Mickey Kross

This is Mickey (right) in New York on September 11, 2002 ( ()http://www.donnan.com/September-11_Museum.htm)

My hero is Mickey Kross. He is very inspiring. As a firefighter, he saved hundreds of people from the burning Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. My own personal definition of a hero is to put other people's lives in front of yours. I will tell you of the saddest and most frightening day of New York history.

Mickey Kross went to the 23rd floor to help people. He went floor by floor telling people to evacuate the building and where to go. After he was done, he started down the stairs all the way to the 4th floor. He was with other fire fighters and a woman that worked in the Twin Towers. She had a hurt leg and when they were at the 4th floor, the pain got to her and she held everyone behind. That's when the building started to shake; the South Tower was falling. Both the woman and Mickey got stuck in the steel of the building. He saved many people. That's why he is my hero. He put her life before his.

Mickey's radio wasn't working so he didn't get any information about what was happening. It was just the woman and his firefighters. He started hearing metal crashing together. He described it as a shotgun. The noises were the North Tower collapsing so he went to a corner, took his helmet off and huddled with his helmet on his back so he wouldn't get hurt. They finally took the woman to the hospital with minor injuries. An hour after he woke up he started screaming but none of the missing firefighters could hear him. No one knows to this day where those missing firefighters are.

One quality of my hero is that when he gets hurt he never stops and never gives up.  When Mickey finally woke up, he saw light. He thought he was dead but he was still alive-untouched.  He climbed out and he wiped the dirt off and went back to work.  After all that happened, he wiped the dirt off and went back searching for survivors. There were only 14-16 firefighters at the time of the collapse. Mickey was one of those 16 firefighters; only five survived, the other eleven were dead.

The reason why Mickey is important to me is because he never gave up. He never stopped what he was doing. He made a difference in New York. He never stopped to eat. He kept pushing himself until the breaking point. That night he stayed out there until two in the morning. The next day he woke up at 7 a.m. He went back there every day. I have learned a lot just looking him up and finding out new things that he has done after that day.