Tunnel 2 Towers founder Frank Siller on 22nd anniversary of

Heavy smoke coming from the building of the World Trade Center.

Also, he's sending just about everything that he does in this direction. He's sending all of my units to the Verrazano Bridge. I don't know what's going on. What's going on, please? Let me get at least one or two units to respond to West Street and World Trade Center building ASAP.

I have one patient at this time with 30 degrees burns to 90% of his body. Power just collapsed. We'll see what the priority message is.

Identify yourself. I have a fireman who was caught hearing an explosion live over here severely injured. That is just some of the interactions and the communications on that chaotic day in 9-11 22 years ago. Frank Sillars heard it all, seen it all, talks to the survivors and helps the families like nobody else. Tons of Towers CEO and founder Frank Siller started the organization because your brother Stephen did not survive 9-11.

He ran through the towers, full gear through the tunnel, full gear to the towers. Great to see you today. There's nobody more important that gets it more than you today.

What are your thoughts right now? You know, just listening to your intro in there, listen to the many stories and sounds of 9-11 and how crazy it was and how hectic it was. You know, it was just so unbelievable.

You couldn't even realize it was happening while it was happening was surreal. But I go right back, like on this day, it's just very sad for me, my family. I know exactly when my brother died, when the South Tower came down. There was no doubt when it came down that my brother was in there.

I didn't know at that point that he had gotten there, that he'd run through the tunnel, as you just said. But when I was home in my house, I gathered my brothers and my sisters together because I know how horrific the day was going to turn out to be. Are you the oldest? No, my brother Stephen was the youngest of seven. I was the next youngest. And I was 14 years older than Stephen.

My brother Russ was almost 25 years older. So my brother Russ, my brother George, my sister Mary, my sister Gina, myself, my brother-in-law, my son, you know, were all in my living room. And I got a phone call and it was from a firefighter, Richie Obermeyer, who lived two doors away from my brother Stephen on Staten Island. And he called me up and he says, hey, Frank, it's Richie.

I just want to let you know that it's bad down here. I said, yeah, Richie, I'm looking. I could see it.

I'm with my family. And he goes, you know, I just know it's really bad. I said, I know, Richie.

I said I could see it. He goes, you know, Stephen's on the list of missing firefighters. I said, I know, Richie. I've been talking to the fire department. I've been calling. I've been trying to call Stephen. And he says, no, Frank, you don't understand.

Nobody's coming home. And I had to go back in and my daughter just wrote me a note about an hour ago. She was 13 years old at the time as my youngest.

Now a mother of three and 35. And that she saw me drop my head when I got that call. And I had to go in the other room and tell my siblings, my sister Gina, overcome with emotion, fell to the floor. We held each other. We tried to get off the floor and. And we did. We got off the floor realizing that our next job was to make sure that Sally, Stephen's wife and the five kids and my brother left behind where we had to be there for them. And. And then and then shortly after we decided, you know, I said to my sister, can we start a foundation to honor what Stephen did?

How soon? You know. I'm going to say that I personally had the thought. A week or so after 9-11, but within a couple of weeks, I did talk to Sally and I said, is it OK? I wanted her blessing.

I said, you don't have to do anything. You get five kids. You know, we're older. You know, we're much older. I was almost 50. You know, my you know, the rest of my brothers and sisters were, you know, 52, 55.

You know, 60. And I said, we will do it. We'll do it. And I said, we're just going to honor what Stephen did. And and and to remember not just him, but all the firefighters and and everyone that perished that day. And she gave it the blessing.

And by December of that year, we were already incorporated as a 501 three say, and we didn't know what we were going to do. And so a friend of Stephen, Billy Codd, God rest his soul, called me up one day and said, Frank. How about if you have a run? I said, Billy, I don't want to do a dinner, a golf, you know, you know, I said, a run. It's beautiful, you know, because it's beautiful. But, you know, where? And he goes, no, not just any run. How about we go through the tunnel like Stephen did? Talk about overcome with emotion. I couldn't even speak. And, you know, when you know the right thing in life, you know exactly the right thing in life.

You have no choice but to do it. And that's why we do the run every year. Last Sunday in September, September 24th this year. And we'll have nearly 40000 people running now going through that tunnel from the Fox News podcast network. I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor and editor of the transom dot com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Domenech podcast.

Subscribe and listen now by going to Fox News podcast dot com. And so did you get sanctioned by like the Maryland, New York City Marathon people? You just do it.

We just did it. We had people laughing at us saying, I don't know anything about putting a run on, put an event on. I said, yeah, but don't worry. I was a businessman. I was a bit of an entrepreneur. And I wasn't worried about it, because once again, when you hear the right thing, you have no choice.

You just you just have to you just have to do it. And now how big is it? Like I said, nearly 40000 people. We have firefighters from all over the country that come in. I mean, thousands of them running gear, you know, and police officers as well. And how many men and women that serve our country come in rucks, you know, a ruck that, you know, rocket. And twenty five hundred West Point cadets run through the tunnel chanting, you know, and they stand there as an honor guard for our injured service members that we go off an hour before the run really starts. You know, we have all the injured guys and women that, you know, that we built smart homes for, you know, go go first. And so it was just it was just the right thing to do. Look, we decide to build smart homes for our country's most catastrophically injured because the first ever was from Staten Island, Brenda, Morocco.

I was there visiting him. I said, can we build you a home? And once you built that home, you have no choice. And you keep going.

You got to keep on going. Lou and Ramos, when they were assassinated, detectives Lou and Ramos. And now you're doing first responders, cops. When they were in December of 2014, when we paid off their mortgages the Christmas before, we knew it was the right thing. And now we're doing hundreds a year. Frank Siller, thanks so much.

Great to see you. T2T.org. Help out Tunnel to the Towers. Listen to the show at free on Fox News podcast plus on Apple podcast, Amazon music with your prime membership or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.