Will Jimeno went to work that morning like any other day on 9/11 2001. He was a Port Authority police officer in New York City. However, that day, his ordinary shift quickly turned into a fight for his life.
When the first plane hit the World Trade Center, Jimeno knew something was terribly wrong. He and other officers rushed toward Lower Manhattan.
They weren’t running away from the disaster; they were running straight toward it. Their mission was simple: help as many people as they could.
But inside the South Tower, everything suddenly changed. The building came down, and Jimeno was buried under the enormous pile of concrete and steel.
Around him were fellow officers who had entered the building with him, and some never came out. Jimeno was badly hurt and trapped in complete darkness, and he had no idea when – or if – rescuers ever would find him.
He had only one option: to wait, hope to be found, and stay alive.
Jimeno was married, and his wife, Allison, was pregnant with their second child. As the hours passed, his thoughts kept going back to her. All he could think about was seeing his wife and meeting his baby.
Police officer reveals the three words that broke him when he was rescued
At one point, Jimeno became convinced that he was going to die beneath the rubble. At that moment, he told one of his fellow co-workers, Sergeant John McLoughlin, who also was trapped next to him, to pass along one final message to his wife: If he didn’t make it, he wanted their daughter to be named Olivia.
The wait went from minutes to one hour. Two hours, three hours. For every hour, the two men, who had gone to work like any other day, encouraged each other to stay alive. They prayed, talked, and held onto whatever hope they could find.
Nearly 13 hours after the towers collapsed, that hope finally became reality. Rescuers heard them. Rescuers finally pulled Will from beneath the rubble of the collapsed World Trade Center towers late on Sept. 11, 2001.
He had been pinned beneath a slab of concrete for 13 hours and was gravely wounded. As he looked up at the sky, Jimeno recalled asking a firefighter, “Where is everything.”
The response made him cry: “It’s all gone, kid,”.
In a new interview with People Magazine, Will Jimeno recalled, “That’s the first time I cried. I didn’t cry when I got hurt. I didn’t cry when the guys died.” He was referring to partners Dominick Pezzulo, Antonio Rodrigues and Christopher Amoroso, who’d been by his side when the towers came down.
“I knew how many people were still within those towers”
“I cried when I saw that the buildings were gone because I knew how many people were still within those towers,” he continued.
Jimeno was rushed to Bellevue Hospital on 9/11. When he arrived, he was shocked to see the emergency room empty, with doctors telling him, “You’re it.”
Later that night, Jimeno almost died, as his heart stopped twice. He explained to People Magazine that doctors had to cut him open as his muscles were dying.
Doctors made long surgical cuts along his left leg, stretching from his hip all the way down to his ankle. They also made deep incisions along the inside of his calf and thigh in a desperate effort to save the damaged muscles.
He underwent a total of eight surgeries, including skin grafts taken from his right leg to cover the wounds on his left one. But he survived.
Recalled moment his daughter visited him at the hospital
Allison helped him survive, he says. She was constantly by his bedside at the hospital, and he explained that his wife’s “strength is something that carries me till today.”
In October, weeks after the horrifying terrorist attack on 9/11, his 4-year-old daughter, Biancha, came to see him.
“She walked into the room and said, ‘Hi, Daddy,’ with a little pumpkin that she selected for me, and came up and gave me a kiss,” he recalled.
“I cried quite a bit. I was just so happy to see her. I was in so much pain, I still couldn’t walk, but it was just a special moment. It really made me feel like, ‘Okay, you actually survived this.'”
Allison birth to daughter Olivia on Will’s birthday
On Nov. 26, 2001, his 34th birthday, Jimeno sat in a wheelchair by Allison’s side as she gave birth to their daughter Olivia. But while the joy, love, and happiness of his family brought him forward, the damage from 9/11 remained.
The psychological toll of what he had been through emerged, and he got therapy for PTSD. But the most important thing: He is alive.
“You have to move forward,” he told People Magazine. “And pain is something that should motivate you again to find your sunrise.”
Will Jimeno survived, but September 11 changed his life forever. His story reminds us of the courage and sacrifice shown by so many that day.
25 years after 9/11, we remember Will and all those who never made it home. We will never forget. 🇺🇸
Read more:
