Patty Hess comes from a family of firefighters. Her Dad was a firefighter. So was her husband, Robert, known as Bobby, with whom she was raising 4 children: a 1 year old; 3 year old twins and an 8 year old daughter, on September 11th, 2001. Newly promoted to Lieutenant, Bobby had swapped shifts with Captain Thomas Farino, who became one of the 343 FDNY’ers killed that day.
Bobby wanted the morning and afternoon off because he & Patty were re-doing the kitchen in their small home in Marine Park, Brooklyn. In fact, when the first plane hit The North Tower, Bobby and Patty were awaiting the arrival of firefighter friends, who offered to help do the kitchen work. Bobby told his wife, “Maybe I should go in early”. Patty remembers advising him, “Why don’t you take the kids to school (it was the first day of pre-school for the twins). They’re (the firefighters) are going to need relief later”.
Patty says had he gone in early, he probably would have died because he likely would have been in one of the buildings when they collapsed. Marine Park, Brooklyn was home to so many FDNY’ers, the joke was, if your house was on fire, 10 firemen would show up with garden hoses to fight it. Heading out the door, Bobby linked up with several other FDNY’ers, collected their gear from a local firehouse, and then commandeered a city bus to take them to the World Trade Center.
Patty didn’t see Bobby again until the next day. When he got off the bus, the whites of his eyes were totally pink. A neighbor brought out her daughter’s C-Pap machine to help him breath. Patty says her husband was never the same, suffering from PTSD. Lieutenant Bobby Hess contracted a rare 9/11 cancer 9 years later. He died from surgical complications a month after diagnosis. On September 11th, Patty & Bobby’s daughter, Kimberly, was in the 3rd grade class , when children began to be pulled out, one by one. Not knowing why, the rumor was they all had head lice.
When Kimberly’s mom showed up, Kimberly was one of just 3 kids left in class. She remembers her mom crying in the hall, and asked her, “Mommy. Mommy, do I have head lice too?” Kimberly remembers spending the rest of the day playing with neighborhood kids outside. They were making a game of all the papers flying in the air from 42 miles away from The World Trade Center. Who could collect the most? One kid thought he was rich, grabbing a charred business check for $5,000.