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A Veteran FDNY Firefighter's Journey Through Washington Heights · The JEMS Report

• Nat Kapustin: What's up everybody? Welcome to Just A Little Salt, the podcast hosted by me, the Salty Paramedic. If you or anybody you know wants to be on the show, make sure to send a request to Justalittle Salt Podcast at gmail.com. If you want to support the podcast and the work I'm doing for first responders, it's easy. Go on the saltyparamedic.com. Everything there, books, merch, resources, is built around this community. If you're looking for bonus episodes or content you're not going to hear anywhere else, make sure to join the Patreon. Go on patreon.com and search the salty paramedic. That support directly helps me keep bringing this content to life. Without further ado, thanks for listening. Here's the show. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a new episode of Just A Little Salt. Very, very excited to introduce this gentleman right here, Tony Bonfiglio. Did I say that last name right? You said it right, Cody man. Very good. We're off to a good start. Awesome, man. Well, just Tell the people a little bit about yourself real quick. Tony Bonfiglio. I worked on the FDNY. I got on in eighty-three, sent to a truck company right away in Washington Heights. retired in two thousand and four. I wrote a book, Tales from the Tiller. And I live on the Jersey Shore with my wife. So you you grew up in New York? Yeah, I grew up pretty much on Long Island. we moved from the Bronx when I was about six. Okay. And we moved to a place called New High Park. My father found it somehow and it was the best place to grow up. It was it was right on the city line and it was just all blue collar workers and their kids and a lot of them. So we had a good time growing up. What was life like growing up in New York? Were you were you getting in trouble into trouble as a kid? what what'd you get into? trouble all the time. man, it's like, what are we gonna get in trouble tonight? it was from from when we were kids, just hanging out all day. There was so many of us. And yeah, it was just we'd go out and when we finally were able to go out to the clubs when we were 16 using fake IDs back then and just getting roughed up and a lot of fights and it was just a good old time. yeah. A lot of good good shows back then. We'd see Twisted Sister and Rat Race Choir. All these good house bands. Wow. That sounds awesome. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, my dad, he actually he was a fireman and he he got into trouble a lot as a kid as well. It was interesting how he found that path to being a fireman. How did you find it? how did you walk into it? Again, I always say I'm the luckiest guy alive. I it was no fireman in my my family. my whole family from East Harlem. we were in a lot of us were in the printing business in Manhattan, lower Manhattan. There was no cops, no firemen. But my neighbor in New High Park was Johnny Lalemer, and he was a a br a fireman in the South Bronx back then. And I guess he saw, you know, he saw us hanging out all the time. I guess he figured these guys going nowhere. And he came over with the application and he told me, Hey, kid, take this job. It's gonna put a roof over your head and food on your table. And I was like, okay, Johnny, thanks. You know, I was like seventeen. I had no idea what I was gonna do. Yeah. I went to college for like three weeks, it didn't work. So I was working crappy jobs. So yeah, that saved me. It took me from when I took the test to when I got hired was six years. Yeah, I I mean, I've always heard it. I mean, it's FDNY. So, like, do you do you remember the amount of people that you were like testing against that whole process? 40,000. Yeah. I think my department's lucky to have 40. You know, I got a zero on on one of the tests that on the physical. Uh-huh. this ledge walk. I I I went down and touched the line and then I came back and the woman marking me. I don't know where she got it from. She said, You didn't touch the line down there. I had a race back and I ran out of time. So usually a zero means you're done, you know. And I did great on everything else. And so that zero put me back to like forty-two hundred on the list. And they only go to about maybe twenty-three, twenty-four hundred usually. Uh-huh. But the girls, it was the first list with the girls, 40 girls took the test, and none of them passed. So it went into a lawsuit. And that took for years. And then being they weren't hiring, they had to go deeper into the list. And I got lucky. I got on. wow. Yeah. Thank you, girls. So so once you got hired, the station you got sent to first, what was your experience with that? Do you remember what you were feeling? How the guys were treating you? that that whole thing. Yeah. Well, just to get happy to get out of Probi School was yeah that was great, And that day on graduation, we have a big ceremony and family and everybody. So I got my assignment and I saw ladder three four and I didn't want a truck. I was like, I didn't like the ladders, I didn't like the ropes, I didn't like scaling ladders. I was like, I'm fine with an engine company and I knew nothing of the fire department except what I just had in this academy. So I see ladder three, four. And they only send maybe ten out of the whole hundred and fifty the trucks I got sent there, Manhattan. So I tell the wife we gotta go 34 truck in Manhattan. So we leave there, I tell the whole story. I I thought it was on 84th Street. We we went up and down 84th Street. It was really eighty-four engine. The guy told me I had to go to 161st Street. And when I got there, I was like, my God, this place is crazy. Washington Heights. But it was a hundred year old firehouse. it was, double house, engine eight four, ladder three four. I walked in and they they took me with open arms. it was really a pleasure to work there. I was lucky. That's awesome. Were you were you there very long before you had a transfer to a different station? Fifteen years. Fifteen years, wow. Yeah. Yeah. I got out I left there in ninety eight. Okay. I always wanted to try this little firehouse in Howard Beach, Queens. It was on a canal and I figured let me do my last few years over there. And I was glad I did. things were changing. all the guys that I knew from Thirty Four Truck were already guys that I came on with, they were already made bosses or they transferred to rescue companies. And I was starting to like, you know, start with all new guys and everything, which were good. they always were good, but I said, Yeah, let me give that a shot and I and I went over to Howard Beach. Right, another great truck company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. so if if if nineteen eighty three Tony could see the firefighter you eventually became, what would surprise him the most about how you grew as a firefighter? Yeah, I was thinking about that one and I could say the most I I would say if you said that to me in eighty three in proby school, to say that I was gonna be in a truck for twenty one years would have surprised the hell out of me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was Yeah, learn to love it. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, Once I got there and found out the ropes, and how things work, I was like, Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I saw how guys were dying to get into the truck. Uhhuh. I was just so blessed to be there right away as a proby. And I was the first proby in there for a while. The the proby before me was like a year or two and he fell through a landing and he tore up his knee and he never made it back to the job. And so they didn't have a proby for a while up there, either in the engine or the truck. So Me and this guy Richie Muratori, who we were both close together in the academy. You really don't know anybody in the academy except maybe three guys or four guys around you. And he went to the engine, I went to the truck, and as we were getting our tour that day, he was coming through the bunk room on the engine side, I was coming through the truck side, and we were like, Holy shit, Richie Tony, we're just so happy to see each other. That's awesome. I I I wanna talk a little bit about firehouse shenanigans with you and dark humor. what does the pranks look like in the FDNY? 