Anthony Gattullo, a NYC Port Authority Police officer, and his wife Susan at their Bethlehem backyard on Sept. 5, 2002. (Morning Call file photo)

September 12, 2011

For 10 years, I have been trying to forget about 9/11, but as an eyewitness, I could never do it.

I was a 14-year veteran of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey Police Department, stationed at Newark International Airport. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, the air was cool and the sky was very blue. My partner and I were directing traffic in front of Terminal C when a flight attendant said a plane just struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

We told her to stop making bad jokes. Then our portable radios blasted a code 8-40 — return to the police station immediately. I learned that I was among the officers who were going to the WTC, and I had to get my firefighting equipment. (At the airport, we wore two hats — police officers, first, and crash, fire and rescue firefighters, second.)

This was my second WTC event. I was there in 1993 when terrorists detonated a large bomb under the Vista Hotel. I couldn’t believe my luck.

While riding in our van to Manhattan that Sept. 11, my wife, Susan, called my cellphone. When I told her we were crossing the New Jersey Turnpike-Newark Bay Extension bridge, she said, “Don’t go over there! Do you even know what is going on?” I told her it was a little late to back out and that I would be OK. I said I couldn’t talk anymore and said goodbye.

While stuck in traffic, the second doomed flight plowed into the WTC. Dispatchers on our radios said something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up: “All Port Authority units, we are under attack. Repeat. We are under attack!”

We made it to the WTC to help with what turned out to be the biggest rescue effort — eventually 25,000 people got out of the buildings — in this country’s history. I heard and felt a loud, crashing sound. An officer yelled, “RUN!” and pushed and carried me away from the plaza — and death. I looked back and saw the tower falling 300 yards behind me.

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