at a time. And just, "let's go, let's go, come on, let's go." Because he realized what was at stake.”
Dave, dubbed “a doer,” Is the son of a fireman and “his brother is on the job.”
Timmy was probably like the best looking guy in the fire house. “If he was born on the West Coast he be a typical California surfer-dude, hangin' ten, or whatever,” said Mike Connolly. “Timmy was another super guy.”
Timmy's brother - a captain - is missing, too.
“The loss is outrageous,” said Connolly.
Firefighters tend to come from generations of firefighters; they say it's in their blood. For Lt. Pete Campanelli, whose father and brother are also firemen, the chain might soon be broken.
“I don't think my son's going to come along behind me,” he said. “I'm not into that. I'm happy about that.”
Why?
“It's a dangerous job. It really is.”
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