Scottsdale firefighter seeks new life after 9/11 experience
Assisted in World Trade Center rescue
by Barry Cohen

CAREFREE – “It’s like a bad dream.”

That’s how one Scottsdale firefighter described the rescue mission at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

In a talk to the Carefree Kiwanis Club days before the five‑year anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Mike Virgadamo, 38, said he has blocked out the events of that infamous day.

Virgadamo and his family moved to Arizona to begin a new life after 9/11.

He recalled the experience of being transported to the scene with his fellow firefighters from the Queens fire station. “When we pulled up to the World Trade Center we had no equipment, so one of the old‑timers in our house told us to take the air packs and tools off the dead firemen at the scene.”

The attack at the trade center claimed the lives of 343 New York firefighters.

Born and raised in Massapequa, Long Island, Virgadamo followed a family tradition by joining the New York City police department in 1995. After three years, he decided he wanted to become a firefighter. “When I told my family, they looked at me like I was crazy,” he said.

Virgadamo was assigned to a rescue and recovery team after 9/11, where he said he saw “the best and worst of people.”

The worst, he explained, were those individuals who sought to profit by selling articles of clothing and other items from people who had perished in the tragedy.

“But I also met volunteers who traveled across the country to New York because they wanted to do anything they could to help,” Virgadamo said.

Virgadamo said there were explosions at the base of the Twin Towers some time after the terrorists crashed commercial jets into the towers. He said those secondary explosions were probably caused when elevators, filled with jet fuel, opened their doors. 

When asked if he has seen the Oliver Stone movie, “World Trade Center,” Virgadamo said he had no desire to see the film, no matter how accurate it portrays the rescue of two Port Authority police officers.

“When I was growing up, I would ask my uncle about his experiences during the war in Vietnam, and he never wanted to discuss it,” he said. “Now I understand why.”

Virgadamo joined the Scottsdale Fire Department in July 2005. He and his wife, Lisa, live in Gilbert and have two young children.

Reach the reporter at barry@thedesertadvocate.com.