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CNY Remembers:Local Ground Zero Volunteer: "9-11 is our generation's Pearl Harbor"

By JOLEEN FERRIS

Story Created: Sep 9, 2011 at 6:10 PM EDT

Story Updated: Sep 10, 2011 at 5:04 PM EDT

SCHUYLER, N.Y. (WKTV) - When Schuyler paramedic A.J. Klimek got to Ground Zero three days after the terror attacks, the buildings were still smoking.

"On television, you have that degree of separation. When you're there in person, you have the smell and the smoke and the dust and the jet fuel and all of the fuels and the smells," says Klimek.

Klimek wound up doing everything from handing out Gatorade to treating workers with chest pain. That young paramedic in his 20s is now an E.R. doctor who says what he saw and did at Ground Zero helped set him on that path.

"It solidified, galvanized it in the fact that I knew I wanted to do something to serve and to serve people in a greater capacity."

Klimek recently visited Ground Zero and took pictures of the then-decimated structures, now rebuilt and standing tall once again. This was gratifying for the young volunteer who witnessed first hand the destruction that, to so many, was a sanitized clip on television. Ten years have passed, but the images haven't faded for this young volunteer.

"I think it'll always be our generation's Pearl Harbor. My parents' generation was the JFK assassination. It'll be that point where everyone will know where they were and exactly what they were doing when it happened."