Remembering 9/11: Green Country man shares his experience as an FDNY responder

As the nation pauses to remember September 11th, one man in Green Country carries the weight of that day with him every year. Ralph Winburn was an EMS responder with the FDNY when the Twin Towers were hit. Now living in Oklahoma, he shares what it was like to answer the call and why he still wears the uniform.

Q: What do you remember most about the morning of 9/11?

A: "It was my day off. Crystal blue skies. I was going to go look at the fall foliage. Then I saw the news, and I thought it was a made-for-TV movie," Winburn said. He made his way to ground zero from Queens through the Midtown Tunnel.

"This day, it [the commute] took about four minutes because there was no traffic. They would only let emergency vehicles in. So when we got to the beginning of the tunnel, somebody in the unit said, 'Let's pray.' We all held hands, and we prayed. We made it through, but then we could also see smoke coming up."

Q: What did you experience at Ground Zero?

A: "A whole day full of weirdness, things that we've never experienced before. We set up a makeshift hospital for emergency use, and it was every nurse had five paramedics, every paramedic had five EMTs. We had to triage people with a triage system."

Winburn said he would spend the next 13 hours caring for first responders and the next seven months focused on recovery.

Q: Have you returned to Ground Zero?

A: Winburn says he has returned to the 9/11 memorial and was instantly brought back to the chaos and courage that unfolded there 24 years ago. "None of these people around me have any idea what that was like that day. They don't know. I know, and I look and say I was there," he said of his experience visiting the memorial.

"It's just a certain smell, and if it's that time of year, the crisp air let you know that you remember when you felt this last or that perfectly blue sky. You can't erase it. You can't run from it. It will always be there. Look at the skyline. You could see what's not there anymore. Sure, that that new Freedom Tower, it's gorgeous, but I prefer the two buildings that I grew up with."

Q: What's your connection to Green Country?

A: Winburn moved to Green Country in 2008 and worked as a nurse in Tahlequah. He now finds comfort in perfecting his cooking skills, and he's doing so at Momma C's in Muskogee.

"You're still putting smiles on people's faces. You're still making people feel better. It's just another form of doing that," he says of cooking. "Tomorrow I'll be here cooking, but I'll have on an FDNY shirt. Our slogan is to never forget. The way that I'll make sure that people never forget that every September 11th, I will have something on that says New York City Fire. You will remember what happened that day if you talk to me for whatever reason, because I'm going to bring it up."

He shares this message of unity:

"If you ever want to get through anything else and the rest of your life on a hard day, look at what happened on that day and how we did it. Because young people need to know that it is possible, with all of the political madness that's going on. It is possible for us all to work together."