HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — He’d only been on the job for a year when the Twin Towers were struck on Sept. 11, 2001. Yet, Damon Plonczynski did not hesitate to step into action.
"First thing was to get any of the citizens that were in danger out of the area,” he said. "There were 20-hour shifts - 22-hour shifts - where you just didn't go home."
It was quite a load for the rookie NYPD officer who first worked to rescue lives on 9/11 and later shifted to roles at the morgue, as a digger at Ground Zero and a sifter.
“One of my roles was up at the Staten Island landfill,” he said.
Cranes would unload buckets of debris onto a conveyor belt that Plonczynski would sift through.
"It was our job to pick any type of information - name tag, an ID, a wallet and earring, jewelry - something like that, that we could actually take and say, 'Hey, does anyone recognize this?' That may lead to the positive identification of the victim,” he said.
Plonczynski said photos of those victims were posted all through the streets of New York City.
“Entire blocks, New York city blocks, were covered in these missing posters,” he said. “That's really why we were down there and working so hard was just provide that information to those loved ones.”
Today, Plonczynski works as a training specialist with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, drawing on his experience with NYPD to prepare cadets to serve in law enforcement. As the 20-year mark of 9/11 draws near, he says he is at peace with knowing he did everything in his power to save lives and bring closure to those who lost loved ones.
“It feels good to know that I was there, I helped and I did everything I could. You're always gonna wonder if you could have done more. But that's something I have to come to terms with,” he said. “Twenty years later, I think it's just important that we always remember, and not forget.”