Rescuer: 'It Was Like Going Off to War'

As his Riverside Urban Search and Rescue Team Six was airborne in a military aircraft headed to Ground Zero, firefighter Scott Hudson remembers being told “We’re the only aircraft in the air,” he said.

“We were going full throttle,” he remembered. All other aircraft had been grounded after four large commercial airliners had been hijacked and slammed into the Pentagon and the Twin Towers. It was Sept. 11.

"It was like going off to war."

The retired firefighter from Hemet was among the dozens of California rescuers sent to New York following the terror attacks. He is a safety officer with the task force.

The scene he described seemed surreal.

“Everything was pulverized,” he told a crowd at a recent Sept. 11 ceremony in Loma Linda.

Dust became a major health concern. It was sticky dust, he said.

“Everyday, something was burning,” he said. “The jet fuel just never burned off.”

They were all based out of the Javits Center and shuttling back and forth from there. It was a tough scene and a chaotic one at times, Hudson said. But at some point, things began to run smoothly, he said.

Like so many of his fellow rescuers, Hudson remembered the crowds of people waving and cheering as the bus loads of rescuers came and went.

“That never changed while we were there,” he said.

Find More 9/11 Coverage:

• Touched By Terror: Patch Remembers 9/11 in 911 Snapshots