‘This is history’: Westmoreland 911 dispatcher reflects on Flight 93 call 25 years later
HEMPFIELD TOWNSHIP, Pa. —
United Flight 93 crashed on a Somerset County field on Sept. 11, 2001. The story of how first responders made it there begins in Westmoreland County.
The Westmoreland County 911 center in Hempfield Township opened the same morning as the crash. While some of his colleagues were training at the new building, dispatcher John Shaw took a call from Ed Felt, who was right above him.
“The first thing he said was that he was on an airplane that was hijacked,” Shaw said in a 2002 interview with Pittsburgh’s Action News 4. “It’s like someone was screaming at the top of their lungs without being above a whisper.”
Dispatcher reflects on Flight 93 call 25 years later: Watch the interview in the video player above
Shaw remembers that 70-second call like it was yesterday.
“[My co-workers] knew I was listening to something bad,” Shaw said on Wednesday. “You could have probably dropped a pin in there at the moment, and everybody would have heard it.”
“I think that was the moment that everybody knew that we were a part of history now,” said Gene Good, one of those co-workers at the center. “You don’t take a 911 call saying that someone’s attacking your country.”
Good said that day was the busiest he and Shaw have ever been answering the phones.
“We had people calling, asking, ‘Hey, should I go pick my kids up at school? What’s going on here?’ There’s no script for that,” Good said. “We’re telling people you have to do what you have to do at that point.”
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Gene Good and John Shaw
Good said there’s no script for something like that. However, following their training got them through Felt’s call, and the hundreds that followed.
“The basic information that, to this day, we still get here all applied,” Shaw said. “Early on, in any type of call, it’s name, phone number, where they’re located and go from there.”
Making it through that fateful situation was a sign for Shaw. He was meant to help people.
“Once I came to that realization, this was it. This was my life. This was my career,” Shaw said.
He currently works as the operations supervisor at the Westmoreland 911 center.
Helping county residents on their worst days for 25 years wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the people who Good was with on 9/11.
“We’re here together,” Good said. “We have each other’s backs, and we’re here to support each other, no matter how bad it can be. We were there for each other, and everybody’s still there for each other today.”
That’s why, when Shaw said he remembers Sept. 11, 2001, he doesn’t forget the heroes on the plane, on the ground and answering the phones.
“It’s not about me, but this department,” he said. “It’s not about [Gene]. This department. This was history.”