'Cause I bet you all have some good ones. What was the best prank you remember witnessing? So many of you know, over the years. But I'm gonna say when I that this time I was detailed up to the big house on 181st Street. They had rescue three, they had battalion thirteen, they had engine nine three, and they had ladder four five. So It was a busy place, big kitchen, and they had some big pranksters up there. And this one time when I was there in the morning, I was having my coffee, I got detailed up there. And they had a cop that would sit at the table. He was like a little chubby Italian cop from the three four precinct. And he would eat there every morning, put his gum belt and everything down and have his paper and everything. So I heard they were gonna set up. So I was like, okay, this should be fun, you know. So in through the kitchen come these two pranksters, Patty and Mickey. One guy's got a big Stetson wrench and the other guy's got a sledgehammer, a mall. And they're like, you know what you're doing? He's like, Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. I do this all the time. And they they head into the back of the kitchen. And in the kitchen they had a little door that went out to the ho alleyway. And in the alleyway they had a Scott bottle set up with a a traffic cone. And we're in the kitchen in the in the sitting area. We're all sitting in there and all of a sudden we hear him, all right, do it. What do you gotta do? But just hit it, he's yelling, hit it. Boom, we hear this metal, boom. On the third boom, they opened the Scott bottle through the cone and it sounded like a Con Ed gas explosion. I was everybody ran, the cop ran left everything. We all ran out into the street. We were like, Holy shit. And they came out with the cone in the air and the cop cop wasn't too happy, but It was a good one. It was well thought out. See, we we have cops that come. They just come to use the bathroom at our station. We we need to start playing the pranks on them. They have to earn their spot there. I love it. we love the cops up there. We worked hand in hand. They were you know, you had to. That's all we have was each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. But every now and then, you know, you got a cop that wasn't so good or you know, there's that's in everything, Exactly. They set him up, but I don't think he ever came back. He went to go find another station. You know, back then they had transit cops and we had this one guy, Wally, and he would come like one or two nights a week. He would put his gun belt, hang it on the wall, his hat, have dinner with us, you know. He'd be telling the them that he's rounding Coney Island and doing all he's writing fiction in his book. We're like, this guy's a real character, you know. And then he would fall asleep in one of the recliners. So one night We made cupcakes and he was sleeping and we put his gun belt on and we had his hat and his thing. We would we had one of them little disposable cameras and we were taking pictures of him sleeping. We were like, make you believe we were hitting them with the baton. And then we had an idea, let's put a cupcake on his head, and we put a cupcake and we lit the candle. We took all these pictures. And then the next time he came back in, they were plastered on the wall. He wasn't too happy. He never came back. But the funny thing is he actually got fired. They caught up to him and he he he lost his gun and he he he made up a whole story and two days later a bar owner in Washington Heights turned the gun in and they canned him. Wow. He was a character. Sounds like it. Yeah, I know you mentioned something about oil fights on your Theo Vaughn podcast. He Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, but that was when I yeah, when I was working in the meat factory. Okay. Before I got on, we yeah, we all me and my friends, we worked at this place, Economy Foods. And it was just a big butcher packaging place with freezer places and everything. And on Saturday, after there would there would be closed, but we would come in because we were maintenance and we were just kids, you know, and we'd have the the white butcher jackets on and everything. And we had to oil everything with vegetable oil. We oiled everything the walls, the machinery. We w oiled the trucks outside, everything we had we had these big pumps of oil and squeeze bottles. And every now and then we got into an oil fight, we would get soaked with this vegetable oil. It was crazy. man. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, I worked with like seven friends back then. Yeah. And on Saturday morning, we would be rock clubs Friday night, we'd be banged up. We'd barely make it there, but We had good times. No, I I get that. I was I worked in a restaurant before I did firefighting and I was a meat cutter. boy. And just like you said, a bun bunch of guys, it was the same environment as a firehouse. We were constantly doing stuff like that. And those were like the butchers, you know, they were like professional union butchers that they were strange people, let me tell you. They they had their toolboxes and knives, you know, they were all big guys just cutting meat all day. yeah. Yeah. We had a good time. It was like Rocky, because they had the hangar rooms with all the beef in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was around that time, so we would always be in there hitting the meat. Yeah, I was doing that as a tw my dad owned a deer processing business growing up. boy. And he had, you know, just rows and rows of deer carcasses in this cooler. god. I'd be in there as a twelve year old just like Rocky, you know. You like deer meat? yeah. Yeah. I mean, I grew up on it. any time people wouldn't pick up their deer, we'd had to take it home and I we were eating it all the time. Yeah, always in the firehouse around hunting time. I we guy would bring in his venison and I wasn't a big venison guy, but the sausage was good, when it grounded up and spiced it up. yeah. Yeah, we had bow hunters, we had all kinds of hunters. It was like an upstate firehouse where I was. Uhhuh. It was it was all the way up North Manhattan, so it was right by the GW Bridge. And a lot of guys that lived in some of the counties upstate worked in that house. Okay. Yeah, fishermen and firemen. W when you were working at the F D and Y in the eighties, what do you think was the biggest difference about the F D and Y then compared to now? Well, I don't know much about now. That's what it's hard for me to say. I've been out since four. Mm-hmm. But I could imagine from the things I see, just the social media, the cameras. You know, we had no cameras back then. You know, cameras are a double edge, they're great and then they're not great, you know. So Yeah. Yeah, I would say that's the biggest difference. I I hear, I I still hear things are still pretty much the same, You y y you work in the busy companies, they're gonna straighten you out. Mm-hmm. But yeah, the cameras. I I think I actually I was at a firehouse once, I couldn't believe all the technology. You know, sc big screens telling you the box where everything's going, there's apps and everything. It's like, my god. yeah. Yeah, we got on the rig, we just had to listen for the radio up in the cabin. Exactly. Guys would just if they if if they heard numerous calls or something, guys would just start jumping into their gear. No, absolutely. nicknames in the firehouse. My dad had one growing up. I I never really I've never really gotten a nickname, at least one that I can talk about on the podcast. My my first name's Cody. my first day the captain got my name wrong and called me Corey. And ever s I've been on the department over ten years, he still calls me Corey. But all your time at the F D and Y, what would you say is the funniest nickname you saw a firefighter get? And the story behind it. Well, probably mine probably was the best. But my first name got I was there in the firehouse for like two weeks, and like an idiot, I played softball with them. Okay. And I I got my first hit. You know, we were on Randall's Island playing another firehouse. I made it to second base, guy hit the ball, and the captains rounded me around third base. I make a wide turn. And I get beat at home plate by a mile, and I jump in the air and I I slide and I break my ankle in two places. They didn't even know my name. It was like, I'm laying there in the dirt, face down. Finally, they dragged me off. You know, they put my foot up. I had a red Chevette car that I shared with my wife. Uh-huh. And I'm laying there with these house of weenies in me and beers, and I'm just getting queasy, you know, guys are looking over me. kid, you're you're gonna gravy train, blah, blah, blah. I was like, okay, what's a gravy train? I have no idea. So I was out for six weeks with a cast. I had a fiberglass cast. I went to the beach every day. That's what you do on Long Island. Uh-huh. And yeah they cut the cast off and all the s shells and sand fell out of it. The guy was like, What did we I was man, I was at the beach all day. And then I went back to work six weeks. My ankle was still killing me and I was limping. But I had to save my job. Yeah. So there was a movie out back then called Das Boot. And it was like a German submarine movie. And they called me Das Foot. And I was Das Foot for quite a while, you know. I looked strange, you know, 'cause I'd be limping with the can and everybody'd be like, What's with their fucking Proby, man? He's limping. