One of the first artifacts donated to the 9/11 Memorial Museum was recently featured in the museum’s history exhibit: an FDNY firefighter helmet. Worn by Mickey Kross at the World Trade Center 9/11.
Cross’ fire station, Engine 16 on East 29th Street in Manhattan, received a call to the World Trade Center at 8:50 a.m. After reporting to the Fire Command in the North Tower Hall, he and his men boarded the building and headed to another command post on the 23rd floor. Cross was helping evacuate the North Tower when the building collapsed. His wonderful story of survival and the significance of this artifact is detailed in The Story They Tell: Artifacts at the National September 11 Memorial Museum.
At 10:28 p.m., Cross was on the third floor. Then, “I heard a very, very loud noise overhead,” Cross recalled. “It was just a loud roar…it sounded like it was hitting you. Then there was the wind, very, very strong wind. It started to lift me off the floor. The next thing I knew I was just squatting down, I Going to the railing at the corner of the stairs and getting as small as possible…I tried to climb into my fire helmet, I wanted to do it just to protect myself.”
The building collapsed on Mitch Cross. “I thought, well, maybe that’s it. I’m kind of pissed. Like why the hell am I? Am I going to die at the World Trade Center on a beautiful summer morning?”
Fragments were thrown at him. “It was getting dark, and then there was silence. Nothing. No wind, no noise, no light. Nothing.”
Then the voice broke the silence. “I started hearing moans. The guys started communicating, yelling. They shouted: ‘Who? Are you doing well? . . . I realize I’m not alone. “
The voice brought a degree of comfort, but the confusion remained. They spoke to firefighters buried under the neck at the bottom of the stairwell. “He asked us to say goodbye to his wife and children.”
Cross and firefighters took turns broadcasting SOS messages, but nothing came back. About two hours later, one of the calls received an answer: “Where are you?” There was an exact answer to that question—staircase B in the North Tower. Or so they thought.
Outside, the World Trade Center has been reduced to a pile of burning rubble… They are still alive, but there seems to be no rescue. About four hours passed, and the light penetrated the darkness. “The strangest thing happened. This ray of sunlight was directly on us.”
After a while, Cross and the others are found and roped off Stair B. A total of 16 people emerged from the stairwell, including Josephine Harris.
