‘In a heartbeat’: Former NYPD officer, Queen Creek resident relives 9/11

He called the child “Ray.”

“Ray” was a 4-year-old boy that former New York City Police Officer Joe Lutrario helped evacuate from a day care center on the ground floor of the South Tower on 9/11.

Lutrario and fellow first responders formed a bucket brigade to rescue the children — some still infants — picking one up and handing it down the line to eventually be placed on boats that would take them to New Jersey and safety.

“The South Tower fell after I took the last child out. I refer to him asRay, and I really don’t remember if his name was Ray, but I call him Ray,” Lutrario said. “He was about 4 years old, and he was panicking. So, I tried talking to him while I had him in my arms. I don’t know, I might have asked him what his name was. In the midst of all this, I was just really trying to calm him down. He just kept screaming for his mother. So, he was the last child I brought out.”

After retiring from the force, Lutrario began spending time in Arizona, even buying a house in Mesa. In 2016, he moved to Arizona full-time and chose Queen Creek as his new home.

He has found some measure of peace in Queen Creek but the scars, both physical and mental, are a near constant presence that intensify every year around Sept. 11.

He does take comfort in knowing those children he helped to evacuate are somewhere out there living full lives.

“I was thinking about this as I stay up all night, especially this time of year,” he said. “I think back about those children, and most of them were infants. And I look back and the only thing I can do is compare them to my children who are now young adults and have their own lives. I would like to think that those kids had that same opportunity, and I had a small part in that.”

The attack

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Lutrario, 59, joined the New York Police Department in 1989. In 1993, he was among the first responders at the North Tower when terrorists set off a bomb in a van in the building’s parking garage that killed six people.

“After that, they realized New York City didn’t have any kind of a terrorist response unit,” he said.

Lutrario and his partner were selected to be part of the NYPD’s Chemical, Ordnance, Biological, Radiological Assessment team, or COBRA.

Lutrario was on his path to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, when two hijacked planes hit the twin towers. Another slammed into the Pentagon and a fourth plane crashed in western Pennsylvania after passengers fought back. Almost 3,000 people died that day.

Lutrario went into work at 5 a.m. the day of the attacks — earlier than usual as it was primary election day in New York and his daughter stayed home from school.

American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower at 8:46 a.m., Eastern time.

“Our base was right on the other side of the Brooklyn battery tunnel that leads directly into the downtown south tip of Manhattan,” he said. “I was in the office when the first plane hit and then we were mobilized right there and we had a clear shot. There was no traffic. There was nothing. They emptied the tunnel. I was driving and we literally got there within moments and then as soon as I pulled up the second plane hit.”

American Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., Eastern time.

Despite the years of training and responding through the COBRA unit, Lutrario said nothing prepared him for what he saw that day.

“When I stepped out of that truck, I was absolutely in shock. There was so much going on. It was unfathomable. I mean, there was so much going on that you could not process it,” he said. “My partner for the day, he grabbed me and shook me out of it, I guess. And we had to immediately just start, and that’s what we did.”

Lutrario was at ground zero when both towers fell.

On his radio he could hear the voice of fellow NYPD Officer Moira Smith, whom he had first met as they helped evacuate people following the 1993 blast.

“She was above the impact site in the South Tower. I was listening to her on the radio. There was just so much going on, and you can only concentrate on one thing really. It’s trying not to get hit with falling debris and the task at hand,” Lutrario said. “But Moira was stuck up there and I ran into the South Tower just instinctively to try to go help. That’s when the building came down.”

Lutrario’s was injured and he was taken to a nearby school where a triage center had been set up. He was treated, found his partner and headed back to the chaos.

He and his partner came across a restaurant in Battery Park filled with people, some already dead, some severely injured, those conscious in shock. An older couple handed him a teenage girl from England.

“Her name was Claire and she was about 17 years old, and she was in total shock. Her parents sent her to New York as a graduation present and she was here by herself. She was caught in this chaos,” he said.

Only able to use one arm, he immediately asked Claire’s help to tear tablecloths into tourniquets and get water for the injured.

“She snapped out of it and responded very quickly, and she was a tremendous help that day,” Lutrario said. “We’re still good friends today. She lives in England. She’s a doctor — no, she’s a pathologist, actually.”

From Sept. 11 to Oct. 30, Lutrario was among the thousands of first responders trying to find survivors in the rubble.

“I honestly believed that we were going to find people up in until the day I left. I did. I honestly believed that,” he said. “You’re on that heap that was burning at 2,200 degrees to 2,800 degrees. Boots were melting on our feet and pants would catch fire and you just couldn’t see after five, seven minutes, 10 minutes, and they would escort us off, clear our eyes, we’d have 45 minutes of rest. They would make sure that we were OK and then we’d go back up. I don’t remember anybody ever saying, ‘This is a waste of time.’ It was just, we have a job to do.”

Before and after

There are moments in people’s lives that mark a distinct before and after. For Lutrario, 9/11 was the knife that jaggedly split his life.

Before, he was married with young children and enjoying his career as an NYPD officer. After, his marriage crumbled, he underwent several surgeries for his injuries and for two years he rarely left his home. In New York, the memories were inescapable.

“You could just be walking down the street or hearing a plane fly over that nobody would even pay attention to and bang, you’re there,” Lutrario said.

His last day with the department was Dec. 31, 2002.

“I worked at 1 Police Plaza headquarters because there were people who believed I needed to get back into Manhattan and just go where you absolutely did not want to go,” he said. “I was transferred there where they needed people inside, and that’s what I did for, I don’t know, probably three months and then they retired me off the job.”

Fighting spirit

Lutrario started venturing back out into the world mostly to go to gyms. Plagued with PTSD, he began learning Brazilian jiu-jitsu and it started having positive effects on his mental health.

“I reached out to three military psychiatrists, and we did a study and it was actually published I think three or four years ago, in a medical journal about the positive effects of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and PTSD. That has been something that has changed my life,” Lutrario said.

Now living in Encanterra, he and his second wife, Elizabeth, are both black belts and she owns the Brazilian jiu-jitsu academy, Koito BJJ Southwest.

Twenty-five years later, Lutrario said he is living his best life though it is still draining to speak of his 9/11 experiences, and, like thousands of others, he continues to battle the physical effects. It’s estimated as many as 6,000 people have died since the attacks on New York City from cancer and other diseases caused by the toxins in air.

“There’s a list of cancers, and specific cancers and diseases, that everybody is coming down with. I’ve hit that list a few times. In fact, I’m going through something right now,” he said. “But everything is cyclical and I’m a stubborn Italian from Brooklyn and I won’t give in.

“I went through a horrific divorce and health problems and all kinds of things. And I look back and people say, ‘Joe, would you do it again?’ In a heartbeat. In a heartbeat. Wouldn’t think twice.”

Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org. Please send your comments about this article to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.