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, Dash Dash foot. And then I was I had a bunch of them. After that, I had a an incident with a stolen car in the in the zone in front of the firehouse. And I had a baseball bat and I smashed this guy's windshield and I smashed his window and everything. Bat broke, and he actually got away. And then from there they they changed my name to Bam Bam, which I like. Bam Bam was pretty good. And then my last name, which I hated, they called me bison head. So I guess you you you could appreciate I had a big head. Bison head, yeah. We had a lot of heads. We had pumpkin head, bison head, scallion head, knucklehead, and pinhead. What? All in one firehouse. Yeah. What's up with firefighters just fix so one day at the firehouse, We were making fun of each other's head sizes, obviously, 'cause that's what we do. And we got a measuring tape out to see whose was the biggest. And it w We just call people big head. Well, at you were doing that head. Yeah. I've heard other stories. Yeah, yeah. I've heard that go on too. I don't know nothing about that though. But you know, our helmets were made to our heads back then. Yeah. They actually had a machine they would put on your head, carns or whoever it was. Uhhuh. And your helmet So i if one time I got on the I forgot my helmet and and Pinhead left his helmet on the on the rig and I went to put his helmet on and it was teetering on my head. I want to talk real quick about just crazy calls in the wild side of New York City. Yeah. You worked Washington Heights during an absolute wild era. what's a call that sounds so unbelievable to people that they'd think you're making it up? Wow. Well, maybe the one, there was so many, my God. But I think that one that where I said I I it's in the book where we were out on BI on a hundred and fifty-ninth Street between Amsterdam and Broadway. You know, we were just inspecting building. I had a covering officer from Brooklyn, a nice young guy. He was a good guy. I had the roof, and we spected the building, and I came down and I'm looking over from I'm looking at the rig and over on the other side of the buildings. I see brown smoke is is coming over the building. So I said, Hey boss. Brown smokes pouring over the buildings over here. So he gets out of the rig, he looks, he's like, Yeah, let's go over there and check it out. So matter of fact, I had the tiller. That's what I had. We went around, we came as soon as we turned onto the block, the block was covered in smoke. We were like, holy shit. So now we pull in front of this brownstone, and I look to my left, and there's a guy already hanging out the window on the third floor. So I'm jumping out. I'm trying to get a portable ladder out as fast as I can. my friend Jerry had the roof, he's trying to help me. The guy let go, he fell. So now I'm working on the rope trying to get it loose, and my friend Jerry gets hit in the leg with a I thought it was a bundle of rags and I was like, What the hell was that? I look down and I pick it up, it was a baby face down, and the baby's bleeding out of his eyes, his nose everywhere, and I'm like, Holy shit. Now this we just gave the ten seventy five, so nobody's coming for a while. Uh-huh. Now I'm holding the baby, the f the the forcible entry team. Can't get in because there's fire at the door. It's going up the steps. The whole place is go is involved. So with that, the guy looks at me, the boss, he says, You gotta get the roof. You guys gotta get the roof. So I'm holding this bleeding baby on my knees. I hand them off to the Irons man, and with that, the mother comes out of the window, diving, with her hair on fire, and she hits the railing at midsection. Now we got hush. She's she's probably dead. I the guys are crawling around on the ground. And the baby's just bleeding like out of all its face. So now I got I take the ladder to the roof. we do the scuttles. We're opening up the roof. Now the the other companies are coming in, 23 truck, they're helping me and everything. And finally, we put the fire out and we went to we went back to the firehouse and the mother didn't make it, the father broke his legs, and the baby made it. The baby was lucky that he hit they hit my friend and but the bad thing was that we got a call that they was the Amsterdam news or some paper was saying that we were holding people back from catching the baby and Al Sharpton and his lawyers are gonna be on the case. So we had to have a a meeting a deputy had to come up to the firehouse and we had to tell our whole story and everything. But fortunately it never went anywhere. I didn't think any Body was gonna believe that firemen were holding back people from catching a baby. Yeah. No. But it was just added on to the whole crazy story. my Yeah, that was a crazy one. But I had a bunch of them like that. man. I had another one where we thought it was a an oil leak in the middle of the a oil a boiler. Because we used to get a lot of boilers and the burners, they would burn and we would go, they would burn black smoke with if they weren't running right. And we got a lot of them up there, so It was middle afternoon. We already my f my boss already gave the roof man a flyer. He had to go get some maps in the Bronx or something. So we had no roof man. And we get a call, it's like twelve thirty in the afternoon. We pull up a big building by Riverside Drive. And guy in the courtyard conin says, they're working on the oil burner. So we're like, it's an oil burner. So we give it ten twenty on the box. That means everybody take it easy coming in. So We go to the caller's apartment. I had a guy from my lieutenant was a salty guy from rescue two, Lieutenant Clip. And we knock on the door and we go in the apartment, this woman answers the door, and he's got a light haze in there. And we're like, you know, where's this haze coming from? He was smart. He he said, I think it's coming from above. You know, usually it's coming from below. So we're like, holy shit. We had no masks or nothing. We didn't all we took was our tools. So now we run up to the next landing, and as soon as we got there, I see the smokes coming out of the the doorway. So now we go. I kick the door in and we give it 1075. We're met with a black wall of smoke. We're like, 1075, the box. He crawls in on our we're like on our bellies now. No mask. My the Irons man goes, the can, I'm behind, I'm third. Soon as I'm crawling in, I'm I'm already choking on the floor. They I hear say, We got bodies. I'm like, So with that, a a small body gets passed back to me. And I crawl out of the apartment. I know I got a child. I can't see anything yet. And I figure, let me just run this kid right down the EMS, instead of trying to do something here. So I ran into the stairwell. Once I got into the stairwell, I saw I had a little girl in my arms. She was probably about three or four. And she wasn't breathing. She was all covered in soot. And I ran her out. I ran her out into the street and Cody, there was nobody there yet. And I'm looking around and all the people are screaming at me. And I'm like, my God, I'm looking around, nothing. So I put the kid down. I started doing CPR. All I knew was fifteen and two. I was doing the compressions on her. Felt like forever. You know, it was probably like five minutes before 23 trucks showed up and somebody helped me out with that and then the EMS came. But yeah, and then the the guys up down the floor, the boss and the other guy, they were working on the mother and neither one of them made it. It was sad. it was the first fire we had with these new windows that they put in. And the windows never vented. So the fire smut smothered and I by the time we got to them they were done they were gone. But yeah, that took me a long time to get over that one. Just the smell, it would come to me all the time, the smell of the burning lips and everything. And yep and the breath the kid was making was like a machine gun breath, like I was like, Yeah, it was it was I tell you and then didn't it didn't hamper us in the rescue. the not having the mask, luckily, we were still got in there and got the bodies, but mm-hmm. Yeah, that was a tough one. Yeah, obviously I I work in Kentucky. It's it's it's not a huge city, so I I don't I don't have those type of fires all the time. Right. I have experienced fires that have victims and people that are new to the job. You're long enough. Yeah, w what that haven't experienced that yet. That's just a totally different feeling. 