Gerritsen Beach Vollies: Volunteer Firefighters' Untold 9/11 Heroics

Nearly 24 years after the 9/11 attacks, the stories of Brooklyn's volunteer firefighters who rushed to Ground Zero are finally being told. In May 2022, reporter Hannah Kliger joined the CBS News New York team, focusing her coverage on the borough's unsung heroes.

Doreen Garson, the first female chief of the Gerritsen Beach Volunteer Fire Department, vividly recounts the devastation she witnessed on that fateful day. "Driving through the tunnel, you could not see anything. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face. It was just ash coming at us," she said. Garson, who was running for city council at the time, went down to Ground Zero with a partner to assist in the recovery and cleanup efforts.

Ed Wilmarth III, the former chief and department historian of the Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department, also raced toward Lower Manhattan after the first plane hit. He narrowly escaped the tower collapse, diving under an ambulance as debris rained down around him. Tragically, two of Wilmarth's colleagues, Fred Gray and Captain Robert Nussberger, would later die of 9/11-related illnesses.

In the days following the attack, volunteer fire departments in the outer boroughs were deployed to backfill at FDNY firehouses, as the city's professional firefighters were all tied up at Ground Zero. These unsung heroes continue to grapple with the lasting physical and mental scars of that fateful day, a reminder that the danger and their service did not end on 9/11.