Richard Picciotto

Last Man Down and first man published, firefighter Richard 'Pitch' Picciotto's 9/11 memoir climbed the bestseller charts on its release in 2002, but the comparative haste shows, years later. Pitch mentions on page 238 how he was already arranging for his writing collaborator, Daniel Paisner, to visit 'Ground Zero' in mid-October 2001, a few weeks after those infamous events, and this lack of pause is to the book's detriment now, more than twenty years later.

The haste in Last Man Down leads to a number of unedifying traits developing in Pitch's narrative. Other reviewers have remarked upon the author's self-centredness, and certainly there is a bit of disquiet in the reader's mind as we hear Pitch's version of events. There's a lot of 'I did this' rather than 'we did this', and a lot of brash energy that sees Pitch doing things on his own initiative, things that often seem to the reader to be uncoordinated or incomplete. Of course, the day itself was pure chaos, but Pitch's frenetic narrative doesn't do an especially good job of placing things into a needed context. He's certainly not an introspective fellow, and does not reflect deeply on the day or his actions. Instead, his memoir is a straightforward, action-packed narrative, as he shows up of his own accord at the World Trade Center, takes it upon himself to lead a band of firefighters (not his own men), helps evacuate parts of the North Tower and then survives the terrifying collapse of that building.

This should be enough; Pitch is one of the few firemen to survive the collapse and his account of it should be worth its weight in gold. But while the general depiction of events is useful and serviceable, not least that indescribable sensation of the 100-storey tower rumbling and booming in its collapse on top of him, it's too hasty, too unreflective, too unpolished to be a remarkable memoir in itself, even if it describes a remarkable day. And what is more serious is that a bit of online Googling will find you with plenty of people casting doubt on Pitch's version of events. And I don't mean 'Truthers' or any of that nonsense, but sober people referencing other survivors' accounts from 'The Miracle of Stairwell B', where Pitch ended up.

But even leaving aside this troubling accusation of embellishment or self-aggrandizement, the story is a bit all over the place. Anecdotes are dropped without being explored: for example, a 'Middle Eastern man' is handcuffed for acting suspiciously in the evacuation of the North Tower (pg. 85) but we never find out more about this. Pitch is trapped in the same stairwell as David Lim, a K-9 cop who asks his fellow survivors pleadingly about the police dog that accompanied him (pg. 149), but we are never told the fate of the dog. (Sadly, another Google search tells us that the dog, Sirius, did not survive.) Such things might seem insignificant, but there's a cumulative frustration in Pitch moving on with his story without pause and without filling in the details. Pitch's thoughts aren't fully organized, and the book suffers for it; had he waited a bit longer before writing the memoir, it might have been a smoother ride. Certainly, the man had a singular experience, one that (I hope) could never be experienced again, and to hear it, however it's told, is rewarding. But as Pitch himself says, "I'm a firefighter, not a writer" (pg. 244), and too often in Last Man Down the gulf between the two shows. Thankfully, when he was needed to be a firefighter, he was – and came through the fire.… (más)

Review: Last Man Down by Daniel Paisner.

There are probably many books out there about September 11th, 2011. This is only one man’s story of what happened to him through the harrowing experience. The book was well written and emotionally sensitive but not gory or overplayed, it was from the heart.

Chief Richard Picciotto uses his own words describing what he felt, sensed, seen, and retells the emotional roller-coaster he was on when he ordered the North Tower to be evacuated knowing there were many firefighting brother’s still in the building trying to save citizens. While on the thirty-fifth floor in the North Tower he had already heard about the South Tower collapsing. Now the North Tower was screeching, rumbling and vibrating terrible noises from above which he surmised this Tower was going down too. He felt he needed to make a decision because many more fire fighters were throughout the building and he wanted them to have the chance to get out before the building collapsed.