'cause you know, a typical structure fire is one thing, but then you start pulling people out and working them in the front yard, that's totally different. I tell you I got back to the firehouse, I took my gear off Well, the one with the kid threw out the window, I had blood all over me. I and old times I just like I just went into a recliner and cried. Was that sad? Yeah, I I mean you just you sit there for a second and you're like, do I really want to be doing this? man. I've done that a few times. It's it it it takes a lot of you. It takes a lot out of you. And you go over those jobs in your head all the time, you know. Constantly. For weeks, for months. You're like, you know. yeah. Could I done something else? What could I done? I I read something about Washington Heights riots in ninety two. what was the story behind that? Did you ever feel like the neighborhood had turned against the firefighters? What happened during all that? Well, we were really close with the people in Washington Heights. The Dominican people were were they were working people, you know, they came from a dirt poor island. They yeah. They used to say there's two ways off of that place was baseball and dealing drugs in Washington Heights. That was the only two ways to get out of there. so if you weren't a baseball player, you know, they came and they they filled up these old tenements and crowded and there was just so many people. When I got there, they were just coming in in eighty three. By eighty five they took over. Mm-hmm. And they took over with violence as far as the drug trade. You know, there was a lot of drug trade. You know, George Washington Bridge was right there. All the highways came in, you could got to Brooklyn, the Bronx, Dr New Jersey, it was like a big connection. And everybody bought their crack was just hitting the streets back then. So crack and cocaine were tops. Everybody was coming in and there was a lot of violence, a lot of shootings. Everybody had a gun. Back then, Mac tens was the gun of the day. Sometimes they would just shoot their Mac tens out the window. I mean you'd hear all day long. It had a certain sound. Wow. Sh that that is crazy. they used rig a couple of times for hits, you know, they would they would Wait for our rig to stop and then they come behind the guy behind us and they take him out with the guns and sh a couple of times we had to have the roped off rigs and investigations. It was bullet holes in our cars. It was like the Wild West. I'd say so. Yeah, it was. So one of the engines even got firebomb, ninety three engine got firebombed up there, and a couple of guys got burnt bad and they they didn't come back on the job with a Maltov cocktail. But it wasn't the Dominion Bad Mountain or Dominican people. I loved them. Yeah, the drug dealers, everybody had drugs. I'm sure Italians had the same thing when they came to this country, it's just the way it is. And they built that whole place up. They built all the stores with Dominican owned everything. I I wanna s shift focus to September eleventh. everybody has their own story about what they were doing during me, myself, I was in fourth grade. wow. I was doing the school I was doing the school weather report. I was I was talking about the weather and then they I remember they all took us into the library to show us what was happening on TV. wow me being in fourth grade, I I couldn't comprehend what was going on. You know, I I didn't really have a clue. Right. Now yeah where were you? What were you doing at this time as the F D and Y firefighter? Well I d I worked the twenty four the day before, so I got off that morning in Howard Beach. And I went home, I had a painting business on the side with a van, and I had a Dominican helper, Roberto, great guy, had him for years. And we were gonna go do a job in Cedar Hearst. And my wife called real quick, I'll tell you, she said the plane hit, put the TV on. I put the TV on. I said, my god, wow. I'm looking at Roberto, I'm like, man, the brothers are gonna have their hands full today. Look at this. I thought it was a small plane, I had no idea yet. Yeah. So then I got to the paint store and I saw all the guys around the TV in the paint store and I'm like, what's going on? They're like, fucking terrorists just flew a two planes into the towers. I'm like, my God. And now I knew we were under attack. I'm like, man. So I took off. I I took the Cedarhurst. It was that's almost on the way to Rockaway where I was gonna go. I threw my guy, I gave him all the ladders to paint. I told the rabbi I'm a fireman, I gotta go to I gotta go the trade center. I don't know when I'll be back. I felt bad for the guy, but he understood. And I told Roberto, I don't know when I'll see you again. He said, Don't worry, I'll take care of everything. Got to Howard Beach like a madman. I was driving my van with the ladders on the wrong side of the road. I'm going in and out under the L trains. I get there in 10 minutes. Guys are running in and out of the firehouse. So how are we gonna get there? Blah, blah. Some guys had boats, they were gonna take us. We were on a canal, they were gonna take boats into the trade center. And my friend, the whipper, Pete, he says, I'm taking my suburban. If anybody wants to go, let's go. So we grabbed our gear, me, him, two other guys, Bobby's McGuire, and we took off. And he the whipper's a driver, man. He's the he's the best driver I know. He hook he took us down there. We got Woodhaven Bull. I'm like whip. Slow down, man. You're gonna kill somebody, right? We get to the LIE to where you can get onto the Long Island Expressway from Woodhaven, and the cops have it blocked off. It's like they owe it all the Parkways and everything. So I took my turnout coat and I put it out the window and they waved us in. They moved the car. So now we're on the LIE, just like alone, fly. He's got the thing nailed. And we go through the midtown tunnel like a time warp. The yellow lights were going about a hundred miles an hour. And he took us right to the foot of the rubble. It was some feet of driving. when we got down there, we had to go in and out of all the people coming, coming out with all the shit on them. And we parked right there and it was like we went from a sunny day to an eclipse. It was dark and all the shit was coming down on us when we got out of the the suburban. We couldn't breathe, so we had a we had a couple of old shirts. We ripped them up, we put them around our face. And I saw a a hardware store, an old hardware store with a glass door. I took a tire iron, I smashed the door open, and we went in and and we grabbed a paper mask and we grabbed some mauls and Crow bars, whatever, because we didn't have any tools or anything. Yeah. We only had our helmets and our coats. And and we went, we started just started climbing. And it was like, Cody, it was like a movie. You you couldn't believe the destruction, you know. one side was the bank. I don't know, I think it was the Deutsche Bank. I think I said EAB one time, but I think it was Deutsche Bank. But they were under construction and they had the black mesh going all the way up and down, and behind the black mesh was all the flames. It was like red with the black, it was so satanic looking, And we climbed and we were bang. We was nobody there yet. There was I saw like one other fireman of first you know, it was so big. So the area we were in, we were alone so far. Yeah. And we're banging on shit, going crawling in and out of boys, we're staying together, calling out, calling out. All we're hearing is the screeching from the pass alarms going off all around. That's the only thing you heard. It was so silent and all the shit coming down, papers. And all the stuff. And then we did that. We did that for I don't know, three three hours or so. We got there around eleven thirty. We climbed to the roof, which was about six stories high. We were on the astral turf of the w of the World Trade Center and just looking out over the whole thing. And it was like looked like it went on for miles, it was so much. And then we just we s we kept climbing. there was, climbing in and out of voids. So finally around one thirty, my friend Bobby says, Tony, My throat's closing up. We we gotta get water. So we're like, yeah, me too. I can't I can't can't swallow. Yeah. So who me, him, and Whip. We climbed back, we climbed off the pile. Now in the street, it's like 130 or so. People are coming in from everywhere. They're coming the volleys are coming in from Long Island, they're coming in from New Jersey. All the firemen, cops, the National Guard workers were coming in, everybody. So we were like waiting for the water, I told this story a few times, but there was a Wall Street guy covered in shit, and he had the big water cooler bottle and he was pouring water on people's eyes. And we were waiting for water, and these women set up a table and they made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a couple of barrels and a piece of four by four. And it was like, Holy shit, look at this. All these people coming together. It was like crazy. Yeah. So we didn't get the sandwiches. We we grabbed some water, we washed our eyes out, we drank some water. And before we got back on the pile, a a deputy