- I would say the steel fragment we have is pretty impactful, but I think one that hits more of an inspirational story is a full bunker gear from a fireman who served for the New York Fire Department Ladder 35.

He was actually supposed to be off duty the day of the attacks, just coming off of a 16-hour shift.

But when he heard the call and the alarm bells, he volunteered himself to be part of the rig.

He ended up arriving to the scene, and he was outside putting out car fires.

At the time, there was falling debris and engines were combusting when he was blown from his original standing location following the South Tower collapse.

And thankfully, he was discovered very quickly by some other responders and folks who were there that were caught during the collapse and pulled shortly before the second tower fell.

And he doesn't have, you know, concrete memories of that experience from his retrograde amnesia, but, you know, he became the sole survivor of his ladder.

The rest of his company was inside the South Tower.

And he still is today and continues the work to remember his fallen brothers.

It's particularly special because this bunker gear is actually a loan from him to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, but they have never been able to show it.

They haven't had enough space to.

And so we in Peoria are the first to be able to not only have this on display but talk more about his story, about his commitment to service and putting himself on the line when he didn't need to.