近距离内射合集

In the days after the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Doug Gomez sat down in his 20th Street Manhattan apartment and started writing a poem to gather his thoughts.

He envisioned the toxic dust still cloaking the city, charred paper sailing through the streets of Lower Manhattan, the solemn faces of first responders, cranes plucking steel from the smoking ruin the world would come to know as Ground Zero, a term previously used only to describe the center of a nuclear blast.

As he wrote, the work of Johann Sebastian Bach 鈥� the music of his childhood in the projects of Spanish Harlem 鈥� filled Gomez鈥檚 mind with horns, strings and keys.

For those moments, Gomez鈥檚 imagined symphony broke the strange silence that had settled on New York following the attacks, which killed 2,753 civilians and first responders after Islamic extremists slammed two jet airliners into what were then the second and third tallest buildings in the U.S.

鈥楾hese were our neighbors鈥�

Gomez was on his morning bike ride near the West Side Highway when he and a crowd of stunned New Yorkers watched the two towers collapse.

鈥淚t was a total shock,鈥� he said. 鈥淪ome people were just dropping to the ground from the shock of it, perfect strangers falling into the arms of other strangers. We were just looking up in disbelief at what had just happened.鈥�

Gomez described the fallout that rose up from the Lower Manhattan skyline as an 鈥渦pside-down mushroom cloud of pulverized ash that spread in every direction.鈥�

New Yorkers began emerging from the haze in a ghostly white, carrying briefcases and messenger bags, some clinging to one another 鈥� images memorialized in thousands of photographs that were published after the attacks.

Without a word of debate, Gomez said he and many others from the crowd began walking toward the disaster.

鈥淭hat was so simple. These were our neighbors, you know?鈥� Gomez said. 鈥淭hese were our neighbors. These were fellow New Yorkers. People needed help in a big way.鈥�

Over the next 48 hours, Gomez, a corporate sales director for Canon at the time, became one of thousands of ordinary Americans to assist in first-responder efforts.

He and a group of about 100 citizens headed for Greenwich Village, just north of the financial district where the towers had stood minutes before. They spoke with a fire chief, who told them first responders needed their help, but said it would take some time to organize their response.

By nightfall, they were still waiting for a chance to assist, when the chief told them to return home, get some rest and come back in the morning.

Gomez was exhausted by the time he returned to his apartment, but quickly realized sleep was impossible. He changed his clothes and started walking back toward Ground Zero in the early morning hours of Sept. 12.

Again, he was struck by the silence that had fallen on a city famous for its constant clamor, which was true even of Gomez鈥檚 upbringing in 1950s, 鈥�60s Upper Manhattan.

Save for a firetruck or police cruiser headed south, he said the streets were empty of all traffic.

鈥淚t was dead silent,鈥� he said. 鈥淥f course, the ash had moved into all of the streets, so it was like walking into a recording booth. There was no echo, no sound. There weren鈥檛 many people, other than those of us that were walking south to do whatever we could.鈥�

Incident commanders directed them to the lobby of the American Express building at 200 Greenwich Street, a few blocks north of Ground Zero. The building was post-apocalyptic 鈥� the lobby imploded, glass everywhere 鈥� but it wasn鈥檛 at risk of collapse, they were told.

Doctors, nurses and psychiatrists identified themselves, and everyone helped gather water to wash firefighters鈥� eyes as they carried in body bag after body bag containing the remains of the dead.

Everywhere he spotted bunker gear, Gomez stopped to speak with the members of the FDNY to see if they would pause a moment, catch their breath, wash their face and perhaps talk with a professional.

鈥淭he only way I can describe them was that they were like pallbearers,鈥� Gomez said. 鈥淭hey had the expressions of sadness on their face like pallbearers carrying the remains of a loved one. That was going on all morning.鈥�

One firefighter approached Gomez and introduced himself. He said his brother had been working inside the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, and he wanted Gomez to write down their names should they both go missing.

While the firefighter lived, Gomez later learned that his brother died in the attacks.

The citizen first responders eventually relocated their makeshift triage center to the eastern edge of Ground Zero, outside the Merrill Lynch building, where they collected food from a local pizzeria, as well as candy, to hand out to firefighters, medics and police.

To get there, they picked their way through a colorless wasteland of dust, loose paper and debris from the twin towers, which still burned in a six-story-tall heap several blocks away.

鈥淭he pizzas, unfortunately, were futile,鈥� Gomez said. 鈥淓very time you鈥檇 open the box, the pizza would be immediately covered in dust.鈥�

The city was still on edge, fearing that another attack might be imminent.

When word eventually spread that the Merrill Lynch building might collapse, the citizens and first responders alike fled in all directions, Gomez said, many returning home due to the danger.

When he got back to his apartment, Gomez pored through dozens of emails from loved ones, and he called his siblings to let them know he was OK.

Then he read the news, which told him the disaster had reached far beyond New York.

Within 90 minutes following the World Trade Center attacks, hijackers also crashed American Flight 77 into the Pentagon, killing 184 passengers and government workers.

In one of countless acts of heroism by ordinary Americans that day, courageous passengers and crew aboard a fourth plane, 近距离内射合集 Flight 93, fought hijackers in an attempt to reclaim the cockpit.

Their actions forced the plane to crash-land in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing everyone aboard, but subverting another intended attack targeting Washington, D.C.

鈥楨veryone was a New Yorker鈥�

In the years following Sept. 11, Gomez was invited to be a docent at the now-closed 9/11 Tribute Museum, where he learned that talking through his trauma could help him process his experiences and teach other Americans about what the city of New York went through that day.

After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in T艒hoku, Japan, resulted in 19,759 deaths, Gomez traveled to the region to speak about how to contend with trauma and lead a normal life.

The World Trade Center Health Registry has also funded therapy and other care for Gomez and thousands of other New Yorkers affected by 9/11. Many still suffer from PTSD and a slew of other ailments tied to air that became polluted with aerosolized asbestos and other carcinogens for months following the attacks.

In the years after 9/11, Gomez developed spasmodic dysphonia, a chronic vocal chord condition that affects his speech, but he was never able to definitively link the ailment to his exposure to contaminated air resulting from the attacks.

Gomez met Susan, his wife-to-be, in 2002, and they moved to Santa Fe in December 2015. In New Mexico, they joined a growing diaspora of New Yorkers who came to the Land of Enchantment after living through the events of Sept. 11, and others who also lived through the COVID-19 pandemic.

His first Sept. 11 anniversary away from New York, Gomez said he felt at loose ends.

He headed down to the city fire station, where he spoke with then-fire chief Erik Litzenberg.

After learning of his story, the Santa Fe Fire Department has included Gomez as part of its annual remembrance ceremony honoring the victims of 9/11 every year since.

In 2017, Gomez reached out to New York to donate a piece of the World Trade Center to the City Different.

Twenty-five years later, Gomez, now 78, says Santa Fe鈥檚 ceremony 鈥� every commemoration he hears of throughout the U.S. 鈥� is a reminder that the lives lost, sacrifices made and heroism demonstrated by so many Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, hasn鈥檛 been forgotten.

鈥淭he rest of the country reached out after what happened,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd we clearly knew that everyone was a New Yorker, you know? No matter where you were, whether it was in Santa Fe or overseas, everyone bonded together, and that made such a big difference to all of us.鈥�

John Miller is the 近距离内射合集鈥檚 northern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at jmiller@abqjournal.com.