WESTBORO, MASS. (WHDH) - An author from Westboro who wrote a book full of stories from first responders at Ground Zero is hoping his work will now resonate with a new generation on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
As first responders searched through the rubble of the Twin Towers in New York City, Dave Bresnahan said he wanted to hear from those heroes who first rushed to help.
“I just started finding people who were willing to talk to me by calling,” Bresnahan explained.
He said he set out to preserve their stories, in their own words, in the days after the attacks. He interviewed a National Guardsman from New Jersey who went to Ground Zero on his own, and a police officer resuced from the rubble.
“He pulled off the oxygen mask to tell everybody thank you, and he raised his hands with a thumbs up and they put him on a gurney,” Bresnahan said of the police officer. “Everybody all around – of course he was surrounded by rescue workers – they all started cheering.”
Bresnahan also interviewed a worker who passed several firefighters in the stairwell while making his way down from the 91st floor of the North Tower.
“He saw their young faces and didn’t realize until later that he probably saw those men just berore they died, because they were going in and he was going out,” he said.
These stories are the basis of Bresnahan’s book, “911 Responders at Ground Zero,” which was published two months after the attacks.
Now 25 years later, Bresnahan hopes they will connect with a younger generation.
“I want them to have this story, to know what people did to go in and save lives,” he said. “Their entire being was about, “I was going to save lives.'”
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