Mapleton alum remembers Ground Zero just after 9/11

ASHLAND — Dan Bowles arrived at Ground Zero more than a week after the twin towers fell. 

In the unforgettable days that followed, he carried three things– an ID badge to access the site, a jump bag full of medical equipment and a whistle.

“If you were working in the site, in the rubble, and you thought you saw or you heard possibly someone alive, you stopped, you blew the whistle and everything went silent,” Bowles recalled. “Everybody that was working stopped what they were doing, listened and hoped that we had found somebody who was alive — a survivor.” 

But the last survivor to be rescued had been pulled from the rubble just 27 hours after the towers fell, long before Bowles made it to New York. 

The mission had shifted from rescue to recovery. 

Instead of one long whistle blast, Bowles would hear three short whistle bursts. A call would come over the radio for a “flag request.” 

Six firefighters would bring a cot, gather up the remains of a deceased police officer or firefighter, drape a flag over the remains and then serve as pallbearers to carry the remains back to an ambulance. Everyone at the site lined up and either placed a hand over their heart or saluted.

“I saw that happen many, many times,” Bowles said. “It still haunts me today.”

Bowles, a 1964 Mapleton High School graduate, returned to Mapleton on Tuesday to speak to students, sharing his account of what he experienced as a disaster technician providing first aid to emergency responders at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacked at the World Trade Center. 

Bowles described an unofficial arrangement he had with firefighters at Ground Zero that if they came to him with minor injuries, he would provide first aid without reporting them to higher-up authorities who might pull them away from the scene. They all just wanted to stay and keep working to honor fellow first responders who had not survived, Bowles said. 

Bowles said he became known as “Dan, the 20-minute Band-Aid man.” It only took a few minutes to apply a Band-Aid, but he quickly learned to provide not only First Aid but also a listening ear. 

“I know now that physical pain is often accompanied with emotional pain,” Bowles said. “After I came back from there, I realized this is how I have to treat my patients with the auto accident, with the home fire. I have to understand that they’re not only hurt physically but they’re definitely hurt emotionally, and I’ve got to take care of both of those.”

At the end of his speech, Bowles presented principal Corey Kline with an American flag he retrieved from Ground Zero and the whistle he wore during the recovery effort.   

“I always thought that I needed this,” Bowles said of the flag and whistle. “I thought I needed the support of what it represented. But I know better now. This is a lot more important. Because of that monument that you have outside, I think it belongs here more than it belongs in a box in my garage.” 

Outside Mapleton High School stands a Sept. 11 memorial that was made from one of the steel beams from one of the World Trade Center towers. 

Former Mapleton teacher Charlie Warthing was the one who worked to acquire the beam. Current teacher Matt Kidney helped get the beam to Ohio and oversaw construction of the memorial. 

The pair said they did it in part because they knew there would come a day when students no longer remembered 9/11, and that day has come.

Knowing that many high school students weren’t even born in 2001 is what made Bowles willing to dig out items and dredge up memories from 17 years ago, he said.                                                                                                                                      

“I guess I really didn’t want to. I didn’t think it was important to anybody else,” Bowles said. “But I realize today that we to need to keep alive the memories of the people who were lost at Ground Zero, at the Pentagon and in that plane the crashed in Pennsylvania. If we forget those things then we’ve lost a very, very important part of our American history.”

Bowles asked students to imagine the impact of two 110-story skyscrapers falling to the ground, killing 2,606 people. In the aftermath, he said, 343 firefighters and 71 police officers died. And since then, 101 firefighters have died from complications after serving at Ground Zero. 

Bowles asked the audience to remember that each time they pass the memorial. 

“Not just today, but every day you walk by it, I would ask you to think about what happened on September 11, 2001,” he said. “Think how it’s affected your lives, your family’s lives, your parents’ lives. Never, never forget what that represents.”

In addition to the assembly, the school hosted a pancake breakfast before school Tuesday to thank local first responders. The breakfast was sponsored by the school’s National Honor Society chapter and served by MHS members.  

Ashland County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Scott Smart said he and the other officers and firefighters who attended, along with those who were unable to attend, appreciated the show of appreciation. 

“The kids that signed up to help do this, it’s commendable on their part because they’re getting up early to participate in remembering something that many of them weren’t even born for,” he said. 

Honor society president Shila Hartzler, who was just nine months old on 9/11, recalls learning about the terrorist attacks from her parents, who explained to her just how much life in America changed that day. 

Hartzler said the breakfast felt like a natural way to remember Sept. 11 and honor the people who work every day to keep the community safe. 

“It just seemed like it was the right thing to do,” she said.