Um, I hear a guy yell at me, I look over, it's a guy named Tommy Burke.  
He worked in 111 Truck, very busy house.  Um, Tommy's yelling, "Lee, Lee, 
Lee." I look over, they had ah-a cop's car there.  He said, " Come on, they'll 
give us a ride over."  So I hopped in with Tommy, and we had a police escort, 
over the bridge, we flew there, got there in no time at all.  You know. It was 
amazing, we did get there fast, everybody was trying to get out of Manhattan 
really, you know.  Thousands of people, bridge, people just, throngs of people 
going in the opposite direction, walking.  

 	Yeah, Tommy and I, were just trying to figure out what happened, Tommy is 
trying to tell me, I think, I think, Tommy is trying to tell me that the 
towers came down and I m trying to make sense of that.  But P.S. all I had to 
do was look over where they were.  You know, and they weren't there and I'm 
thinking about it now. And they weren't there and this is still somewhat of a 
blur to think about that.  Ah, still a tremendous amount of smoke in the air, 
so I guess I was blocking it out.  

 	Two of us, two cops in the front, we got as far as City Hall, couldn't go 
any further.  Dropped us off, got out, horrible, gray, sooty clouds, still 
hanging through the area.  Uh, a lot of the walking wounded, plus just people 
are-that just want to get out.  But you could look at them, and there was kind 
of like, blank expressions, just blank expressions.  Just people walking, 
running, walking past you.  People that were bleeding, people that were being 
helped by other people.  Just, it's amazing, uh, yeah it was absolutely 
amazing.  

	You know I can't remember sounds.  Ah, ah, There wasn't much, you know 
there wasn't much talking going on.  There wasn't much, there-if I had to say 
something, it was very quiet.  It was scary quiet, it wa-what happened? 
Somebody turned off the speakers-yeah-it was...

[Interverviewer(Craig)]-Sirens?

	-silence, oh yeah it was scary.  It was, I mean, ah, hooked up with-I saw 
Rescue Two guys.  It turns out they came from the firehouse in their own 
private cars. They stopped at the firehouse, collected first aid equipment, 
um-gear that they think they might need, and, um-a few of them are still 
volunteer firemen, so they had volunteer chiefs' cars.  So the trip in was 
pretty quick also for them.  So I picked up some first aid stuff, met a 
guy-um, um-Henry McDonnell, who was just, just retired, battalion chief.  He 
worked under Commissioner Fehan as his executive assistant, he said, "Lee, 
what's up, what's going on." I said, "As much as I know, I said my son was 
working."  He said, "Yeah I want to find my-my brother, he was working."  

	I am on Broadway; by I think it was Murray.  That where rescue-a bunch of 
the guys from Rescue Two they were going to go off on their own, I said, I am 
taking off this way.  I went with Henry down the street, the closer you got 
down, I mean the streets you could see maybe halfway-no a quarter of the way 
down the blocks.  

	Going down the side streets.  Murray, um-um-ah, just probably Murray.  You 
could see fires, but you couldn't make out what they were yet because there 
was too much garbage in the air yet.  Turns out they were-um, ah-trucks, cars, 
burning.  A lot of people still walking through the cloud, coming up at you.  
No sound.  No sound.  Just, just quiet.  Got down, maybe down by Greenwich. 
Greenwich is a North-South Street.  We were going East-West, were walking 
west.  Saw, our first fatality, my first fatality for the day.  It was a 
firefighter.  By his engine, and I didn't pay attention, I should've looked 
but I didn't, it's too late.  What company the engine was.  But it must have 
been the chauffeur.  He was by the pump panel on the side, um, with a turnout 
coat over him.   So I didn't bother to, ah, lift the coat, you know I just 
looked at him, looked down.  Henry looked at me, I looked Henry, we didn't 
have to say anything.  Uh, but I did think that this was going to be a very 
bad day for the fire department and probably a lot of other people.  

	Henry let's go down here, and we went down, I don't know.  I-I didn't look 
around, but no, you know something I don't think there was anybody else 
walking in our direction and I don't recall them.  There could have been, I do 
remember people coming at us.  Coming out of this, horrible, you know, covered 
in, that horrible, I mean we've all seen the pictures of how they looked.  Ah, 
I don't think, I can't remember anybody walking with us. Isn't that unusual?  