Many fire fighters were retreating through three different stairways. Stairwell A, and C were on opposite sides of the building and Stairwell B was in the center. It was a slow process down floor levels because at times there were too many people crammed together, all wanting to get out, and some of the passages needed to be cleared before they could move on. Picciotto and his crew, around six men, took the B stairwell so they could, with a faster pace, check each floor level for any person that might had been stranded trying to get out. There were many other firemen ahead of them so they weren’t totally a small crew maybe all together about seventy firemen.

When they got to the twentieth floor Chief Picciotto was still checking each floor when he came across a room closed off with about sixty people all scared and huddled together waiting for someone to help them out. They had come down from one of the real higher floors and needed help to keep going down. The firemen had reached a problem. About thirty people in that room were disable in one way or the other and the other caring people were staying with them and helping them get down the stairway at a slow pace. It didn’t take long for Chief Picciotto to get those seventy firefighters forming a line from the stairway to that room and moving the people out while still in the back of his mine he new more tragedy was near. At least now the firefighters were doing something they were sent into North Tower to do, save people. The guilt of retreating was fading in their mines as they helped each citizen in that room.

Chief Picciotto was at the rear still checking for people on his way down when he heard a horrible screeching and thunderous sounds coming down upon him and some of the men. He had time to think and feel that most of them got out in time as the North Tower collapsed. As he clears his senses he realizes he is alive and in the twisted debris of stairway B ten to fifteen men and one women citizen was also alive within the collapse area and in pockets of small open spaces. They began communicating back and forth and new they were trapped under the debris of the North Tower. From this point on the harrowing hours of what went on as they were trapped and nobody new they were alive…… (más)

This book is a personal account of the events following the collision of passenger filled aircraft into the north and south towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City on 11/09/01, or as it is known ‘9/11’ the USA date format which has prevailed throughout the worlds record of the events of that day.
Richard ‘Pitch’ Picciotto is a city fire chief responding to the terrorist attack by making rapid way to the World Trade Centre where he quickly gets involved in a doomed attempt to evacuate the workers in the north tower. While trying to reach the trapped workers, the south tower collapses. The author illustrates in a most vivid account, the consequential awareness that terrible things are happening, that they can be heard, but can neither be seen nor understood. Then the north tower collapses and here is the remarkable account of how a fortunate few among thousands less blessed came through and survived the collapse of one of the tallest buildings in the world. An outcome so unlikely as to verge on the unbelievable, of the thousands who died that day in the north tower this is the story of a dozen or so fire-fighters and a lone ‘civilian’ who survived inside the central stairwell as over 100 stories of office block above collapsed and fell upon them. The author describes himself as a ‘practising catholic who has forgotten how to practice’ by the end of the book I felt he should seriously reassess his attitude to observance!

The author’s description of these events is compelling and exciting but he spends rather too much time describing his own attitudes to life and his employers as to stray onto the margins of egoism, but this makes for a good read in terms of getting a grip and making things happen, and of course, if the account you relate is yours and yours alone then it can only be first person singular, and this is OK but given the odds against escape, I think the reading experience would have been improved by contributions from some others in the party led to safety by the author. So, for me this book is best thought of as a contribution to the wider picture of the narrative, which sets 9/11 in its historical perspective: -

I believe it has been easy for Europeans to forget how 9/11 played such an important part in moulding USA public opinion, which moved swiftly to a near unanimous approval for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But now the world is gripped by an awful remorse for the failure and loss of life involved in these invasions, and in the blind alleys where death’s sting prevails it has been easy to forget the horror that al Queda brought on 9/11 to New York, and in it’s direct or mutant forms to Bali, Madrid, London, Nairobi the Gulf and elsewhere. The polemic in this book is personal, not political; it is a tribute to the New York fire service and above all to the 343 of its brave men who lost their lives that day. To every one of them civilisation owes so very much. And to the several thousands of others murdered by Muslims who seek to destroy the standards of the free world we owe nothing less than a determination to see that enemy off. There is a power in that centrifugal force of grief. So let us mourn, and salute the dead, and pray that justice will prevail over revenge, for if God will not bless America, there is little hope for the rest of us.… (más)