Bill Spade has finally delivered a fellow first responder’s dying message to his family, a quarter-century after they met in the burning North Tower.
Spade, a firefighter who survived the September 11 attacks, crossed paths with NYPD Emergency Service Unit officer John D’Allara, 47, inside the World Trade Center’s North Tower. The two men had known each other for roughly 25 minutes when the building fell.
They spent those final minutes helping civilians escape while trading details about their wives and young children, each preparing the other to deliver news no family should hear. Spade, speaking with the Sun after the release of National Geographic’s documentary 9/11: Reunited, recalled the darkness that surrounded them. “There were no lights on; it was completely pitch black. We were helping people out of the building and talking about his wife and two boys, and my wife and boys,” he said.
The pair had effectively “written their own obituaries,” Spade noted, exchanging names and information their families would need if only one survived.
D’Allara told Spade about his wife, Carol, and their two sons, then aged seven and two. Spade shared details about his own wife, Cynthia, and their two young boys.
The officer’s last actions before the collapse helped force open a jammed door, an effort that saved approximately 20 civilians. Spade remembered D’Allara moving ahead of the group to check that the route was clear, then calling back to the others. “We left the North Tower about 30 seconds before it came down. John looked up and said, ‘It’s clear. Everybody run’,” Spade recalled.
The tower had fallen eerily quiet moments before, a signal to those inside that evacuation was urgent. D’Allara barely made it outside before the building collapsed with him still inside. Spade was caught in the falling debris and curled up, bracing for death and believing he would not survive.
“As soon as the buildings came down and I realised they were no longer there, I went searching for a chief and said, ‘We’ve got to go back and look for them’,” Spade said. “Sure enough, months later, they were found there.”
Spade later fulfilled his promise to the D’Allara family, tracking down the officer’s two sons, now grown. One serves as a Marine reservist; the other works as a police officer in the Bronx. The message Spade carried was brief and devastating: “I was thinking of you until the very end.”
“He was thinking of his boys right to the very end,” Spade added.
The encounter between the two men forms part of National Geographic’s documentary 9/11: Reunited, which examines the lingering bonds between survivors and the families of those who died.