Retired NYPD officer's 1st Precinct memo book now serves as a valued 9/11 artifact

An NYPD officer recently went back to the precinct closest to ground zero and opened the memo book he carried on Sept. 11, 2001. He is now sharing its contents publicly for the first time since that day.

A quarter-century later, Officer Shaun McGill was in the room in the 1st Precinct where he took roll call that morning. It's now a makeshift museum.

"I stood here 25 years ago, getting my assignment and writing in this book right here, and the hell that happened [happened] less than an hour later," McGill said.

What Officer McGill experienced on 9/11  

McGill says at 8:41 a.m., five minutes before the first plane struck the World Trade Center, "I wrote 10-53 north end in Vesey. A 10-53 is an accident of two vehicles."

McGill was a rookie with only 18 months on the job. His log book shows he was responding to a fender bender one block from the towers just as the first plane hit. He said he ran toward the World Trade Center and then inside.

"I saw little pockets of fire on the street. It was debris coming down from the building," McGill said. "And as I got closer, I saw bigger balls of fire, and it turns out they were people."

Jet fuel had poured down the elevator shafts and exploded in the lobby.

"When I see a woman on fire who's still alive, and she's begging me to help her, I take off my uniform shirt and put the flames out on her, and just do what I can for her," McGill said.

He said he evacuated everyone he could, including children from a nearby school, and then raced into the Marriott hotl.

"'We have to go! Let's go! Let's go!'" McGill remembered saying. "And it's at that moment someone yelled out, 'It's coming down!' I just started running. We all started running, and when everything settled, the ceiling came down on us. Smoke, wires, electrical wires everywhere, and I realized I was alive.

"The building caved in in front of us and it caved in behind us, so we were in a spot where we were the only survivors, where maybe if I wouldn't have ran I'd be dead," McGill added. "If I would have ran too fast I'd be dead. So it was truly just not my time."

He said all he could think of was his wife, who had suffered a miscarriage two days earlier.

"I knew that I can't survive 110 stories falling down on my head, but when people say their life flashes before their eyes, it actually does," McGill said. "I thought of my wife and I said, 'I'm not ... this isn't my day. I'm not going out like this. I'm gonna get out of here one way or the other.'"

McGill and some firefighters picked their way out, found a door beneath the debris, and waded through dark, flooded water before escaping.

"I will never forget what I saw, ever"  

NYPD Chief of Department Michael LiPetri also responded that day.

"I will never forget what I saw, ever. I just remember civilians still trying to kind of get out and police officers and firemen and rescue operations," LiPetri said.

He said of the thousands of NYPD who responded that day, now just over 900 are still on the force.

"I can't believe it's 25 years, but the heroism and the response from the men and women, not just from the NYPD, but all members of the rescue operation, was just unbelievable," LiPetri said.

McGill said he stayed on the force another 22 years, but didn't talk much about what happened until after he retired.

"The World Trade Center Health Program suggested that I start speaking to somebody about this, and I have, and it has been a great help. But people just knew not to ask you about it while you were working," McGill said.

Now, that room in the 1st Precinct holds his memories alongside other remnants, including a photograph of Officer Moira Smith, the only female NYPD officer killed on Sept. 11, moments before she died. A uniform from that day is still covered in dust and firearms still carry World Trade Center ash.

And, of course, there's McGill's memo book. For his last entry the night of Sept. 11, before months of round-the-clock response, the only words that came to him were, "No final giving back, World Trade Center crash necessitated emergency response, priority. 21:15, end of tour, P.O. McGill."