Ground Zero utility worker shares untold story 25 years after 9/11

MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — When we think of first responders from Sept. 11, firefighters, EMTs, and police officers come to mind. But there were thousands of others at Ground Zero whose service often goes unrecognized.

Greg Miraglia was one of them.

WATCH BELOW: Ground Zero utility worker shares untold 9/11 story

RELATED COVERAGE: Remembering 9/11

"I was a utility worker for Verizon. I volunteered the day after," Miraglia said. "I was shipped to Ground Zero to work, and I stood there five months."

On Sept. 12, 2001, Miraglia boarded a bus at Shea Stadium at 5 a.m. with other tradesmen — cable pullers, communication workers, construction crews — all heading into Manhattan to help restore the city.

"When we got towards the Manhattan Bridge to get over to Ground Zero, and the smoke started getting stronger and the bellowing smoke started getting bigger, we had a sudden camaraderie amongst us of silence like, 'Wow, this is serious. This is real,'" he said.

The scene at Ground Zero

What Miraglia saw when he arrived was unlike anything he'd experienced.

"There were cars and trucks and hot dog stands and everything flat as books. And it was just layered and layered with rubble and the dust and smoke. It was just very hard to see and breathe," he said.

For the first week, workers had only bandanas to protect themselves from the toxic air.

"They kept saying it was safe, you know, but we found out three weeks later that it wasn't. And they gave us the proper stuff," Miraglia said.

The work was grueling — 20-hour days in hazardous conditions. After the first week, Miraglia almost quit.

"It was just too much," he said.

But he stayed. For five months, Miraglia and his team worked to restore communication lines to Lower Manhattan and Wall Street.

A memory that won't fade

Twenty-five years later, Miraglia says the memories haven't left him.

"Every day of my life. Every day of my life for the past 25 years," he said when asked if the smell and images still come back to him.

One moment stands out above all others: a woman frantically searching for her son grabbed Miraglia, begging for help.

"She needed answers. She was distorted and hysterical, and she let out a scream that was so horrifying, you could watch 1,000 horror movies, you never heard a scream like this," he said. "I'll never forget that. Every day. I can't forget that."

The health toll

In the years after 9/11, Miraglia began getting mysteriously sick.

"I mysteriously would start bleeding in my stomach and everything, and I would get all these sicknesses, and my wife says, 'You're always sick,'" he said. "I'm strong as an ox. I was a bull, you know what I mean? But it was just taking me apart."

In 2008, Miraglia ended up in the hospital, requiring four pints of blood. Doctors discovered disease in his esophagus. Then, one doctor made the connection.

"One smart doctor says, 'I think you've got 9/11 sickness,' you know, 'cause he worked on others," Miraglia said. "That's when we decided we got to get out of New York 'cause I can't breathe here."

The family moved to Florida.

It took years for Miraglia to prove his illness was connected to his time at Ground Zero. In 2018, he and his wife went to court and successfully secured benefits through the Victim Compensation Fund (VCF).

According to the VCF website, there are more than 177,000 claims from first responders and survivors still suffering health effects from 9/11.

Why he wrote his book

Now living in Manatee County, Miraglia has poured his story into a memoir — not for recognition, but for remembrance.

"The trade workers weren't as recognized as the fire department and maybe rightfully so. But we did our part, we did our work, and it was hard for us to prove that we're sick from this too," he said.

Miraglia says he wrote the book for younger generations who weren't alive on Sept. 11 — so they understand what happened and how the world changed that day.

"I think they have no idea of how the world changed on that day, specifically that day. The world we're living in now, it wasn't the world we lived in then," he said.

After five months at Ground Zero, Miraglia and his team accomplished what many thought was impossible: they got Wall Street and Lower Manhattan back online.

"We did what we had to do and what they said couldn't be accomplished, we accomplished it through hard work, sacrifice, and the will to do it," he said.

Twenty-five years later, Miraglia says it's important we never forget.

"The world changed. We did our part. We're proud to do that part, but we're all suffering from that part, but we hold our honor to make that country better than what it was. And I hope we did that."