This article is an archive version of a story published 25 years ago this month in Cumberland News, in Vineland as part of its coverage of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. It is being published to recognize and honor four local first responders who were called to the scene at the World Trade Center, as well as first responders everywhere who are willing to risk their lives on behalf of others.
These are brave men, challenged far beyond the scope of even their most rigorous training. They confronted what their leader called hell on Earth and, despite being deeply affected, were able to do the job they were called to do.
As members of Task Force 1 (TF-1), the New Jersey Urban Search and Rescue team (USAR), local first responders Dave Schoch, Ed Conrow, Fred Mastrogiovanni and Dan Bestwick are currently reentering their normal lives after 10 days of physically punishing and emotionally devastating work at Ground Zero in New York City.
“When we first saw the rubble pile, I think everybody was in shock,” said Mastrogiovanni, 36, a Vineland resident and a captain in the city’s fire department, Company Number 6. “It was nothing but broken steel and concrete dust.”
Conrow, 29, a volunteer fireman in Vineland Company 3 and a professional one at Atlantic City Airport, said, “We train and train, but you never expect this. After the first few days, you are just numb. Your senses are overwhelmed so much you just do your job.”
The job of TF-1 is to quickly respond to search and rescue calls wherever and whenever they are summoned. This was the 150-member team’s fifth mission, since it was formed in 1996 as a division of the New Jersey State Police. Three of them were at small building collapses in northern New Jersey and the most recent one, two years ago, was during the flooding near Bound Brook. For Bestwick and Conrow, the mission at the World Trade Center site was their first. Schoch, 43, had been deployed to the floods, and TF-1 charter member Mastrogiovanni has been part of all deployments.
The task force selects members through a difficult application and screening process, and the training is extensive and exhausting.
The group’s unprecedented September 11 call appeared on Schoch’s pager at 9:12 a.m., while he was in a class at Camden County College.
“I just closed my book and left,” the Bridgeton Fire Chief said. “I got a message to meet my wife at home to get some money. I was with her for as long as it took me to rip off my fire uniform and put on my tactical one.”
TF-1 members always have a 72-hour pack ready. It contains a few days’ supply of clothes and personal items. Being firefighters, dropping everything to answer a call was not unusual for the men, even though this job would be.
Bestwick, 44, who is a volunteer fireman and a member of the elite Fortescue Dive Team, was working at his business, Dan’s Auto Service, in Salem County, where he lives
“I closed up and left,” he said.
Conrow was on duty and watching television news at the airport when he and two other TF-1 members were called into action. “The chief was there, and he said go and we left in five minutes.”
Mastrogiovanni was home. “I was working outside; my neighbor told me of the event,” he said. He checked his pager and found TF-1 was being activated. “I grabbed my gear, called my department, and called my wife.”
Within minutes, each man was driving to Lakehurst Naval Air Station, the team’s rallying point. From there, they went by bus to Manhattan and set up huts and tents at the Javits Center.
Even though he listened to radio reports during the ride to Lakehurst, Mastrogiovanni said, “I really didn’t know what we were getting into, but it looked like the magnitude of this incident would be much bigger than our other deployments.”
All four men use tightly structured vocabulary, like “mission,” and “deployment,” to keep their focus on the work that they were trained to do, not on the vast destruction and human carnage they were asked to examine.
This effort, however, doesn’t completely stifle deep emotions.
“After you experience such an event, you really start to re-evaluate what’s important in your life; I’m still experiencing the changes and re-prioritizing,” Mastrogiovanni said. “I don’t know how it will come out.”
“We saw things that no one should ever see.”
His eyes glistened just a little. “I know I’m different now,” he continued. “Emotionally it’s been tough, both up there and coming home.”
Conrow agreed. “It affects everything, Life has changed now,” he said. “Deep down inside, we’re all human beings.”
Bestwick said he was able to walk back into his normal routines, opening his garage the day after the team’s return.
“I guess it will hit me later,” he said
The other three local task force members took more adjustment time with Schoch and Conrow returning to work last week, and Mastrogiovanni scheduled to start this week.
[Note: You are reading an archive version of a story about 9/11 written in 2001.]
“I honestly don’t know how I feel at this point,” said Millville resident Schoch, who was also a paid fireman there. “There was nothing in all the training I’ve ever had that could prepare me for that magnitude of death. I think if it doesn’t affect you a little bit, you might be in the wrong business.”
Bestwick’s strongest emotional reaction was the people who welcomed rescue workers to the site each day with encouraging words and handmade signs.
“I just cried,” he said. “That’s when it sunk in for me.”
Because of his expertise in underwater rescue, Bestwick has been deployed as far away as Alaska and Hawaii. He’s also a member of the Rocco Corp Confined Space Rescue Team, specializing in rope rescue.
“I’m a volunteer fireman, and not only did I get to go USAR, but went to the biggest task we’ll ever see,” he said, “There are people all over the world who wanted to be part of that rescue.”
He said maybe people may now realize that a volunteer fireman is “not just a goofball with a blue light,” and he hopes to now see volunteerism increase in fire departments and rescue squads.
Bestwick managed to have his photo taken with President Bush, when the President rallied the workers at Ground Zero, and Mastrogiovanni got to shake his hand. Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Governor George Pataki of New York and Donald D. Francesco of New Jersey each thanked the task force members for being there and helping with the rescue efforts.
TF-1 has several divisions. Conrow, Schoch, and Mastrogiovanni work in rescue, and Bestwick in logistics. The search teams worked 12-hour shifts; Mastrogiovanni worked the night operational, the others the day one. For the first few days, many teams searched for victims under the rubble pile.
