Long Island firefighter and photographer who captured his image at Ground Zero come together for 9/11 anniversary
The firefighter in the photo is kneeling, his uniform caked with dirt as he desperately drinks water pouring out of an open hydrant. All around him is the horror of that day — bent steel, piles of debris, toxic dust and just a sliver of blue sky.
Michael Sauer was 34 and an off-duty volunteer firefighter for the Woodmere Fire Department when he and a fellow volunteer, who was also with the FDNY, went into the city to help at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001.
Yoni Brook, a 19-year-old New York University student and a stringer for The Washington Post, had just gotten out of class when he rushed to Ground Zero to capture scenes from the destruction of the terror attacks.
"I saw the devastation, and there were firefighters looking for people and helping people who were wounded," said Brook, who shot the photo of Sauer drinking. It would go on to be published in the Post and an NYU newspaper and win an award.
Twenty-five years later, the photographer and his subject met on a beach at Point Lookout on Friday, then went to Sauer's house in Woodmere and recalled the day together.
For Sauer, now 59, and Brook, 44, it was a bittersweet reunion.
Sauer said he was unaware of the photo until about four months after 9/11, when the firefighter who accompanied him to Ground Zero, Ray Grawin, shared it with him. Sauer didn’t know who took it or where it was published, as he saw a "photo of a photo of a photo."
It took him four years to find Brook. Sauer reached out to Thomas Franklin, who took the iconic photo of firefighters putting up the American flag at Ground Zero.
"He said, ‘I didn't take it, but I'm pretty sure I know who did,’ and gave me his name and number, and then that's when I got in touch," Sauer said.
Besides Friday, Sauer and Brook have met up twice since that day, on the 10th and 20th anniversaries of 9/11.
Yoni Brook, left, and Michael Sauer at Sauer's home in Woodmere, Friday. Sauer is holding a photo of himself taken by Brook at Ground Zero on 9/11. Credit: Thomas Hengge
But this year, Brook, who now lives in Philadelphia, felt compelled to meet a third time and bring his two young sons — to teach them about 9/11.
"Nobody told you to go there and help people," Brook told Sauer. "You got up and did it, and that to me is something that I feel like is a universal message, that you don't have to wait to help people."
"You can go and try to make a difference. That's something I want my kids to take away from," Brook said.
Sauer, who has worked as a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer for 29 years and has been with the Woodmere Fire Department for about 30 years, said he thinks of 9/11 and its aftermath every day.
Sauer said he and a team now go around the world on behalf of U.S. Customs to instruct foreign customs law enforcement and private factories on how to secure freight from the outside, in case a container is used to bring in weapons of mass destruction.
The need for that role was made apparent directly because of the 9/11 attacks, he said.
On Friday, Sauer became emotional when he recalled the work at Ground Zero.
"We had to wait for all the big equipment to get in to start moving that heavy rubble. You can hear all the sounds," he said. "The cars buried under the rubble with the car alarms going off, the sirens, that distinct strobe light sound ... when you heard that, wasn't much you can do."
Yoni Brook, left, and Michael Sauer look through Brook's photos from 9/11, including one he took of Sauer that was later published. Credit: Thomas Hengge
Sauer later worked at the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, where he sifted through the rubble transferred there to look for cold evidence. He recalled finding everything from old coins to body parts.
"That was just as bad as being at Ground Zero, because we were in tents where the rubble was being shaken out in front of us, and all the dust was just blowing around in these tents," he said. "The sounds, the smells, every time a plane goes by, you just never get that out of your memory. You can't get those sights out."
The memory of the horrors of 9/11, personified in Brook’s picture, has nevertheless inspired others. Both of Sauer’s sons became volunteer firefighters in Woodmere. One works in mask services at the FDNY and the other is in the Air Force, he said.
“[My] family’s proud of that picture," Sauer said. "And it helps them never forget what happened on that day."
