# Engine 65’s 9/11: Five Floors, a Bad Knee, and a May Day That Saved Their Lives. Firefighter Al Barry Tells All.

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff-981737/engine-65-s-9-11-five-floors-a-bad-knee-and-a-may-day-that-saved-their-lives-firefighter-al-barry-tells-all
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Podcast: [Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff](https://stenobird.com/podcast/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff-981737)
Published: 2026-08-18T09:45:00+00:00
Episode link: https://bleav.com/shows/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff/?post_type=gp_podcast_episode&p=629
Audio file: https://pdrl.fm/c39fb6/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/1385/injector.simplecastaudio.com/c67dcf2c-bdc6-42d2-91a1-db918b8e8626/episodes/d560ab78-6662-43e4-a689-975cd0da9f2c/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=c67dcf2c-bdc6-42d2-91a1-db918b8e8626&awEpisodeId=d560ab78-6662-43e4-a689-975cd0da9f2c&feed=8GTvjwcf
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Duration seconds: 4070

## Resource

Twenty-five years on, the loudest lesson from 9/11 is still the quietest one: appreciate every damn day. In this replay from the Independent Americans archive, Paul Rieckhoff — combat veteran, 9/11 first responder, and founder of IVA — hands the mic to his friend firefighter Rob Serra and Al Barry of Engine 65. Al walks us floor by floor up the North Tower stairwell, through the May Day at 22, through the collapse of the South Tower that he first mistook for elevators being recalled, and through the black cloud on West Street where he ended up at the bottom of a pile of strangers under a police car. It is not a war story. It is a working man's story about a job that turned into history.

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