Barry Galfano opens up about the enormous stress suffered by first responders on 9/11

From the book: Brave Hearts: Extraordinary Stories of Pride, Pain and Courage

NYPD Captain Barry Galfano opens up about the stress suffered by first responders to the attacks of September 11, something he discovered only after intensive work with a therapist. Excerpted from Brave Hearts (braveheartsbook.com) by Cynthia Brown

In 2006 Galfano retired from the NYPD. It was not long after that before the emotions he thought were buried came flooding back.” I was exercising a lot and my new job as security director for the United Nations Plaza complex was demanding. I was busy. But every time I heard or saw anything about 9/11, I would completely break down. That’s when I decided to seek professional help.”

“It was during my visits to the counselor that I began to understand what we had all been through,” he said. “A sudden death, or bad accident or act of violence is one thing. It’s usually over in an instant and you can slowly recover with time. But there were a lot of us who worked at Ground Zero walking that pile every day, looking for remains of our friends who died, finding more body parts or even just small pieces of tissue, then calling the medical examiner to come and take it away. We had to deal with it over and over again.”

Barry’s therapist told him that to her knowledge there had never been an incident where first responders had to go back to the scene of a terrible crime where thousands of people died, day after day, week after week, month after month. The endless wakes and funerals only added to the extended emotional trauma. Barry attended over forty funeral services for close friends and colleagues in those first months after the attacks. There was no way to escape from the sadness and grief so he buried it deep inside.

In talking it out with the therapist, Barry began to understand the stress he was under had taken its toll on his family. His decision to sleep at Floyd Bennett Field so he could be closer to the site, meant he did not return home for weeks. He shut out his wife and children by not talking to them about what he was going through. The few times he did go home when he had a day off, things did not go well.

“I remember my first day off,” Barry said. “I couldn’t sit still. I kept calling my guys asking them if they found anything. My wife kept staring at me while I was on the phone. After a few hours she told me to go back to work. She said it was obvious it was where I wanted to be. So I left and went back to the site. It was my first day off and I was so restless I could not make it through a whole day at home.”

“The bonds we formed over those months working at the site were extremely close but they worked against us too,” Barry said. “On our days off, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves.” 

When he did go home, his wife kept after him to talk to her, but he just couldn’t open up. Ultimately, their marriage did not withstand the stress and Barry and his wife filed for divorce.