SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. (KGUN) — “We were changed forever after that,” retired New York Peace Officer Ilene Miller said.
Ilene and her husband, Loring Miller, were first responders to Manhattan, after the attack on the Twin Towers, in 2001.
“The ash was above our ankles, and it consisted of everything in a city," Loring said. “It was quite an experience for us, you know, because this is Manhattan. This isn't right," Loring said. "I'll call it 'hope for hope' because there was none. There was no hope it was a strategy that wouldn't work, you couldn't rescue anyone, there was no one alive.”
More than 2,950 people died in the attacks, and many more in the years after due to illnesses from breathing in the contaminated air.
Loring said a bell was rung every time a first responder was found deceased.
“(We'd put our) hand on our heart, and we stand there and we wait for the bell to stop ringing," he said.
The sound still haunts him.
The Millers spent 11 days helping people recover some of their things and cleaning up what was left.
“It was just remains, and there was no hope, but nobody would leave,” Loring said.
His wife, recalled taking groups of people up to their apartments to get items that were important to them. She remembered having to pull multiple people back because they were in 'shock' and walking to rooms that were missing the back wall.
"It was unfathomable for anybody to think something like that could happen,” Ilene said.
The damage has lasted longer than the clean up efforts. Due to mental health, and illness caused by the unhealthy air people breathed in.
“It's horrible," Loring said. "What's come of it today is 10's of 1000's of people sick that never knew they were going to get sick.”
He was diagnosed with cancer in 2008, after many of his peers were diagnosed. He has stage four bone cancer, that is affecting his ability to walk.
"Almost everybody we worked with at ground zero has passed," Loring said. "I'm very fortunate. I'm hanging in there."
"I say, God's keeping me around for a reason.”
He says the reason to share he and his wife’s story, about what they saw 23 years ago.
“The whole experience very surreal,” Ilene said.
Her husband says the scene is what people need to hear about, since not everyone saw what he saw.
"It took lower Manhattan to a place it had never been before,” Loring said.
The traumatic memories and sounds make it hard for the millers to forget.
"Whenever I hear my whenever I hear a bell, my my spine locks up, I swear, I just shudder, and it doesn't go away that quickly,” Loring said.
He says he wants to keep talking about what happened, so history doesn't repeat its self.
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Alexis Ramanjulu is a reporter in Cochise County for KGUN 9. She began her journalism career reporting for the Herald/Review in Sierra Vista, which she also calls home. Share your story ideas with Alexis by emailing alexis.ramanjulu@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook.
