Long Beach Firefighter Rebuilds Life After Facing 9/11 Demons

LONG BEACH, NY — Richard Santoro is no stranger to helping people. Santoro, who grew up in Rockville Centre, was an EMT for the New York City EMS in the early 1990s. He's been a member of the Long Beach Volunteer Fire Department since 2000 where he's held many positions including lieutenant and acting captain. Although his full-time job is as a master plumber, Santoro's main role with the LBFD today is as chairman of the Sunshine Committee, where he handles all personal milestones within the department, whether joyful or sorrowful occasions.

One year after Santoro joined the fire department, he experienced the ultimate sorrow-- 9/11.

Apprenticing on that fateful Tuesday morning with a plumbing company, Santoro was told to make some errands and pick up some materials. The plan was to meet his colleagues for some surfing in Long Beach.

"I'm racing back to Long Beach, and as I got to Island Park, I was listening to Howard Stern [who] reported that a plane had struck the World Trade Center," Santoro told Patch. "I didn't believe it."

His confirmation came when he stopped his truck on the Long Beach Bridge and gazed across to see the plume of smoke pouring out of the North Tower.

Santoro got back to his firehouse and demanded an engine and crew to back up his brethren in Manhattan. He was told, however, protocol meant he had to wait until the request came in.

As the second plane slammed into the adjacent tower, Santoro was antsier to assist.
Chief Ralph Tuccillo said if Santoro didn’t calm down he’d send him home.

He watched and waited from Long Beach, 35 miles to the northwest of the World Trade Center, until the first skyscraper collapsed.

"Is that enough now?" Santoro pressed his fire department boss, who responded that it was time for him to finally get on the move.

"He saved my life," Santoro said of his fire chief.

In short order, Santoro got a crew together, but Ground Zero would still have to wait. They were dispatched to Belmont Race Track as a holding area with fire engines from across Long Island. While stationed at the Nassau/Queens border, chaotic walkie-talkie calls came in about the many missing firefighters.

"We’re all starting to lose our marbles," Santoro remembered. "We don’t know what to do."

At approximately 2 p.m or 3 p.m.., the request came in to relieve first responders as they sought five heavy rescue trucks filled with experienced EMTs and firemen.

"I was the first to volunteer," Santoro said.

His Long Beach Fire Department Heavy Rescue truck led the procession of fire trucks to lower Manhattan.

"One of the most scared moments in my life was seeing the Cross Island Parkway and the L.I.E. [Long Island Expressway] empty on a Tuesday afternoon," he admitted.

With the highway so quiet, they did not even need to use sirens to pass anyone. It was a picture-perfect late summer day, until exiting the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. It was overcast with limited visibility. However, as they got closer to Canal Street, the sky got darker, Santoro recalled.

"You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face," he said. "It was eerie."

They parked at West and Vecey streets, just blocks away from where the Twin Towers stood for three decades.

When Santoro and his group got to the “pile,” sounds of pass alarms reverberated. They would chirp loud and incessantly as a disturbing signal that firefighters were in distress.

"They would not stop, 24 hours a day," Santoro recalled. "That noise means your brother is down. That noise is the haunt that brings everybody back to that moment. It’s what my nightmares are made of."

Santoro was not able to rescue anyone during his time at the pile and his frustration mounted.

"I felt infinitesimally small and insignificant," he said.

He did wash away toxic dust and debris from firefighters’ eyes. Santoro would spend four days at Ground Zero immediately after the attacks.

"Most of the guys were just walking around like zombies," he said.

Santoro, whose sleeping got progressively worse by 2002, struggled with the anxiety from what he saw and heard.

Perhaps the best treatment for Santoro was finding his bride, who is from Valley Stream, and buying their home in Long Beach.

"She calmed my heart down," Santoro said.

However, hurricanes Irene and Sandy badly damaged their property’s first floor in back-to-back years.

“Everything that’s good in my life is going bad,” he said.

Santoro needed some additional help to deal with the trauma. He started seeing a psychiatrist and was prescribed medications. Even though Santoro said he’s in a much better place today, it is always right under the surface. The terror attack in Afghanistan that killed 13 US troops last month was a trigger.

"I was that 20-year-old Navy corpsman," he said.

Santoro also had to cope with personal losses from 9/11. One person that "hurt the most," was a childhood friend he knew since nursery school in Rockville Centre and was among 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees killed that day.

On 9/11, Santoro was dating his future wife, who worked on Pine Street near the World Trade Center. He instructed her not to evacuate as it was more dangerous on the street, but if she did leave, to have the “buddy system” with someone. She was exiting around the same time he was arriving in the city. It would also be the last cell service. They spoke briefly and lovingly about surviving so they could plan their wedding and life together.

"She was scared out of her britches and so was I," Santoro said.

Santoro reluctantly agreed to this interview in coordination with the 9/11 20th anniversary: "I shouldn’t be glorified for living."

He refuses to watch any of the coverage. The six men and his chief who went to lower Manhattan will get together at a bar like they did 10 years ago.

"We don’t want to relive it," he admitted. "There’s no glory in this memory."