Shelter dog getting second chance at life in new home in NYC

By Tom Marshall

Senior Advocate writer

Keith Johnson, 67, is a retired New York city firefighter who was at the scene shortly after the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11.

Johnson lives on Staten Island.

His ladder company was at the north tower of the World Trade Center when it was attacked. Six members of his company miraculously survived.

They were in the staircase when the tower collapsed around them.

Johnson, who was off duty working at his lieutenant’s house, said he told him they had just lost hundreds of firefighters as the towers went down.

“I thought I may not be home for a month because who knows what is going to happen,” Johnson remembers thinking.

Johnson arrived about a half hour after the second tower collapsed, he said.

Johnson said 15 of his fellow firefighters got to the fire house at the same time in Chinatown before heading to the scene.

The ladder company already had the six men there, he said.

“You think you’re going to start digging for your men who are dead,” Johnson said.

He said they were collectively counting the number of children those firefighters had believing the survivors in the company would be caring for those children for the rest of their lives.

Johnson also wondered how many of his fellow firefighters had switched shifts with someone else and happened to be at the towers when they collapsed.

While most of his ladder company made it out safely, misfortune has followed many of them.

“We were lucky because we didn’t die, but there are more people dead from 9/11 cancer than died that day,” Johnson said.

There were a total of approximately 750 firefighters at the Trade Center that day, he said.

Nearly 50,000 individuals exposed to the toxic environment following the 9/11 attacks have been diagnosed with various cancers, including significant numbers of lung cancer and blood disorders, according to media reports.

The cancer outbreak is believed to have been triggered in part by toxins at Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, media reported.

Johnson said he is among those who were diagnosed with cancer in the aftermath of 9/11.

Reflecting on the experience, Johnson said firefighters who were there that day are obviously happy to be alive and miss their comrades, but were determined to not let the experience destroy them as a group.

“Firemen are pretty happy, go lucky type of guys,” Johnson said. “We bounce back pretty good.”

They remember those who didn’t make it out alive every year at the firehouse on 9/11, he said.