911 Stories: NYPD Mike Gerbasi

An NYPD office to this day, now working with the Highway Patrol in The Bronx, Mike Gerbasi was just 26 years old with 3 years experience as a New York City cop on September 11. Then assigned to the first precinct in Lower Manhattan, Mike and his partner were in their patrol car at Spring Street and West Broadway when they heard a loud explosion. Looking up, they could see a smoking, gaping hole in the North Tower and immediately headed down to The World Trade Center. After they parked, the two cops grabbed some medical equipment and made their way inside the North Tower. Their supervisor ordered them outside to help direct the office evacuees to go up Church Street, away from the danger. Gerbasi vividly recalls a man standing in the middle of the street, laughing as he spoke on his cell phone. Cell phones were rare in those days and it was so bizarre to see someone laughing like he was enjoying a day in the park as the horror unfolded. Gerbasi says he tried to get the man to move out of the street to safety when he heard a second explosion. Debris rained down after the 2nd passenger jet hit The South Tower. Officer Gerbasi felt something hit his shoulder. Profusely bleeding, his right arm was nearly severed. He had to hold it with his left hand as he made his way into a subway station. Miraculously, his partner was there along with another cop. They ushered him into an ambulance. His arm was successfully re-attached but it took another year and a half before he would return to full active duty as a New York City Police officer. To this day, Gerbasi isn’t sure if that man laughing into the cell phone was real or if it was an angel, preventing him from re-entering the North Tower to help others out to safety. Had he gone back inside, he could have been one of 23 NYPD’ers killed that day by the collapse of the twin towers.