got up on a hood of a police car or something, and he shouted out for everybody to hear that it was around. He said, dude, we just got a call from six truck. They're trapped in the stairwell, and we're gonna find them. So everybody spread out as far as you can, blah, blah, but you can. We were like, now we're finding there's somebody, somebody to rescue, because we didn't see anybody yet. So we run over there's a rescue truck that was crushed. And we grabbed a bunch of tools out of the compartments. I grabbed a jackhammer. We grabbed these big scot bottles of air and some bits. And we started climbing. And we climbed and climbed. Finally, after two hours of climbing, I took a fall. I fell on my shoulder. And I was like, So Bobby was like, Yeah, you're all right. You I was like, Yeah, I don't know, I hurt my shoulder a little. I was like, Screw this stuff. I I threw the jackhammer into the void and we We said, we'd had no radios. We didn't know if you know anybody got found yet or anything. And then we just started searching again without the tools. And we were crazy. We the pile was so high that we actually we went into a store, a broken window of a store. And it was like f three floors up and we crawled around, it was like a woman's high fashion store, but it was all dark and dusty, we couldn't see. And we crawled in and around asking anybody here, anybody here, nobody there. We climbed back out. And then we climbed into the Marriott Hotel, which was still standing there. And we climbed in through these big lobby windows that were broken because the debris was halfway on it. And we climbed down in there and it was like we were the only ones in there at that point. We were like, holy shit, look at this place. It was still intact, you know, it was covered in dust and shit and everything. And we saw a fireman sitting at a a desk. So we were like, shit, let's go. know, we ran over to him. We're like, buddy, you okay? He's covered in shit and he's in shock. And he looks up at us and and it was like, man, it was a guy we knew, a rotator proby that just got sent to Manhattan. And we were like, we used to call him monkey man. We were like, monkey, monkey, you okay? Holy shit. Whip He's like, Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. He said he looked at us, he said, All my guys are dead. And we were like, monkey. Well, and I know there was a little funk. It was crazy. The little phone was on his desk with that message light blinking. It was the weirdest sight, Mm-hmm. We were like, monkey, you're you're okay. We're gonna he wasn't in any danger. So we said we're gonna leave you here. And and we left him and we started climbing again. I actually got in touch with him. He saw my video with Dio. and we got in touch twenty five years later. Yeah. Wow. Twenty three years, yeah. Yeah, that was something. So then we climbed out and Cody, we found a hose line. With a nozzle, nobody on it, and a big void that was just pouring out this dark brown smoke, you know. And and the lines all the way went to the Hudson. Had to be about 50 lines or something. And we opened up, we cracked the nozzle, we had good pressure, and we sat there for about an hour, just pouring water into this hole. We took turns, you know, one guy would search a little, the other two guys would work the the line, pouring it in. And building seven was about a hundred yards away from us. And it was on fire all day, every floor. And finally there was this chief and Chief Visconti. He said, guys, he yelled at us between the building seven. He said, throw that line down. This building's gonna come down. And we were like, shit. So we cracked it halfway and we we wedged it into the rock, so the water kept pouring down there. And we took off and we were like, it was almost five o'clock, I think, somewhere around then. We were hungry. And thirsty again. So we worked our way off the pile. We worked as we got off the pile, we heard building seven come down. We just missed it. And we were like, holy shit, we heard the whole thing come down. So now we were in the street, you know, we we saw Penny Crone, this big New York girl reporter, well known back then. And she was with a cameraman in the street and she was like, guys, can I talk to you? And we didn't really give her any information. She was like asking us. We were like, yeah, it's bad. It's bad. And we saw an Asian woman on the next block. Her head's all bleeding. She's covered in shit. And she's got a suitcase. We were like, we just left Penny. We ran over to her. We're like, ma'am, can we help you? Are you all right and everything? And she kept looking straight. And we tried to take her suitcase and she pulled it back and she just walked away. We were like, Holy shit, that was weird. Yeah. Anyway, we got we found the the suburban. We put we started the the suburban up and my friend put it was a hot day. My friend put the air on and all the dust blew on us. It was like, like we needed that, you know, it blew out of the air conditioned beds. Yeah. And we headed up to sixteen truck where we took a mark, we washed up, we stopped at a a Genovese drugstore, we cut a couple of batteries for our lights, some bottles of water and some Milky Way bars, and we headed back down to the to the pile and got there about seven o'clock. I was like, what do you want to do? so now we started climbing again. Now there's so many people there, all firemen, cops, National Guard. So they had a they had a bucket brigade with like a thousand bucks home deal. I don't know where it came from or what we were doing with it, but we said, all right, we'll get on the bucket brigade. And so we worked our way up. And you know, you're meeting guys now, all left and right as you're walking. And my friend Bobby was with meeting a guy that he knows, and they were hugging, hey, you're doing. And I was just standing there and this guy hit me, another fine me. He said, buddy, you're standing on somebody. And I was like, shit. And I looked down and this this Wall Street guy is like looking up at me with a three-piece suit on. He's just part of the the soil, the ground. And I was like, that was the only body I saw. So we were like, wow. So with that, we went on the bucket brigade, and for I don't know, maybe two hours, my back was killed me. I was forty years old, forty-one. And we're passing buckets back and forth, and it's getting dark out. It was like the cooling off a little. And then at nine o'clock, we hear this everybody starts clapping and yelling. We're like, holy shit, what's going on? What's going on? My friend Bobby says, look over there. We look towards the south, And with that, a parade of iron workers came in. They had the all the cranes and the heavy machinery, and they're all hanging off the the equipment with their cutoffs and their hat, their hard hats. And everybody's cheering like we won the Super Bowl or something. It was it was great. And they got right to work, man. They just started pulling the lampposts off, pulling the big pieces off. And that was it. I I I worked another c hour or so, finally ten o'clock. I said, I had to work the next morning, so did the other two guys. So we're like, let's go. We'll go back home. And I went back home and I went back to the firehouse. They were like, Holy shit, the doors were still open at eleven o'clock at night. Everybody you I you missed it the whole Howard Beach came with candles. They had a candlelight visual. They shut down. I was like, wow, I I had to go home. I I went home. I was still covered in plaster. My wife and kids were waiting for me. And it was emotional because I did find out that one of my friends died, that I knew he was working in rescue. I found out. And he was close with me and my wife, so yeah. Man, I I I purposely didn't watch any of your other podcasts 'cause I wanted to hear that story for the first time. yeah. What a day that was. I c I cannot imagine, man. i you know, that that was in two thousand and one and you said you retired in two thousand and four, correct? Yeah. Well, what happened was I I took a fall in December of that year. Okay. And I broke my wrist. I had to get it all pinned up and I tore an A C L. So I was out I was only on the pile till December and that was on and off a couple of nights. What they did was they took two firemen from each company and they would be assigned to the pile and they would work there for a month and then they would come back and two other guys would go. But if you wanted to go on your time off, you could go down there and work. Otherwise you we had so many memorials and funerals that Every morning you had to wake up and look in the paper and see what was close to you, put your Class A uniform on and head to the to the funeral. And sometimes you would make two a day. it was it was incredible. The pipe band, the Emerald Society would they they were so spread out. I don't know how those guys did it. They did