Excerpt from Report From Ground Zero by Dennis Smith, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Dominick runs first, I am behind, and the sarge is behind me. Antonio is behind the sarge, and Chris is bringing up the rear. But Chris never makes it because the shock wave pushes him back into the main concourse area, and he takes the worst of it. Dominick and I and the sarge just make it around the corner, but Antonio doesn't. Everything just starts hitting us, and then the wall comes down on top of me. I am flabbergasted. My friend Dominick is crushed down in the push-up position, and my legs are pinned completely by heavy concrete. Sergeant McLoughlin sees the walls breaking apart, and they are falling on him. And the ceiling falls on him, [pinning him] twenty feet away from me. I can't see him, but I can hear him. I keep calling out for Amoroso and Rodrigues, calling and calling for two minutes straight. But there is no response.

The lights are flickering, but they don't go out. Dominick begins to wiggle himself out. Sergeant McLoughlin, being from ESU, does everything by the book, and so we are talking about what we have to do. I have an old pair of handcuffs and I begin to scratch at everything around me, trying to free up some of the concrete. The sarge is thinking Dominick will get free and work to get me out first, and then together we will work to dig Sergeant McLoughlin out. The sarge is hurt bad, and he has a few thousand pounds crushing down on him. But he keeps talking to us, to steady us, keep us calm.

Dominick is a weight lifter, and he finally pushes everything off him. He gets free, and he is in an area about three feet wide, and he begins to work on getting me out. My left leg is completely stuck under immovable concrete. He is bending over just a little when we hear the collapse beginning. I didn't know it was the tower. I just hear the most horrifying noise I've ever heard. It was like a huge train coming at me with the roar of the devil. I don't think Hollywood could ever duplicate that sound, and it is right above me, coming down. Everything is shaking. I said, "Dominick, something big is happening," and I put my arms over my head. I am lying on my back, like I am in bed, and I am looking upward. I try to get fetal. Dominick stands up, and backs up about four feet. The tower comes down. Nothing moves me or John, but a huge cinderblock the size of a dining room table comes down, and it hits Dominick right across his legs and it slams him down. Then all the debris falls all around us. I can see that Dominick is hurt pretty bad. I keep saying, "Dominick, are you okay?"

And I can hear him gurgling. He says, "Willy, I'm hurt bad." I can see him, and it looks like he is sitting down, but he has all this stuff on him. We keep talking, and I say, "Dominick, keep awake."

But he says, "Willy, you know I love you."

I say, "I love you, too, Dominick." I think about all the things we did together, everything we did in school, the good times at work, the emergencies, the sitting around after work. I know now he is leaving us. He's dying.

"Just remember me," he says. "I died trying to save you guys."

"We'll never forget that, Dominick. Just hold on." I start to yell. "Dominick, just hold on!"

"I'm going," he says. I see him now putting up his arm. He has a gun in his hand, and he fires a shot with his gun, off in the air. A last-ditch effort to say, "Hey, we're here," and then he slumps over, dead.

This is real tough. He's a friend of mine and just a few feet away from me, and I can't go to him; I can't help him. He's a family man, and I know how much he cared about his wife and two children. He was a schoolteacher, too. He could have done that instead of being a cop.

I cannot budge an inch. I keep talking to John McLoughlin now, to keep him awake. The radio is dead, but I keep saying, "Sarge, I know you're in pain, but you have to get on the radio, you know, it's our lifeline." And through the night, I have to get nasty with him. I say, "Sarge, keep alive! You can't die on me because I'll have nobody, and I won't make it. I'm dead."

Copyright 2002 Dennis Smith. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Viking.