Engine 65's 9/11. Five floors, a bad knee, and a May Day that saved their lives. Firefighter Al Barry tells all
On September 11, 2001, Engine 65 climbed into the North Tower with orders to go up. A lieutenant's bad knee slowed them at every fifth floor. A May Day came at floor 22 — the same floor where the radios were said to stop working. That pause, that knee, that call is why firefighter Al Barry is alive to tell this story. Paul Rieckhoff, himself a 9/11 first responder, sits down with Al for a no-BS account of the climb, the silence, the collapse, and the long years afterward when the real damage — lungs, mind, brothers lost — finally caught up.
Twenty-five years on, the loudest lesson from 9/11 is still the quietest one: appreciate every damn day. In this replay from the…
The Brief
→ Four things from today’s episodeHow a bad knee at every fifth floor of the North Tower stair. How a bad knee at every fifth floor of the North Tower stairwell almost certainly saved Engine 65's crew
The May Day at floor 22. and why that number matters for the radios that failed higher up
Al's mistake that the South Tower's collapse was 'all the el. Al's mistake that the South Tower's collapse was 'all the elevators being recalled'
The bodies on West Street, the sounds mistaken for gunfire,. The bodies on West Street, the sounds mistaken for gunfire, and walking in as a nozzle man on his first big job at 65
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