‘A hole in the ground and a hole in the sky’: Tukwila firefighter’s 25-year connection to 9/11

Today marks 25 years since the September 11th attacks. But for one local firefighter, the memories of that day are still vivid, and over the years, his connection to the events of that tragic and historic day has only deepened.

A volunteer firefighter watches the towers fall

Ryan Carpenter works at Puget Sound Fire Authority’s Ladder 51 in Tukwila these days. Twenty-five years ago, he was a volunteer firefighter.

And like many of us, he initially thought the first plane crash at the World Trade Center was an accident.

“I think we were still tracking on that sort of mentality when the second plane hit,” Carpenter told KIRO Newsradio. “It was like a literal slap in the face. Like, wake up, this wasn’t an accident.”

That night he was working a shift in downtown Seattle.

“I remember, like, the streets were quiet. There were no airplanes overhead except for the occasional sound of a fighter jet,” he said.

It was eerie, he said, but for him, while tragic, 9/11 was something that happened across the country in New York, a place he’d never been.

A chance meeting on a ski gondola changed everything

A few years later, a chance meeting on a ski gondola in Whistler changed his connection to 9/11 forever.

The man sitting across from him turned out to be a New York firefighter. They skied together, became fast friends, and the following year, Carpenter visited him in New York City. In 2006, that friend took him to Ground Zero for the first time.

“There was still an element of separation up until that day that I walked up to the chain-link fence and looked down into the hole, and saw, you know, looked up into the sky, and saw the hole in the sky in the city, where, you know, you look up anywhere else in New York City, and it’s hard to spot blue sky, right?” Carpenter said.

“And here was this giant hole in the middle of the city where these two huge buildings used to be, that there was a hole in the ground and there was a hole in the sky,” he continued. “It was eerie. I’m getting goose bumps right now, as we speak, just because it was a very real moment.”

Bringing a piece of the World Trade Center home to his fire station

That visit made 9/11 personal for Carpenter, and it set him on a mission. He wanted to bring a piece of the Trade Center steel home to his fire station so other firefighters could put their hands on something that was actually there.

When the Seahawks went to the Super Bowl in New York in 2014, Carpenter connected with a retired firefighter whose son died on 9/11. The retired firefighter went behind a chain-link fence into a big pile of wreckage from Ground Zero. He used a plasma torch to cut Ryan a piece small enough to fit in his suitcase.

“Watching him cut that off was sort of an exciting moment for me. But then when I was able to sort of pan back and see the bigger picture of all of these twisted pieces of steel, again, a goosebump moment,” he said. “That’s what’s left of what was there, what was taking up that hole in the city.”

A 90-pound suitcase and a Seahawks jersey full of holes

When Carpenter got to the airport, he had to explain why his suitcase weighed 90 pounds. The airline waived the baggage fee, and he was on his way home with his piece of the World Trade Center.

“I have a Seahawks uniform that I took to the Super Bowl to wear [and it] has a bunch of holes punctured in it, and it’s from that piece of steel sliding around in my suitcase,” he said. “So, [Wednesday] night we were at the Seahawks game, and I was actually wearing that jersey, and I was with my daughter, and she told me, ‘Daddy, you have a bunch of holes in your jersey.’ And I told her this exact story.”

‘Facts versus feelings’: Why he keeps telling his 9/11 story

It’s a funny story, but it reminds Carpenter that young people, like his daughter, and the new generation of firefighters are learning about 9/11 the way he learned about Pearl Harbor in history class. Carpenter appreciates the fact that his grandfathers, who fought in World War II, shared their stories and feelings with him.

“The little bit that they talked to me about World War II, I think was superiorly impactful over what I would maybe glean from a history book,” he said. “Facts versus experiences, facts versus feelings, doesn’t make either one of them not true, but feelings just carry something stronger.”

That’s why he brought that piece of steel home, and why he keeps telling his story.

Carpenter is among those telling their 9/11 stories as part of a special social media series from Puget Sound Fire entitled “Never Forget: 9/11 – 25 Years Later.”

Frank Lenzi is the News Director for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here.

Follow @FrankLenziKIRO