Anthony Fischetti oral history interview conducted by Dr. Benjamin Luft, December 14, 2010

About

Anthony was a carpenter on 9/11. He was on the Interboro Parkway and saw one of the towers fall. He drove to the Red Cross office in Queens, where he was informed that no volunteers were being accepted but that they were taking volunteers in New Jersey. He went home and his wife dropped him off at the Babylon train station. He travelled to New Jersey to volunteer his help. They too said they didn't need any volunteers, but Anthony insisted he was not going home. He was assigned to loading tugboats with food to be brought to Manhattan, and rode in one of the boats across the Hudson to Manhattan. Anthony was amazed at the destruction and said it was "like being in a war zone." He saw people cutting steel and digging in the pile. He got on the pile and began to dig. At one point he fell and was taken to a triage center, where someone from Russia gave him a coat. Anthony remembers being traumatized by finding a glove with a hand in it, and at one point, he fell into a torso. He lost a friend in the attacks, a firefighter, who was only identified by his leg. Anthony says he was numbed out from this experience and it was tough. He was on the bucket brigade for four days-about 80 hours in total. He does not remember sleeping and was exhausted and angry. He found some relief in a bar near the site briefly. After four days, he had to get home to his family. He took the train home which he said was like a "ghost town" and saw barricades with soldiers.

Archive

Library of Congress, in Library of Congress

Licence or status

Rights statement at the Library of Congress, as the Library of Congress states it.

Credit

Library of Congress

Language

English

Country

United States

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