Joe Torrillo was a 25-year Lieutenant with the NYC Fire Dept. who is now retired on disability. He spent the first 15 years of his career in Engine Company # 10, across the street from the South Tower of the World Trade Center. While recuperating from a severe injury on New Year’s Eve of 1996 going in to 1997, Joe was assigned to convalesce in the office of fire safety education. Eight months into this “light-duty “position, Joe was ultimately named the Director of this public-based program. In January of 2001, Joe worked on a project with Fisher-Price Toys to help design a new children's "action figure " part of their line of " Rescue Heroes " This new action figure, was named " Billy Blazes ", a likeness of a NYC Firefighter, who was an addition to their other "Rescue Heroes" In conjunction with the Executives of the Fisher-Price Corp., Joe chose the “Fire Zone " as the location for the press conference to introduce " Billy Blazes ", and then keeping with a safety theme, ironically chose the date of Sept.11th, 2001, because 9 / 11 is the emergency phone number in New York City. With a background in Structural Engineering, Joe made an immediate assessment that everyone above the fire was doomed to death, and the buildings would collapse. Unfortunately, in the rescue operation, Joe was buried alive with a fractured skull, broken ribs, broken arm, crushed spine and heavy internal bleeding. Shortly after being found alive in the rubble, they removed Joe on a long spine board and placed him on the deck of a boat on the Hudson River, with the expectation of getting him to a hospital. As they were holding his split scalp together, the North Tower then fell on the boat and buried Joe alive again and alone in the engine room. About 45 minutes later, Joe was once again rescued from the debris, and taken across the Hudson River, where he awoke in an operating room in Jersey City Trauma Center in the state of New Jersey. Because he was wearing a borrowed set of firefighting clothing with the name Thomas McNamara, Joe was mis-identified by that name, and declared missing for 3 days.