Myrtle Beach firefighter reports near-death experience on September 11

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) – September 11, 2001 is a day Americans must never forget, and Myrtle Beach Fire Chief Steven Waldron said he will always remember being trapped under rubble between the Twin Towers that day.

In 2001, Waldron wore a different badge. He was a 26-year-old New York Police Department officer who had just finished his shift when the first plane flew into the North Tower.

He said that while thousands were running for their lives from the Twin Towers, he ran toward them, not knowing what would await him there.

“We told everyone not to look back, not to look up, and to go to Broadway,” Waldron said. “That's when I saw two police officers carrying a person out of the lobby, and it looked like the skin was dripping between her fingers. She was burned.”

Waldron took these photos with a disposable camera before entering the underground shopping mall that once connected the Twin Towers.

Waldron said he didn't realize a terrorist attack was underway until he spoke to NYPD officer Mark Ellis, who was sitting next to him in the tunnel.

He said before they could run out, it was too late and he heard three loud bangs.

“We both started running,” Waldron said. “We took about two or three steps and then our legs were blown out from under us. I hit the ground. I got about six inches off the ground and we went like a rocket down the hallway. I hit a concrete pillar. Everything came crashing down on us and there was complete silence.”

Waldron said he was trapped in the rubble and considered suicide until he remembered his wife, who was pregnant with their first child.

Then he switched to survival mode and found an opening in the rubble through which he could climb out.

“I was able to reach behind me and feel what looked like a hole,” Waldron said. “I was able to roll into the hole, stood up and felt a gust of wind. I looked up and it was like a thirty-foot opening and the sky was as clear and blue as it had ever been.”

After Waldron got out, paramedics took him to the hospital for numerous injuries, including a 30-centimeter-long laceration to his head.

Waldron said it wasn't until he was driving home that he realized everything.

“I remember getting in my dad's van and driving down the BQE and looking at the city skyline,” Waldron said. “It was gray, there was just smoke, but the towers were gone. Those were the landmarks of New York City, and now they're both gone.”

Waldron now has a tattoo of the Twin Towers as well as the names of the 23 NYPD officers killed during the operation, including Ellis, who was standing next to him in the underground mall.

Waldron spent two weeks recovering and served in the police force for 22 years before moving to Myrtle Beach and becoming a firefighter.

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