“You guys are my heroes,” exclaimed Will Jimeno, former Port Authority Officer, to the entire Borough School student body who had gathered to listen to him. He had come to speak on how he had spent the time from daylight to the night under the fragments of the collapsed south tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
Jimeno said to the crowd that by being there, all have honored whom they lost on 9/11. He continued that he’s excited as he had done events like those but it’s the first event where he’d had so many children. He recalled that he had been sitting on cloud nine on the morning of 9/11. This is because he had been sworn into the Port Authority Police.
Jimeno had been sworn into Port Authority Police that same year in January at the ceremony held in World Trade Centre. He mentioned that was his dream. Will and his wife, Allison were expecting their second child in November and the duo had also bought a home in Clifton a few weeks later.
Jimeno then recalled that he was appointed duty at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan. He said that he couldn’t see the plane hit the first tower but he said that he saw his fellow officer looking up in the sky and the following something.
There was then a call to all bus terminal police to return to their base. Will still couldn’t understand what was happening. Things started to make sense for him only after he was in the break room and saw a big black hole in the World Trade Centre tower.
As soon as they realized that it was a terrorist attack, they all boarded the bus to reach the World Trade Center. Before they could even reach, they were stopped by what was called “war zone.” The second tower had also been hit by a plane.
Jimeno told students how badly he was scared. But he also taught the kids that courage comes from overcoming the fear.
He also recalled how much love he saw amongst civilians as they were helping each other despite being strangers to each other. He had said that if people were so courageous the police officers had to step in.