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From After: How America Confronted The September 12 Era

Sunday, March 17, 2002

Brian Lyons had stayed at Ground Zero through the night again, because they were still finding so many firemen's uniforms. At about 8:00 this morning his patience was rewarded. As Lyons and some members of Squad 41, who had come down to the pit this morning still hung over from a St. Patrick's Day party the night before, were sifting through some rubble, Lyons discovered a half-melted crowbar. One of the Squad 41 members quickly recognized it as a tool that Michael Lyons had hand-fashioned into his own personal wedge for prying open big doors -- like elevator doors, the Squad 41 man theorized.

Standing on top of what must have been twenty-five feet of rubble that represented what was left of the 110-story tower, the men dug down furiously. There were pieces of three firemen's uniforms, including one collar with a melted American flag, and the remnants of three pairs of firemen's metal suspender clips. They found six five-gallon buckets and scooped all the ash they could into them. The larger pieces were spread out on the ground nearby and sifted. There appeared to be something like 300 or 400 bone fragments, none more than an inch long. There were also four teeth. All of it was loaded onto three stretchers. By now about thirty firemen had gathered, and they formed an honor guard as the stretchers and buckets were carried up to be sent to the medical examiner's office.

Lyons knew that Michael had been a bone marrow donor, which meant that he had left a perfect DNA sample behind. Yet he was told that the matching process could still take six months or more. But at least now he was almost sure he had found Michael.

When Lyons called Elaine later that morning, in his excitement he mentioned finding Michael's firemen's jacket. He forgot that in his world that meant a few charred scraps of something that was once a jacket. When she asked if he would bring the jacket home, he had to ruin the whole moment by explaining what it really was.

Copyright © 2003 by Steven Brill