25 Years Ago, Ken Schaffer Ran Toward the Towers. He’s Still Living With What He Saw.
It took nearly a year for Ken Schaffer to have his first nightmare about Sept. 11, 2001.
In it, Schaffer and other first responders are running toward the burning World Trade Center while everyone else is running away.
It is not an imagined scene.
It is something he lived.
“There is nothing to prepare you for that,” Schaffer, 59, said Thursday.
Twenty-five years ago, Schaffer was a newly minted New York City police officer. A New York native who had followed his father, two uncles and a cousin into law enforcement, he had spent a decade as a police officer on Long Island before joining the NYPD that June.
“The hardest part that I had was working with the Red Cross, seeing the pictures of the people that were missing and talking to the families of the missing,” he said. “When you put together what they are, what they had looked like and then their family members, that was the hardest thing mentally.”
Twenty-five years after he ran toward the burning towers, Schaffer is still working toward something else.
One day, he hopes he will be ready to go back.
And now it’s time for your Moo92 sports…
The Boston Red Sox hope to get back on track tonight as they welcome the Kansas City Royals to Fenway tonight. The Red Sox holding on to the 2nd wild card spot with a 6 game lead over Cleveland. Sonny Gray takes the mound tonight for Boston. First pitch at 7:10pm.
And in local sports…
The North Country High School Varsity Football Team will travel to Woodstock tonight to take on the Wasps. Kick off at 7:00pm.