‘You cannot fix this’: 25 years after 9/11, a first responder remembers Ground Zero

After the Towers fell on the morning of 9/11, Peter Killeen reported to the Port Authority’s command center on North Moore Street in lower Manhattan.

There, he encountered about 100 officers “covered head to toe” in Trade Center debris, many in shock.

“I was very, very scared and felt very uncomfortable. And thankfully… God spoke to me and said, when you’re dealing with a person, deal with that individual in front of you. You cannot fix this,” Killeen, a police psychotherapist, minister and former Port Authority cop, recounted Wednesday in Morris Township.

Indeed, he would struggle to repair his own psyche, he told elected officials and first responders from the Township and Morristown.

Together with a small group of spectators, they gathered at Ginty Field, below an American flag flapping from a fire truck ladder, to solemnly mark the upcoming 25th anniversary of the terror attacks that took nearly 3,000 lives in New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, PA.

Speeches were spoken. A wreath was laid. Amazing Grace was played by a wind ensemble. A bugler blew the ever-mournful Taps, as police and firefighters snapped to attention and saluted in the twilight. One by one, audience members tossed shovelfuls of dirt around a freshly planted cherry tree.

“May its roots keep our memories strong. May its blossoms keep our hope alive, and may both endure for generations to come,” said Bud Ravitz, Township committeeman and even emcee, who observed: “Hatred may wound humanity, but it cannot defeat it.”

Township Mayor Donna Guariglia read aloud the names of six residents lost on 9/11 — Barbara Shaw, Edward W. Straub, William A. Matheson, Alexander J. Napier, Sean Patrick Lynch, and Alfred Russel Mailer — and urged that the spirit of unity shown in the days after the 2001 attacks guide how Americans treat each other today.

“We’ve had stretches where we let our politics divide us more than that morning ever united us,” she said.

Asserting that “remembering means more than just saying their names,” Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-11th Dist.) pledged to keep fighting for federal health funding so the nation can “live up to our commitments” to first responders and survivors.

Video: Peter Killeen recites his poem for first responders, “September’s Dawn”:

ASKING FOR HELP

Killeen recited September’s Dawn, a poem he wrote for first responders. He spent months at Ground Zero counseling Port Authority officers, and for years afterward insisted “he was doing well” — until burnout, PTSD and what he described as a 9/11‑related cancer caught up with him.

“I was taking care of everybody else, but not myself, and I was really slowly deteriorating and imploding,” he said.

Among friends he lost on that grim morning a quarter-century ago was Father Mychal Judge, the New York Fire Department chaplain and fellow Franciscan. By 2004, it all had become  too much for Killeen.

“I found that I was self‑medicating,” he said. “I was drinking a lot more than I should have been, as many of us were, unfortunately.”

Lexapro and counseling helped him process his grief. He urged first responders to view treatment not as weakness but as “a bridge to a better life down the road.”

Many 9/11 first responders fear the stigma that sometimes goes with seeking help, he said.

“We talked about eradicating the stigma,” Killeen said. “I think that’s critically important that we do that for the first responders, because suicide is very high with fire (fighters) as well as police and EMTs, and we want to try to eradicate that and do the best we can.”