Four Survivors Pulled From Rubble

By Roni Rabin | STAFF WRITER

September 13, 2001

Rescue workers fought the odds and the clock yesterday to make miracles happen.

Throughout the day yesterday, one team of rescue workers followed tapping they could hear from inside a pile of debris. But their attempts to dig the tappers out were fraught with peril.

"Every time we get close, we hit a beam," said a lieutenant with the New York City Fire Department. "We have to cut the beam, and then it gets dangerous. It looks like it will take four to five hours."

Although details were scarce yesterday, police unofficially put the count of survivors pulled from the rubble at four yesterday.

Joe Chabre, a firefighter from Franklin Township, N.J., said he and six colleagues rescued a woman who was conscious. "I told her, 'Sit back, relax and calm down, and we'll get you to triage.'" Further details were not available.

Robert Hessler, assistant director of emergency services, said another woman was also extricated. She was in critical but stable condition with injuries to her legs, arms and face, Hessler said.

Earlier in the day, a Port Authority officer was brought in and taken into surgery.

And Nassau County officials said one of their officers, Richard Doerler, 40, of Lindenhurst, used makeshift tools to help dig out a man who had been trapped in a fetal position by wreckage.

The man, who was unidentified, "was trapped in a confined space, about 20 to 25 feet down," Doerler said. "You had to work your way down into the cavity of the debris. You couldn't see him. He would tell us when it hurt. He was alert the whole time, talking to us. Only one person could dig at a time."

Meanwhile, a senior official in the city fire department quoted firefighter Michael Milner as saying that he pulled from the rubble a man who claimed to have jumped from his 83rd-story office, surviving with minor injuries. The man was not identified.

Staff writers Josh Robin, Rocco Parascandola and Monte Young contributed to this story.