	No, we're just very quiet.  Just the initial conversation about what we 
were both doing there:  "Let's get going, we'll go down here." I guess we were 
too overwhelmed by everything, you know, and plus your seeing this-this person 
walk past in this state, and that person in that state, and it looked like 
fires, and---Got down to West Street, made the left turn on West, to go 
towards the site, and then you could see, it wasn't, the wind, there was a 
little breeze coming from the ah, the west-northwest.  So we were on the-the 
leeward side of it, so it kind of like made it a little clear in front of us.  
Again, ah-trying to explain the view is just ah, well for those of them that 
don't know, there's that big walkway that crosses over the-West-ah, West 
Street.  We called it the North walkway, there are two of them identical, the 
South walkway is still standing today.  But it gives you a pretty good, ah, 
reference to how big the North walkway was, it was monstrous-ah, walkway.  It 
was down, and it was down on six fire trucks that were underneath of it, in 
all stages of being crushed.  So Henry and I got down to that, we got down to 
Veezy [Vessey] and West, we had already met a lot of debris before we got 
there but it was, ah, looking in the front, in front of us is where the heavy, 
heavy, heavy debris was, was we were at the site now.  Um, a bit of helter 
skelter, people, it wasn't like they were running around with there heads off, 
it was just like they weren't sure where they were going, what they were going 
to be doing.  Um, but I had a mission, Henry had a mission, my mission was to 
find my son and um-I just, I had done this all my life, so I just geared 
myself to, you know, whatever I am going to be seeing I'm going to see.  But 
you've got to keep a clear mind, if you don't that's when you, you do things 
your not, that's when people panic, basically.  Ah, so I-I had a mission, 
someplace right around there, I guess it was, Henry and I split, I don't 
remember why or when, but it was right around Veezy [Vessey] and West that 
Henry went his way and I went my way.  Um, I went down West, got to the 
collapsed walkway.  Um, it was on an angle, it was higher on the, ah, World 
Trade Center side, the east side of West Street, as opposed to the west side.  
The west side was actually closer to the ground, um, it made contact with the 
ground I think it was up against the World Finance-ah-building. Uh, I was able 
to get underneath of the walkway, fire trucks, um, a couple of them were still 
running. Uh, still smoke in the air, you know, and the lights were still 
revolving on the, ah, not revolving, the flashers rather in the front were 
still flashing.  Which made it even worse because it reflects in this-this 
little cloud, you know, but hearing them run was like, so the first thing I 
thought was well you have got to turn them off because were in a confined, 
somewhat of a confined space. Plus, it's not the best scenario just to let 'em 
run.  So I was able to crawl into the cab, and I think, I think it was Hazmat, 
one of the Hazmats.  But I don't want to swear to it; or a special unit, it 
was a box type unit.  So I was able to crawl in and pull the um-shutdown 
switch, I think I may have did it on two, definitely on one.  Came out-and 
your always looking, your always looking for victims, you know, and seeing 
what I saw, thinking that, you know, I'm just going to look for my son was 
correct but its whoever you came across.  If they needed help you'd help them, 
you know, you can't bypass somebody.  I m looking for my son you've got to 
just, first thing you come across is the first thing you come across and you 
work from there.  But anybody that I came across at this point was, they 
were-they were all dead, it was just, it wasn't going to work out.  

	You could see some turnout coat maybe here and there.  But there's a lot 
of-debris on top of them.  You know, I couldn't, get to them to see.  No I 
don't have anything yet, I was kind of like, ah, I was kind of crazed.  Yeah I 
think I had my moccasins.  I did have my moccasins.  My moccasins, a shirt, I 
think my dungarees and that was it.  As a matter of fact, I burned myself 
pretty good.  Yeah, isn't it-I just remember these things now. I burned myself 
pretty good on my stomach, because some of the stuff was still pretty hot in 
certain spots.  When...when-You know, when you got there, there was-I can't 
remember how I burned myself, isn't that something..? ...Pretty good burn.  No 
it was pretty early on, it was early on, early on... ...About yay big, I 
guess...No it was probably within the first half an hour of when I got there, 
so if you figure...I got there within less than a half an hour after the North 
Tower came down so you could figure from there, before eleven o'clock.