Gene Kuziw, Interpreter/EMS, Statue of Liberty National Monument
Interviewed by Mark Schoepfle, Ph.D., Cultural Anthropologist
February 1, 2002 at Ellis Island

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MARK SCHOEPFLE: My First Question, Gene, is from the moment you were aware of something happening, what happened? What were you doing and what happened?

GENE KUZIW: I was in the Ellis [Island] protection office filling out paperwork…when I heard over the park radio in the background that some kind of explosion. And grabbed my camera and ran out to the fuel dock on the north end of the island, the parking lot area, and in fact saw smoke coming out of the trade tower. And this was before the park opened to the public…. I didn't see any debris at the time, just smoke coming out of the building.

And a few minutes later we heard a very loud, low roar of a plane and I looked over to the right and I saw across towards Governors' Island just saw this plane coming in very low. And I just focused the camera on it. Just before impact I got [a] picture….And at that point one of my colleagues screamed out that we're being attacked and it was pretty unbelievable….[W]e saw a big ball of fire and the plane was just absorbed into the building….But then a couple of seconds later you just heard this tremendous explosion and we just stood there in disbelief for a few minutes.

And they called for the evacuation of the building, closing procedures. So we all kind of gathered at the flagpole area and the park police with assistance of some of the staff began doing closing procedures….But then I thought of the statue, and if this was indeed some kind of terrorist event I wanted to see what, if anything, happened to the statue. So I ran to the east end of the island, and fortunately she was still standing there.

Ellis Island was identified as a triage area…so we started to gather medical supplies from the EMS room and brought them out to the front near the dock area where we thought they would be unloading patients…We went to get additional medical supplies from Liberty Island, which was pretty unsettling. You know, we're all nervous about something happening at the statue. So we got to the island, ran in, got some supplies, and as we were-as I was loading up a stretcher with supplies, the EMS room was right next to the communications centers, and the person at the, in the communications center just started screaming….And that's when the first tower collapsed. So we ran and watched it on video. And then just past the monitor we were just looking out the window and just saw it happening.

I'm still trying to work out the time frame. It just happened all so quickly and at the same time everything was just in slow motion. And the first boat with patients arrived and they had some firefighters with some crushing injuries and smoke inhalation. And then there were people who were covered in soot and debris with some minor lacerations. And several boatloads came mostly with walking wounded, people who just needed to get out of the area. And it became apparent that there weren't too many patients or that they weren't bringing them to us.

At one point the Jersey City Medical Center came with a mobile command center. So they set a-they took over incident command from that point on. And dozens of EMTs started to arrive and paramedics and even emergency room physicians were called onto the scene, onto the Ellis Island.

I heard one of the law enforcement rangers said he is going into the city on Liberty III, which is one of our work boats, and I requested to go along because if you're going there...somebody might need medical attention. So I grabbed some gear and got permission from the lieutenant to head over there. And we started to make our way over towards Lower Manhattan and we decided to go-the boat Captain decided to dock near the World Trade Center area - I think it was referred to as the North Cove Marina - because that's where all the emergency boats were with the lights and sirens. And as we got near it was apparent that we were unable to dock because there was just no room to dock there. All the police boats and fireboats were there.

So we headed back to our main docking area which was the Marine Inspection Office at the south end of the Battery. And as we approached I looked at the dock and there was one person standing there at the dock. And it was one of my colleagues, Charlie Deleo who was a volunteer but he worked for the park for over 30 years, and they call him the Keeper of the Flame. He took care of the statue's torch, changing the lights. And Charlie was there covered in soot and debris, and I had a mask on so I didn't really-wasn't able to communicate with him. But I gave him a bottle of water I had taken along and kind of embraced. And he was just standing there. He told me later that he just wanted to stand there and watch the statue. And he just stood there for-I don't know how long he was there.

MARK SCHOEPFLE: You mentioned that you had reopened and with new security measures in place. How is this reopening? Do you feel in some way that - in your judgement, let's put it this way, do you see things getting back to some kind of normalcy or what?

GENE KUZIW: Yeah, I think every day brings us a little bit closer to - never will it be the way it was but I think reopening this site was very cathartic. I was not here the first day it reopened, but from what I understand it was understandably so very emotional and many firefighters came and police officers who lost brothers and sisters during the attacks. So especially this site, it's so important tot the collective psyche of this country and the world, you know, to show that they can't shut us down, you know.

So I was very glad personally, and I can speak for myself and some colleagues in the front lines of interpretation, we'll have to relive that day for years to the public because the first question they ask is…'Where were the towers?' So the first couple of weeks we were opened, you know, I would share some of my experiences as I've shared with you.

But reliving that every day, all day long, just became too trying. So people ask me, what did you see, where were you, did you see any body parts? They ask you, you know. Visitors ask that kind of stuff. I tell them, no, I was off that day or I'm new here. I just wouldn't be able to deal with that for too long. So we'll see how-and you know, everybody will handle that their own way. But our manager basically told us we can choose to answer those questions or we can respectfully decline to answer questions pertaining to 9-11.

September 11, 2001 Oral History Documentation Project
Northeast Region, National Park Service

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