Cape Coral man remembers experience as 9/11 first responder

Friday marks the 19th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The coronavirus pandemic means the yearly remembrance in New York City looks different than it usually does.

A Cape Coral man still remembers running toward the World Trade Center as the second plane hit. Brian Sheehan is the vice president of SWFL Club of America, a club comprised of 80 former NYPD officers.

“I was one of the very few people who can actually recount seen the first plane hit; I just happened to be looking over at the Trade Center,” Sheehan said. “Obviously everyone came to a stop, we started coming together and I’m trying to convince myself this was an accident, I didn’t see that … sure enough, a short time later the second plane hit.”

Sheehan watched everything unfold from 10 miles away in Brooklyn. Despite the distance, burning pages from a book came whirling past him through the air. Sheehan caught them and has preserved them ever since.

During the initial response 19 years ago, he was assigned to a security post to keep people from coming into the city. Over the following eight months, he logged 1,600 hours around Ground Zero.

“This was our country being attacked, and right in our front lawn, obviously we were all in shock getting down there… just started picking up the pieces, doing anything we possibly could — you didn’t really give it too much thought,” Sheehan said.

At 8:46 a.m. – the time the first plane hit – the Southwest Florida Military Museum in Cape Coral will host a memorial ceremony at which Sheehan will help read the names of the first responders who died that day, before lowering the flag to half-staff.