A retired New York City Firefighter who responded to the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, was in Junction City Wednesday.

Scott Schrimpe, Retired Firefighter, has been traveling with the American Fallen Warrior Memorial Foundation fundraising tour and sharing his story.

He was off duty when he responded to the World Trade Center. When he arrived the south tower had already collapsed and he was looking for equipment when the north tower collapsed,” I was just in shorts and sneakers and I needed equipment to use for the rescue efforts. I was going towards Rescue One’s fire truck, which was parked underneath the north walkway just underneath the north tower. I was about 100 feet from there when the north tower started collapsing. I ran and slid under a car and was just buried with the debris.”

It took roughly 25 minutes for Schrimpe to dig himself out of the debris. He immediately began assisting with the recovery effort.

Schrimpe was a firefighter with Squad 41 in South Bronx, which lost six firefighters. He said that it wasn’t until later that afternoon that he realized members of his squad were missing,”We didn’t know where they were on the site. It wasn’t until two months later that we realized that they were in the South Tower, once they released the tapes. We found three of the six in March of 2002.” The other three were never found.

He assisted in the recovery effort until the day it was called off on May 28th, 2002. He didn’t return to Groundzero until 10 years later, in May, 2012. He now volunteers at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center.

Schrimpe said that he did have a tough time dealing with the experience and suffered from survivors guilt and post traumatic stress disorder, ” But life is precious and appreciate it every day, you can be gone in a second.”