three or four guys all over all over New York, you know, whatever. Because there was funerals and there was memorials, you know, there was memorials when they didn't find anybody's parts and then they would find a part of somebody and then they'd have a funeral. So it kinda like almost doubled up. So for a whole year you were doing that. Wow. It was it was a rough year. Rough year for everybody's family, but especially for the fallen men. Absolutely. you know, firehouse has always been a brotherhood, but would you say the atmosphere changed after September eleventh around the firehouse up until you left and retired? Like was there a Notice well, were you all closer, obviously, and just what was the overall atmosphere after that event? Yeah, we were we were we were a lot closer. I like I said in December I broke my my wrist, so I was out for quite a while. And then I came back and did light duty. So I was out of the firehouse for a few years, but definitely a big turnover, you know, between all the guys we lost. you know, now you had make, you they had to make up some rescue companies. you know, Brought in a lot of young guys. So the job went from pretty much at that time in 2001 with a lot of old timers on the job. A couple of years later it was all new guys. So they had a you know, they had a they had a lot of them let to learn through, you know, just what whoever was left. yeah. Few few senior men that were in the company. A lot of individuals getting hired at my fire department right now were born after September eleventh, which is crazy to me. What do you wish these younger firefighters who weren't born before understood about that day? So much. I mean, it was like one of those situations where you really can't Monday morning quarterback, you know, you can't say, well, we could have done this, we could have done that. You know, what they were met with when my one of the guys from my fire company got promoted to lieutenant and he was the boss there in 10. And they were right there at the Trade Center. He's the one who made the call. He said, Send everything. He said, Everything we got, we got a plane hit the Trade Center and and he got killed too, his whole company. But yeah, I mean it was just the acts of bravery, whether you say, you know, well, we shouldn't have put that many in or we should have been further back or I'm not gonna say anything like that. So yeah, no, absolutely. I I wanna shift focus a little bit to first responder mental health. You you talked about a lot of events that affected you in your career. I read something about the loss of Captain Vincent Fowler in ninety nine. are you comfortable talking about that? Yeah, I don't I don't mind talking. You know, I didn't put it in my book because I didn't feel for the Fowler family needed it in a book, but that was probably my worst day in in the job, 'cause I was his O V. So I was the outside vent and Yeah, that the the job was a screw up from the beginning. They were the city was doing something with the alarm boxes, they were taking them out at the time and a full assignment didn't get sent. So we didn't have a chief and a couple of companies for a while. So a couple of things went wrong. It was a collier's mansion in the basement and Yeah, you I was the vent man. All we had was a couple of little basement windows. And I I the last thing I heard, I called him. I said, You want me take these windows? And I heard him say, take the windows. And they were little basement windows. I smashed them out, didn't do much. And then I just, I searched, I searched the whole first floor. ran out of air, had to go get another bottle. And I started calling him and he wouldn't answer. And I'm calling him and calling him. So now as I'm getting my bottle in, The bet the battalion finally pulls up and they're like, and I'm like, Chief. I told him point blank, I'm calling my captain. He's not answering. He's like, keep calling, keep calling. I keep calling, he ain't answering. So now I'm going to head back into the house, and I see the Irons crew, you know, his his whole forcible entry. And they're like, Tony, we're all out, we're all out. I'm like, wow. Like, yeah, look, there's the proby over there, blah, blah, blah, the can man. I said, Well, where's the captain? one of those crazy drills where they leave you behind. Yeah. Couldn't find him. He never made it out. He's the one who told everybody to get out. So now I'm like, holy shit. So now I'm going to run into this back door, I think where the kitchen stairs are. And this guy Tadeshi comes out that he was a rotating proby by us, you know, good fireman. Even though he was a proby, he was a volley. He was really into the job. I said, Tony, he said, Tony, he's at the bottom of the steps. I ran out of air. I'm gonna get air. Okay, I'm I'm gonna get them, man. So I go down, I go in, I feel the door, the entrance, I go down the steps, and there's a pile at the bottom of the steps. And I'm at the ceiling level, you know, like a basement stairs where the ceiling is, and you're down. I'm right at the ear level. I feel my ears burning. I'm thinking the whole basement's lighting up now. I'm getting crazy. And I got a guy that's unconscious by the collar, and I'm pulling him. And and now I'm I must have sucked so much air. Yeah. My viber alarm's already going off. Everybody's yelling. And they're yelling at but beneath him, push, push, pull. And I'm pulling them up, pulling them by the collar. And guys are coming down because they can't see yet either. And I'm screaming, get the buck off the stairs, get off the stairs. Finally I get him up and we we get into this kitchen floor and I pull out and I roll with him out the door. And it's not my captain. A squad guy. He went unconscious. wow. I was like, when I saw it wasn't my captain, I I thought he was down there burning. I was like, they started grabbing all my gear off and everything, grabbing him. The EMS threw us on ambulances and and they took us to a to the hospital. You know, it was like, I was going crazy because I'm thinking he, you know, I'm knowing he's still down there. I'm thinking, well, you know, I should have done maybe something else. Maybe cut a r a hole in the in the in the kitchen floor. You're thinking all these things, you know. And they brought me to the hospital. I actually had my has my last rites read, which is very weird. Priest over you giving you your last rites. Yeah. And and I had the the lieutenant next to me from squad and he was out. They had to bring him back and and it was horrible because he he must have burnt his lungs and they had to put a camera down his his lungs without any sedation and it was what the worst noise I ever heard. I was like, my god. But they were like, well, we're gonna bring him to the hyperbaric chamber. We're gonna bring you too. But I didn't need the hyperbaric chamber. I had my masks on the whole time for everything. And I really didn't suck that much smoke. Anyway, when I was there, I saw them roll the captain in and they were working on him. I think a guy from Rescue Four finally got him out, a big guy. I heard he was able to get him under his arms, and he kind of just humped him all the way up. He was a big man, Captain Vinny Fowler. And He was a great guy, He was only covering by us. We just lost our captain. He retired. And we wanted this guy, and he was liking the place. I I know he was gonna he was gonna stay, And he was just a great guy, you know, and and big guy. And out the door we went, change of tours, and he didn't make it. It was very sad. Yeah, I I went over that job in my head. I mean, cried. Ugh. No, absolutely. Yeah, i you know, throughout your career you you you experienced so many traumatic runs, losses. What would be your biggest advice to people in our career field to not lose yourself, you know, mentally in this career? Just try to keep a level head in it. Tell you the truth, I really don't know. Good a family helps, you know. Yeah. Have somebody to fall back on. we didn't really have you know, we had a counseling unit, was made up of some firemen. They would go around like when you had a loss of fireman or something. And they'd come to your firehouse. They were great guys and everything. it wasn't a lot. You would talk about the fire. I know the the Fowler fire, we had to all go to the academy one night with some, psychiatrists and stuff. And we sat around, tell the story, cry in front of everybody. It was like, yeah. Yeah. And it stays with you. The the the kids stay with you. The that fire stayed with me. A lot of times you're turning around, you're around, you know. And then a few years later I had nine eleven and I lost I think five guys from my from thirty four truck that I knew well, And yeah, it was weird. There were times when I would just see them in my backyard on the other side of the fence. Yeah, like you talked about having that strong family unit. wife and kids. If