First Responders Recall 9/11 Rescue Efforts

Ten years ago Mark Foster remembers where he was when he heard the World Trade Center had been hit by an airplane.

Foster knew immediately he had a role to play. As leader of the Massachusetts Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue team out of Beverly, he started the emergency phone tree and prepared to go to New York.

One of the people on the phone tree was EMT Anita Arnum. Soon they were both on their way to New York City in a convoy of about 20 vehicles. They were the first federal responders to the disaster. Foster says the task force was started in 1991 by the federal government as a volunteer force with members from six New England states.

Foster and Arnum talk about their memories of that tragic day.