Jennifer Abramowitz
Age 37
Detective
New York City Police Department
Child Abuse Squad
Brooklyn

“We found part of a police officer’s shield one day. We found a couple of guns. One of them was actually in a hand. We found a lot of pieces of uniforms -- firefighters’ uniforms, police uniforms, firefighters’ masks. I found people’s skin, and it looked like a piece of rubber. I picked it up, I looked at it, and I thought, What’s this? There were a lot of explosions through the elevator shafts, and people were blown right out of their clothes. I found their clothes, and they were just shredded. I found their sneakers. There were shoes everywhere.”

“One guy had three kids, one guy had two kids, one guy had an older kid, one guy didn’t have any kids, and the chief had kids and grandchildren. A lot of them want to come down to the firehouse and hang out and talk and eat. That’s tough. That’s tough to deal with. But the worst thing, in the very beginning, was escorting the families to get tested for DNA. They all came down with personal stuff that belonged to the guys — toothbrushes, hairbrushes. Parents and children had to give saliva samples, so in case a body part was found, they’d have something to match it to.”

“I’ve seen a lot of death. I’ve seen people stabbed, shot, decapitated, everything. But to see it like this in such mass -- it was like war. Going through a guy’s wallet to voucher money or credit cards and seeing a picture of his little kids. Seeing someone’s half scalp or someone’s shoulder blade. I’ll never get that out of my head. I hope nobody else will ever have to see anything like that. I would never wish this on anyone.”

“Once again, I said my blessings. I said, ‘Jesus Christ, please let my parents know I love them.’ I was trying to contact my parents in my mind, because I didn’t think I was going to make it. I waited for those windows to blow, I waited for the ambulance to turn over, I waited for death. We heard explosions everywhere, and then once again, complete silence.”

“I don’t want a scar on my head, but if this is what I have, I can deal with it. It’s nothing, nothing, nothing at all compared to what it could have been. But every day, it’s like a reminder. It’s healing. It itches. It hurts. I still can’t wear a hat. I don’t mind the scars on my head, but these on my face… I don’t want to have to look at these scars every day and remember what happened for the rest of my life.”

“I was drinking a bottle of water, and everything was really crazy, really really crazy, and I looked down at my foot and saw this woman's hand with a wedding ring on it. I knew that where that one hand was, there were thousands and thousands more. I didn't know anything about this person, except the color of her skin and the fact that she was married. Obviously, she had a connection, she was loved, she was part of a family. This one hand represented many, many people who would be hurt because this one person had died.”

“I still can’t really comprehend the magnitude of what happened because I don’t want to. I just leave it like that. When I think about it, it still makes me wonder what the hell really happened over there. I was there, I saw some things, but I don’t go into it too deep. I know what happened; I know how many lives were lost. A lot of them were my friends. But I have a spirit in my life. Not everybody believes in the spirit I believe in, God or whatever. That’s what keeps me above all this and a lot of other things I might feel I can’t handle.”

“We heard this plane and the echo of it. Then it hit the building. I got blown through the exit, but I was able to catch the door of the building as I came out. I just held on. People were blowing past me, particles were flying, people were flying. Stuff was coming down right on top of me, and I couldn’t see anything. I held on with one hand, and the wind force was so strong that I couldn’t get my other hand up to the doorway to pull myself through.”