if I didn't have my family, I f yes, I feel like I would be lost. if I didn't have my dad. Yeah, it's gotta be tough. I don't know how a single guy would handle it, but Even my parents were there, my parents w showed up, my in laws, I had a lot of support. But yeah, you you move on. You have to move on. You can't stay in the past. yeah. e even fellow firefighters, like speaking of that topic, I know I've talked to a lot of retired guys that say that once they retire it feels like they've lost their family because a lot of the guys don't talk to you anymore and it doesn't s have you experienced that at all? No. That's great. That's good. No, I'm still close with all my friends from both firehouses. That's great. you stay busy with all of them. You know, it's kind of a weird job, you know, because I used to say, like, I remember my dad put in twenty five, thirty years in the printing union, local one, you know. And like, you know, I don't never remember him like being that involved, you know, with the other guys and everything. But you're in a firehouse, that's like family, you know. So you. everybody's illness, when somebody passes away or something happens to one of their kids or something. So you you're always going to something and it's it's a different life, but well worth it. Brotherhood is you can't compare. yeah, absolutely. I want to talk real quick about your book, Tells from the Tiller. Yeah, baby. what what what made you decide to sit down and write that after all those years? you know, I started a little earlier, maybe five years ago and I started writing things down. And then I lost interest, it didn't go anywhere. And then one summer we were just hanging out by the pool with my son and my nieces and everybody. And they was like, Dad, you gotta write a book. you tell these great stories and everything. And I was like, Yeah, you think so? And my nieces were like, Yeah, Uncle Tody, you gotta tell us stories. So I said, All right, and then I started writing things down. I mean, I think I read two books in my whole life, so you know I wasn't that big on literature. So I think yeah, I read The Outsiders and Up and Up the Down Staircase. I think two movies two books. And so yeah, I just started writing down in books, writing stories for right from the like when I started out in my crunny jobs before I was a fireman, the academy, and then the years on right up to retirement and yeah. A lot of help from my son and my my brother in law who lived in Seattle. He was a editor for Microsoft. Okay. And he would do my editing, you know, he would A funny story was halfway through the book, he threw his shoulder out, working the mouse because there were so many corrections to make. There'd be a thousand punctual corrections. But we got it done, you know. We did the p the photos, we did the cover ourselves, and all in-house. Yeah, that's and everybody loved it. I g I gotta tell you, I can't believe the response I got. Overwhelming. I I relate completely. My my book, my my wife, she was my editor. She I'm a fireman, so she corrected a lot of my spelling mistakes and all that. I'm sure you can relate to that. What's the name of your book? Don't Lose Yourself. I gotta check it out. Yeah, I published it last year. self published it myself and it was just like I had a story to tell and I sat down and wrote it. And like you said, the response from people. I've got people from other countries, firefighters from countries I've never even heard of. Yeah. Right. my God. All the countries. I'm where my Australian I got this my brother's from Australia, man. That's great. They're the best. They met me down on 910 this year, down at O'Hara's in the bar over there. And I met a lot of guys, I went down with my son and first time I was down there in in twenty something years, since the nine eleven. And yeah, we met a lot of guys from Detroit, some friends of mine that I know now online. And yeah, it was good to see everybody, all these people that that talked to me from my Instagram page. yeah, absolutely. are you gonna have you ever been to FDIC? I know that's a little off topic. No. I think I'm gonna go next year though. Everybody tells me. You you need to go. I'll be there. I'll I'll have my own booth set up. what we need to link up. I I would love that. How do how long does it take? How long ahead you plan now? well, yeah, it depends. Yeah, yeah. You have to get a room. Either there's a bunch of hotels or there's Airbnbs you can get. Well, when we hook up you could give me the info. yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But I I'll definitely be there. that'd be great. Yeah, I think I'm gonna do it. Good, good, good. I also wanna talk about your Theo Vaughn podcast. 'cause 'cause when you reached out to me, I was like, Holy crap, I've seen that dude before. And I I I didn't watch the podcast 'cause I wanted to wait till after we talked because I didn't want to have anything spoiled. how d how did that come about? again, luckiest guy alive, right? So I wrote the book. I was only a couple of months since the book was out, maybe a month or two. Uh-huh. And you know, I it's hard when you self-publish, you know, nobody's advertising the book, you know. yeah. So you gotta find ways to get it out. So I say, you know, we gotta get on Dio. I like Dio. I was watching Dio, you know, I I saw you had the this guy Wayne, the sanitation guy from New York City, he was great. He had this Amish kid that I really liked. You know, he had like regular Joes. I says, you know, he should have a fireman. So a month goes by, maybe, and my son Dom says, Dad, you're not gonna believe this, but Dio's producer's looking for a fireman online. So I was like, wow. So we made up a little thing, you know, and we sent it to him, a little video. And the next day I got a call from his producer, and we sat down on the video call and for about a half hour, 45 minutes. And he said, I like it, I'll get back to you. And an hour later, he must have told Theo and they were like, Yeah, get this guy. And boom. Two days later I was in Manhattan doing it in the well so forgot the name of the hotel, but it was a nice old hell hotel in Manhattan. Uhhuh. It was great. It was a lot of fun, you know. He's a regular guy who it was so easy going. Yeah, I was a little nervous, but Yeah, no, absolutely. I'm an easy guy. once I start talking, forget about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That that that's amazing. that that experience is so cool. Yeah, I got a little the funny thing is, you know, there was the comments on deal, and there must have been thousands of them, you know. And and you read them and you're reading like hundreds of great comments, and then you get to the hater, you know. There's always a few. You know, about building seven, and what would I know about building seven? You're a phony. People were calling me a CIA agent and all these. And it's funny because you'll get You'll get all these great comments and you'll take the bed those bad ones, So they always say, I used to hear guys on the on those podcasts say you never look at the comments. And now I know why. yeah, yeah. That's the thing I've learned the most is to, try to not look at those 'cause Yeah, you're all over the place, so I can imagine. Yeah, I get a few of every now and then. They they bother my wife more than they bother me. I've gotten to the part where I'm just It yeah. It it it just brushes right off my shoulder, but my wife it really gets to her for some reason. I'm like, it's the internet. I I don't know why me, I just say it gets to me, you know, and I'm like, I can't even look at the comments just in case there's one nut out there. No, exactly. C I A H That was the best. Well, the good news is I'm not as big as Theo Vaughn, so you won't have a lot of comments to look at on this. Yeah, yeah, a couple years into it, you know. And that's great, man. Man, it's just wild the what the internet can do for you. Cause I'm just a little old firefighter from Kentucky. That's great, man. For some reason people like my stupid videos. You bluegrass people. How do you how do you guys do over there? Do you have a Forcible entry team, these have assignments. So so my department, we have four stations. we we are fire and EMS, so we have an engine and an ambulance at each station, and our station one has a ladder truck and a rescue truck. Right. So we have one rescue truck for the whole city. we have a rescue team for any big incidents, we have a hazmat team. So who who gets there first gets the truck or what? Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. It's just we work with what we have. And that's my favorite thing about doing the podcast and talking to individuals from other departments, other countries. just everybody does it so differently, but it's a fire department. We work with what we got. Yeah. I I just learned that. Yeah. Yeah. talking to a lot of my volunteer friends and everything, I didn't I didn't realize that there really isn't set positions, when they show up. Not like you're in the firehouse, you got an Irons man, a can man, root you you had everything. Exactly. So I was like, yeah, it is a little different. who's gonna do what and where? Yeah, we w we actually carried cans on our ambulance at our department. So well that's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We we you could put out a you could put out a little wall good almost a room, a small room with a can if you do it right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we just we just recently started doing that, but I haven't had the opportunity to use the can on the ambulance except I I put out trash can fire with it, I was like, I gotta tap out on this trash can, but so you never heard my first EMS run. I don't think so, no. wow. Well, you know w they when Giuliani came in, he eventually brought EMS. EMS was separate, you know, they they were out, they had their their ambulances, they we call buses, mm-hmm and they had their own places. So he wanted to bring it all into one department, which he did, you know. So now the engines were EMS. So they would go out on EMS runs. And yeah, we were I was I wasn't happy with it at all back then, it was great for the people of of the city. yeah. But for the firemen it was just another hat, we had to put on. We were already busy running around. in the truck we were doing everything. We were like the super, gas leaks, water leaks, doors are tra stuck, I got foods on the stove, all those things, So oil burners. So who needed something else? Anyway We got EMS and didn't have it in the truck, just the engines. And it was rather new. We didn't have it for long and I got detailed across the floor. They needed a guy and we had an extra guy in the truck. So I had my first EMS night and it was a dandy. So my I'll I'll be quick. My first EMS run was the the neighbors said that this woman was missing, so we had to go. I had to go out in the fire escape. I actually had a radio, I don't know how. And the engine boss had me break into the apartment through the fire escape. I tell him, Yo, Lou, I gotta there's a gate. He says, Take the gate. I pry the gate. I go into the apartment. They're out in the hallway. And it's a it's a nice old apartment, like back in back in the day, It's like reminding me of my grandmother's apartment, So I'm looking around. It was still daylight out, and I see this little candy dish on a on a table, coffee table. So I walk over there and I see two legs sticking out from behind the couch. So I'm like, shit. So I move everything away. I move the couch away and there's the missing neighbor, you know. She was laying there on, I she was unconscious, I thought. And I was like, shit. So I tell him on the radio, hey, I got a woman, blah, blah, blah. I I put my hand down on her neck and her eyes opened. So I was like, shit. So I ran to the door. I let the guys in, they came in with their oxygen and everything. We're all new to this, Yeah, yeah. So they we straighten her out a little, push the couch away, they put the mask on, and she was a big woman. So EMS came up, with the stretcher and everything, and they were like, okay, let's let's get her on the stretcher. So I know you'll appreciate this being an EMS guy. So I got my arms, I get her out and I'm covered in feces. all over my my coat. I'm I'm like, I wanted to puke, you know. I was like, So I'm running down the stairs. They're gonna care, they got enough guys to carry the stretcher, and I'm got my arms out. I'm like, I head out to the street. And I'm telling the MPO and the engine, I'm like, yo, hit me with water, man. Wash this off. Wash this off. So he's he's like, you stink. I'm like, wash it all off. Go back to the firehouse. I still had to cook dinner. So I get rid of that. I hit the disinfectant. I changed my clothes. So the night goes on. We get another run. It's like midnight. So now we go. And it's in a projects, right? So we go up to like the 14th floor, and my lieutenant is a mild-mannered man in the engine. He's got his little pegboard, we got our oxygen tanks and everything. I didn't bring anything. I should have brought a halligan, because I'm just the dumb truckie in the in the engine for the night. So this guy opens the door, this big tall black guy, and he's only in his white BBDs, you know. He's yelling, he's Yeah, we're like, you call so yeah, the bitch is in there, bucking down. We're like, okay. I'm like, man, this is all new to me. Yeah, I'm used to meeting fire and smoke at the door. Unless it's a water leak or something, then we deal with the people, but this is new. So we go into this project bedroom, the woman's on the bed, her shirt's all open, her pants is open, and she's flipping around. you've probably seen it before. She's like out of control. The guys put the oxygen on her and everything. So my lieutenant's got his peg board and he says, Sir, is sh is she on any medications? And the guy looks at him and goes, How the fuck would I know? Do I look like a fucking doctor to you? So I'm like, I'm looking at my friend. I'm like, this fucking guy here, right? Now I'm getting so he's writing more things down. And then the guy says to my lieutenant, why don't you check her neck? You know? So I look at him, I said, What are you a fucking doctor now? So he's like, you can't fucking talk to me. And he he grabs me, and and we start fighting. He grabs me around my throat. And I grab him around his throat. Now we smash into like this. We're in a little bedroom. Now the EMS is in there. Everybody's hunkered down by the bed. And I'm choking him and he's choking me, and we're cursing at each other. And then finally he broke loose and he ran for the kitchen. And I could hear a pin drop, you know, he knew he was running for something. Uh-huh. And everybody was like, So I grabbed the the bottle of oxygen off the woman. That's the only weapon I had. I was gonna hit him in the head. And the boss is yelling, get Tony out of the apartment. And he went off into the kitchen to like, sir, we're gonna leave. Well blah, blah, blah, blah. So now they opened the door and the elevator was right across from the apartment. And my friend Lanier, he's hitting the button like he's sending Morse code. He's hitting the button. Fire the door. The door opens. Everybody bailed, even the EMS, and we all get in the elevator. And the guy, he keeps bad mouthing me, and I keep jumping out of the elevator and he keeps jumping back in his and then I'm jumping out. And then finally the door closes. And we head down, you know, and we're going down. And I'm like, I'm so pissed. And the EMT guy says to me, you know, dude, if you're gonna work this neighborhood, you're gonna have change your attitude. And I was like, Fuck you, buddy. I've been here 15 fucking years. I don't need you to tell me to change my attitude. So we go back. Yeah, of course it's the talk of the firehouse. the boss wasn't really mad at me or anything. So now one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, we get another EMS run. And now it's like a seniors building, but it's a it's another project type. Nice lobby. I actually had a couch. So we get to the elevator and the boss says, Tony, you you wait in the lobby. I'm like, okay, I'll add enough of this shit anyway, I said. So there I am. I'm in my coat and everything now. I'm sitting in the lobby and who comes walking in but those two EMT guys. And I see them laughing already, you know? So they're walking past me and the guy says, hey Tony, what are you doing? Guard in the lobby? And I was like, hey, fuck you, buddy. And they they go in the I hear them laughing the whole way up. And that was my nightmarish EMS first runs. You gotta love it. Everybody has one. well, they said it was gun it was coming to the truck and we were like scared. That's why that was another reason I went out to Howard Beach. No, absolutely. I'm about out of questions, man. It's it's been a pleasure. Hey, it's been fun. Yeah, yeah, it's been great. in closing, I want you to just shout out, tell people where you can where they can get your book at. Anything else you want to say as well? Yeah, get the book. Go on Instagram, Tony Bon Figlio thirty-four. You can pick up the book. I got a audio book out. It's also on on on Instagram. It's all on Amazon. If you want to sign book, you could DM me and we sign books and we send them out. It's a little rough on the UK and Canada with the shipping costs, so it's a little hard. We're having a problem with that. But everybody else so far, it's been great. And thanks. Thanks for giving me a plug. Absolutely, man. It's a pleasure, Cody. I appreciate you being on. Everybody that's listening, please go check him out on his website, on Instagram. go check out the book. And always, thank you guys for listening. See you next time. Thanks, guys.