9/11 Reflections: Wayne ‘Smitty’ Smith

I was working for Boston EMS on 9/11. The girl I was dating at the time was an ER nurse at Mass General. (A girl that’s been my wife for the last 18 years!)

I was on my way home to Boston from her place in Chelsea. Driving through Somerville, I was listening to the radio as they described, in real time, United 175 slamming into the South Tower.

Seventeen minutes had elapsed since the first impact into the North Tower, and it was immediately called intentional and a terrorist act.

I was as stunned as anyone, thinking, “What the hell is going on in New York?”

I needed to get gas before I reached home, so I pulled into a local station, went inside to give the attendant my money, and immediately noted that this young man was of Middle Eastern descent. I thought to myself that he needed to lock up the station and go home—that his life was in immediate danger.

For whatever reason, I didn’t verbalize my concerns to him. For 20 years I have rued my decision not to speak up, and all these years later hope that no harm came to him that day.

Wayne H. ‘Smitty’ Smith

St. Petersburg, Fla.