Retired NYPD detective shares 9/11 story at Brandon Wilde remembrance event

EVANS, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - The Brandon Wilde retirement community commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with a special remembrance ceremony Friday morning.

The event honored the lives of people who lost their lives, the first responders who answered the call and the sacrifices made in the years that followed.

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On Sept. 11, 2001, Evans resident Randy Ourt was supposed to spend the day at a business conference in Washington, D.C. Instead, he found himself watching history unfold.

The program included a Changing of the Flag Ceremony, participation from a local fire department and a memorial service.

The remembrance ceremony was led by retired New York City Police Department Detective Wayne Nero.

Nero, who described himself as “a third-grade detective in the New York City Police Department,” served with the NYPD from 1985 to 2005 and was called into service following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Nero said 9/11 was a day when “New York came together like never before.”

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He recalled that in the days after the attacks, “there was times I would be walking down the street and people would applaud,” adding that it’s sad that it took a tragedy, “but everybody came together to support each other.”

He said the day still weighs heavily because of “people I’ve known that were lost,” and that “whenever I think about it, it still bothers me that, you know, what happened. Because that could have been me.”

Nero said he wasn’t at the World Trade Center when the first plane hit, but colleagues from where he worked rushed there to help.

“They tried to go to the building,” he said, and when they arrived “bodies were falling from floors above, 100 floors below. Hitting the firefighters and police officers that tried to go in the building.”

Nero was on duty in lower Manhattan as crowds fled the area.

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Fort Gordon paused to remember the nearly 3,000 people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, along with first responders and survivors.

“Yeah, I was right across the bridge because everybody was running across the bridge,” he said. “We were told to go to the, we were going towards the towers. We couldn’t get across the bridge because everybody was running across the bridge. So, there was no traffic on the bridge. Only foot traffic. So, we couldn’t get across. So, we maintained a presence at the bridge and waited for it. It just never stopped when people were coming over. At least to protect the people who were coming and to be aware if anything else might happen.”

Now, 25 years later, Nero said the passage of time can be hard to grasp.

“We celebrate this every year,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like 25 years, like the age I am. It doesn’t seem, you know, it’s hard to comprehend that it was that long ago. Because, it’s like things haven’t changed or things changed at that moment, but it didn’t last.”

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For those of us who were there, Sept. 11 isn’t history. It’s a physical memory.

He said he hopes ceremonies like Friday’s remind people that you’re only here temporarily, and anything can happen.”

He said: “Most of us need to be a better people than we’ve been, you know, in the last few years.”

For Nero, gatherings like the one at Brandon Wilde show how 9/11 can still bring people together.

“This has happened all over the country,” he said. “And for that moment, like today, people come together. They’re worried about Republican, Democrat, black, white. They’re worried about, you know, where they were, what they were doing. And like me, a lot of people feel lucky or feel fortunate that you still have the chance to be here. And should be able to make a difference, you know, and not worry about the things that’s not important in life.”

He also said it is crucial to pass those lessons on to younger generations who weren’t alive in 2001.

“Yeah, because, like I said, we’re not guaranteed to be here,” he said. Around that time, “if I was walking around, we had to put on their uniform. People were applauding just seeing us walk because they knew what we went through and what we continue to go through. So, what we need to show everybody that we’re there for each other. And that doesn’t have to change. You know, it doesn’t have to be any different now than it was then. You know, we still have to support each other and be there for each other.”