9/11 Stories: NYPD Eric Romero

Now 55, and still patrolling the subways as an active member of the NYPD, Eric Romero remembers his partner telling him on September 11. 2001, “It’s my birthday. I tell you that because really weird things happen on my birthday”. Romero says his words still echo. They were the first NYPD’ers to respond to the terror attack because they were already inside The World Trade Center for at least ten minutes when the first plane hit. Minutes earlier, they had come across a disabled woman at the Chambers Street subway station who needed help because her electric scooter stopped working. Informed that she worked on the 20th floor of The World Trade Center step away, the two cops helped her up to her office to handle the malfunctioning scooter situation. As they were on the phone with a sergeant, they felt a powerful explosion, which shook the building side to side at least 3 feet. Out the window, they watched debris falling. Horrified, they watched incredulously with the realization some of that “debris” were bodies. The two cops knew they had to help people get down to safety. They ignored the public address system announcements to stay in place. To this day, Romero wonders how many more lives they could have saved if the staircase was wider. Only two to three people could use each step and as they led people down, with New York City firefighters coming up on the same narrow staircase. He will never understand why a building so huge, could accommodate so few, in an emergency in that narrow staircase.