September 11, 2001 is a key date in contemporary history, an entry into the third millennium that many remember. A date that the Charleroi firefighters will not soon forget. As the towers have just collapsed, an ambulance firefighter from Charleroi, Tino Saitta decides to leave for New York. Without knowing it, he begins to forge unfailing links between the firefighters from here and there.
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Save or perish
Tino Saitta has adopted the motto of the firefighters “To save or to perish”. At 35, he has worked for twelve years as a firefighter. When Al Qaeda terrorism hit the United States in spectacular fashion, it recently entered the Charleroi barracks. “I was driving in Fleurus when a colleague called me and explained to me what was going on in New York. I had been to the World Trade Center before and I immediately thought it was ‘an attack. I felt the imminent catastrophe. I very quickly found myself in front of the TV, like everyone else “.
►►► To read : But what did George W. Bush do after leaving school in Sarasota on September 11, 2001?
When the twin towers collapse, it is the shock for the firefighter: “Obviously, being a firefighter, you can imagine how it will go to help people, especially the difficulty of getting there …”.
Tino Saitta immediately tries to contact his family who live in the Big Apple, a family of cops, but no one picks up “Because the telecommunications antenna that was on one of the towers had collapsed too. It took me two to three days to talk to them.”.
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“We are at war”
It thus took three days before discussing with the family and being reassured and two months before being able to go there: “A police friend accompanied me. My family welcomed me and it was even more moving because my cousin explained to us that the war had started with them. ‘We are at war,’ he said. “.
At 8 p.m., the very day of his arrival in New York, Tino Saitta went to the bruised site. There is the shock : “We went to the site. I had been there often before … Everything was on the ground … It was no longer the city of New York that I had known”.
This feeling, the carolo firefighter already feels when he arrives at the airport: “When I arrived, everything was different. There were lots of soldiers in the airport […]. There were plenty of soldiers and police in the street. We felt a pressure. It was a war situation and people were saddened. Everyone was affected by these attacks, from near or far “, says Toni Saitta.
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The shock at “Ground zero”
When he stands at the foot of what symbolized the power of the United States, smoke still escapes from the site, “It was still burning in the lower floors where there is the metro and I was impressed. Being a firefighter, inevitably, I have another vision of the thing. Tears flow by themselves because we feel what could occur two months before “.
►►► To read : The forgotten flight of September 11, 2001, that of the “heroes” who prevented the terrorists from reaching the Capitol
The next morning, Toni Saitta returns to the scene and goes even closer to the site. When he arrives, a priest is busy praying with firefighters who work around the clock on the site. The fire chief, Salvator Cassano, is on site but also the New York police chief who is warned of the presence of a firefighter from Belgium.
“He gives me his hand and says ‘You are the first foreign country to be present. Thank you for coming to support us'”, recalls Toni Maitta. It was the beginning of the relationship between the Charleroi firefighters and those of New York. It has never been denied since … A delegation of firefighters from Charleroi goes to New York every September 11 and the firefighters remain in contact.
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The drama of Chief Pfeifer
“I learned some things from fellow firefighters in New York. Chief Joseph Pfeifer was supposedly on a gas leak (the morning of the attacks, editor’s note). It was he who saw the plane enter the tower and sounded the alert. He was one of the first there with his men “.
Once the alert was sounded, a unit commanded by the brother of the fire chief, Kevin Pfeifer, arrived on the scene. “He asked his brother to come up with his men to go and help the people on the different floors. As he told him to go, they looked at each other and he knew that his brother was in danger and that maybe he I was taken by a very strong emotion when he explained that to me, that is to say knowing that even if it was his brother, the first thing that mattered was to go and save people “. A story that says a lot about the commitment of firefighters whose motto is “save or perish”.
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