Last Man Down: A Firefighter's Story of Survival and Escape from the World Trade Center [SIGNED FIRST EDITION]

Picciotto, Richard, FDNY Battalion Commander; Paisner, Daniel

Published by Berkley Books, New York, 2002

About this Item

As new condition black boards/black spine/gold spine lettering contained in a fine condition non price-clipped color photographic dust jacket. Includes LIst of Firefighters Who Gave their Lives on September 11, 2001 and Acknowledgments. An "Autographed Copy" sticker is neatly affixed to the center right section of the jacket front. Signed by FDNY Battalion Commander Richard Picciotto with a thin olive green Sharpie at the lower section of the full title page. "People call us heroes, but we're just doing our jobs." - FDNY Battalion Commander Richard Picciotto. "On the morning of September 11, 2001, FDNY Battalion Commander Richard Picciotto was at his firehouse on West 100th Street when a Boeing 767, laden with jet fuel, was deliberately flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It was 8:48 A.M. "Pitch" didn't even wait to be formally dispatched to the scene. By the time the second plane attacked the South Tower eighteen minutes later, he was careening down the streets of Manhattan to the area that would soon be known as "Ground Zero" - and into the middle of one of the darkest moments in American History. Picciotto knew the inside of the North Tower like he knew his own home. He had played a central role in its evacuation during the 1993 bombing. Now, he was about to relive that terror hundredfold. Leading his men into the smoking building, he got to work managing the rescue effort, checking floors and rerouting civilians without thought for his own safety. After the South Tower collapsed, Picciotto ordered an evacuation of fire and rescue workers that saved hundreds of lives. Then, Picciotto and a die-hard team of men set about rescuing a group of about fifty disabled and infirm people - until the North Tower collapsed around them, trapping them in the rubble for more than four hours. This is the harrowing account of that ordeal, told with raw emotion by the man who lived through it - and emerged a true American hero. It is also the remarkable story of one fire department's dauntless battle at the epicenter of terror and one city's epic and inspirational recovery - and a testimony to the thousands of men and women lost in the fragments of the Twin Towers." - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps. ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from the rear jacket flap, dated May 2002) FDNY Battalion Commander Richard Picciotto was the highest-raniing firefighter to survive the collapse of the World Trade Center. He is a twenty-eight year veteran of the New York City Fire Department. For the past nine years, he has presided over FDNY's Battalion 11, covering Manhattan's Upper West Side. In 1993, as a battalion commander assigned to Lower Manhattan, he was the second chief on the scene immediately following the first attack on the World Trade Center, coordinating operations and rescue efforts in the NOrth Tower. It was there, under those frontline circumstances, that Picciotto became keenly familiar with the building's layout, and the substructure of the World Trade Center complex - an insight that would serve him well on September 11, 2001.". Seller Inventory # 006200

Bibliographic Details

Title: Last Man Down: A Firefighter's Story of ...

Publisher: Berkley Books, New York

Publication Date: 2002

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: As New

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition