After his own narrow escape, Tobyhanna man returned to rescue others

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Roger Tobias of Tobyhanna, head of East Penn Technical Search and Rescue, was making a delivery at the World Trade Center on 9/11. He spent days searching for victims and has since developed many physical ailments. ‘One thing I don't like is being called a hero. ... I'm no different from anyone else who was there that day and survived,' Tobias says.David Kidwell/Pocono Record
Andrew Scott

Roger Tobias of Tobyhanna started his morning on Sept. 11, 2001, as he usually did, driving from the Poconos to the corner of Laight and Hudson streets in Manhattan to meet his partner, Anthony Baez.

Tobias, a truck driver, delivered packages by van from Hughes Printing in East Stroudsburg to companies throughout New York City every Tuesday and Thursday. On some days, Tobias drove the van while Baez ran packages into the buildings.

Other days, Baez drove while Tobias was the runner. That day, Baez was running.

Had to help

It was around 8:45 a.m.

"We were on the West Side Highway, near the World Trade Center, when we heard a jet flying lower than normal overhead," said Tobias, head of East Penn Technical Search and Rescue, which covers Monroe County. "We heard an explosion, looked up and saw this big fireball high up on the north tower."

Tobias called 911, got out of the van and told Baez to finish the deliveries.

"I told Anthony I had to go help," said Tobias, who became a junior volunteer firefighter at age 14, joined East Penn Search and Rescue in 1993 and has emergency medical training. "I ran off and he called to me, telling me not to go, but I had to. People were in trouble."

Nothing like he'd ever seen

Tobias went into the north tower's first-floor lobby, where he saw a command post of the Port Authority Police, Fire Department of New York, New York Police Department and various federal agencies.

"At that point, there wasn't yet any talk about the north tower coming down," he said. "Then, we heard a sound like an explosion coming from outside. We looked out, but didn't see anything.

"Then, we heard another sound like the first one," he said. "Again, we looked out, but saw nothing. It scared the heck outta me, so I started telling people to leave the building."

By then, paper, ceiling tiles, other debris and ashes were falling from the north tower's upper floors, and traffic had come to a standstill.

"I made it to the other side of the West Side Highway, across from the towers, and then I heard another 'pop' sound," Tobias said. "I looked around and didn't see anything. Then, I looked up and saw something falling out of the sky."

It was another of the people who had jumped from more than 100 floors up.

"It was a woman. She landed on top of a fire department ladder truck and her body just disintegrated in a big red cloud," he said, emphasizing the sound of the impact by slapping his right palm down into his left. "That was the worst part of it all, the part I struggle with to this day."

Frantic call to his wife

Tobias kept his nerve and continued trying to help evacuate people and administer whatever aid he could to the wounded.

Almost an hour passed. At 9:59 a.m., the south tower started collapsing.

He ran into the nearby World Financial Building's lobby. Spotting three pay phones, he made a call to his wife, Trudy.

It was 10:28 a.m.

"The operator comes on," Tobias said. "I tell her I'm trying to reach my wife and I'm begging her to connect me. She puts the call through and Trudy picks up. While I'm on the phone, the building starts rocking," he said. "That's when I started hearing these explosions, one after the other, getting louder and louder."

It was the north tower collapsing.

"I tell Trudy I'm at the World Trade Center," Tobias said, pausing to fight tears. "She knows what's going on and she knows me. She says, 'I figured you'd be there.'

"I tell her I don't think I'm going to make it out of there," he said. "Then, the line goes dead and there's this loud 'boom' and I'm lifted up and thrown against a wall."

Finding their way out

Part of the north tower had collapsed onto the World Financial Building.

Tobias tried getting up, but unable to see anything through the darkness, dust and debris, he fell back down, coughing and choking. He began crawling through the caved-in wreckage, calling out for help.

Minutes later, as he began seeing light, another man answered and both men followed each other's voices.

Tobias heard a fellow survivor yelling. It was a firefighter, this one armed with an axe.

Both men then heard a woman calling for help and found her with cuts and scrapes but not badly hurt. The three eventually met up with an employee who had been in one of the ground-level stores.

"The four of us stayed there in the store for awhile, trying to clean ourselves off and gather our wits," Tobias said. "We waited until it seemed safe to make our way back outside."

Search for survivors

Tobias went to the nearby Stuyvesant School, where the New York City Urban Search and Rescue Task Force was preparing to search for survivors, and volunteered to help.

Later that night, after it had become clear that no one would be able to leave the city for a while, Tobias returned to Laight and Hudson streets, where he had met Baez that morning.

Baez had driven their van back and was there to meet the shell-shocked, ash-covered Tobias.

He then spent the next three days at Ground Zero, helping look for survivors. "We didn't find any," he said.

Declining health

Tobias arrived home in the Poconos on Sept. 14 to his family's joyful relief. Sadness later replaced some of that joy as he began suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Ten years later, Tobias has had to endure replacement work on nearly every joint in his body and fusions in his lower back. His lungs operate at only 68 percent capacity. He's been diagnosed with three breathing ailments — emphysema being the latest.

By 2008, his worsening medical issues had robbed him of his ability to work a full-time job.

Tobias is now a part-time fire service instructor for the state Fire Academy in Lewistown, but is unable to do things like climb a rope due to his ailments.

Looking back on this horrific episode in history, Tobias said he would do it all over again.

"I'm no different from anyone else who was there that day and survived," he said. "We were all doing what we could to help each other."

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