“You’re under a lot of stress because you could cause a fall and you could fall, too,” said Mastrogiovanni.
The USAR team suffered no serious injuries during the mission. “I was on my stomach or hands, and knees most of the time,” Mastrogiovanni said, “You crawl into a hole, pick up a shovelful, back out, put it in the bucket, and go back in.”
Rescue personnel were rotated into the hole about every 20 minutes, mostly because of the carbon monoxide given off by the cutting tools. The first area that Mastrogiovanni’s squad dug into surrounded a crushed ladder truck.
“It was crushed to about three feet high, from the normal 12 feet,” he said.
“We’re all in search and rescue, and we lost hundreds of firefighters and police,” said Schoch. “That brings it down to our level. We watched the men work feverishly looking where they thought their people might be.”
“We watched them pull out coats, packs, tools, all crushed. You can see the somber looks on their faces,” Mastrogiovanni said, “The collapses happened close to a shift change and guys were lost from both shifts.” he added.
“Some of the Manhattan units lost everybody.”
Ray Downey, chief of Special Operations for the New York Fire Department, who made the initial call to TF-1 for help, died in the collapse of the South Tower.
Teams were sent into adjoining damaged structures, too. Conrow, Mastrogiovanni, and Schoch all spent a lot of time searching the U.S. Customs Building. TF1 had several rescues, according to Mastrogiovanni, but his squad found no survivors. They did recover several bodies.
“Friends and family would show us pictures and ask if we’d seen their loved ones; you don’t know what to tell these people; you don’t know how to answer them,” Mastrogiovanni said.
“Even if you find one body, it’s closure for a family, a lot of families won’t have any closure from this,” said Conrow.
After every operational period, the workers had to attend a critical incident stress debriefing. Jerry Barbato, an FBI psychologist told the groups, “You’re human doers, you’re not happy unless you’re doing, and focused on the task at hand.”
TF-1 overall leader Jim Riley put it a little differently. He said, “The dirtier we are, the happier we are.”
Bestwick said the deployment was, “harder on our families than on us because they were watching harrowing reports of dangers at the disaster zone.”
The NJ State Police arranged a surprise reception for the task force, bringing families to Lakehurst for the team’s return on September 20. As the buses arrived carrying our heroes to rejoin their families, the air was filled with cheers and applause.
“We had the support of families, friends, and communities too,” said Conrow. “Our wives and our children gave up a lot for us.”
These are grateful men. Glad that, in the words of their leader Riley, “God took us to hell and back and delivered us safely.” They are thankful that they had each other in a camaraderie that helped them face the danger and heartache that is Ground Zero.
“New York called; we went,” said Schoch. To these kind of men, it’s that simple.
Where Are They Now?
Ed Conrow, now 54, retired as fire chief for the South Jersey Transportation Authority 10 years ago and moved to Ocean Isle Beach, NC, where he is shift captain for the fire department. On his days off, he works for See Tow, a private franchise company that fields calls from stranded boaters and goes out to bring them in.
“I live at the beach, I work at the beach,” said Conrow. He has his own boat and said “I spend as much time on the water as I can; I’m so close, I ride my bike to the dock.”
There are a lot of retired firefighters from the northeast in the area and on the beach there is a steel beam from the Trade Center that is a monument to 9/11.
Dan Bestwick (aka “Diver Dan”), 69, also did not drift away from his passions. He sold his auto shop in 2023 and moved to Shallotte, NC, where he holds classes and workshops. He is well-known and respected in his field and specializes in confined spaces and water rescue.
“As long as I can walk, I’ll be doing trainings,” he said. Bestwick recalls what an instructor who coached him in scuba diving classes told him in 1989: “If you’re in trouble, close your eyes, take a deep breath, then look at your air gauge and carry out your rescue,’ ” Bestwick said. “My goal is to make that kind of impression on students and maybe make a difference in a rescue and save a life.”
“Well, it’s been a long 25 years now,” said Fred R. Mastrogiovanni. The savage impact on the core emotions of working at the destroyed World Trade Center was compounded days after Mastrogiovanni returned to work with a fatal car wreck where a three-year-old girl, just his daughter’s age, was killed and crushed. It left the veteran fireman unable to continue.
“You know, between 9/11 and the accident, I’ve been struggling for all this time,” he said.
But, under the shadow, he enrolled at Rowan University and got a degree in 2010 in Eastern and Western Religions. There, he played ice hockey, becoming the oldest varsity athlete in Rowan history. He still plays three times a week, at age 61, with some men less than half his age.
His daughter Cassady Ganci and her husband Stephen have two children, ages three and one.
“They are my great-grandchildren,” Mastrogiovanni said. “They’re my grandchildren and they’re great—the love of my life.”
Mastrogiovanni has never returned to New York, he said “because I don’t know how I’d feel, so I don’t go. “He also stopped attending the annual 9/11 remembrances after just one year.
“But I think I’ll attend the City of Vineland 25th ceremony this year,” he said.
Dave Schoch passed away on July 15, 2024, at age 66. Bridgeton Fire Department published this: Chief Schoch began his fire service career with the Heislerville Fire Company in 1975 where he held the ranks of Lieutenant, Assistant Chief, and Chief from 1977 to 1981. Chief Schoch then joined the Millville Fire Department in 1984 and was hired full time in 1994. He then served the Bridgeton Fire Department as Chief of Department from 2001 until retirement in October 2014. He was a member of the Hopewell-Stow Creek Fire Department from 2010 and held the position of Assistant Chief in 2018.
Chief Schoch was recognized as a great man by the many who knew him. —M.B.
