A dedicated Mohawk chief worked tirelessly in the days following September 11, 2001 to clear the rubble of the Twin Towers his father and grandfather had helped erect.
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“I was born in New York, and several of my family worked on the World Trade Center. It was very personal, so I wanted to help in my own way, ”recounts Lindsay LeBorgne, an elected chief from Kahnawake, a reserve on the South Shore of Montreal.
Like many Mohawks – nicknamed the sky walkers because of their ability to work at heights – he was a long-time erector of steel structures, in Quebec as well as in Manhattan.
That’s why, the Monday following the bombings, he found himself at the foot of what used to be the South Tower of the World Trade Center, to help clean up a mountain of debris, dust and twisted metal.
A week after the collapse of the towers, it was unfortunately no longer time for research, but grieving families refused to give up hope, recalls Mr. LeBorgne.
Each evening, they waited for those who returned from Ground Zero, photo in hand, to ask them if they had found their daughter, their husband or their father.
Photo courtesy, Lindsay Leborgne
The workers took turns from morning to night to clear the debris.
“I didn’t have the heart to tell them that there was nothing left, that everything had been pulverized. It was terrible, ”said the 63-year-old man, lost in his memories.
Disturbing artefacts
Amidst the rubble of the skyscrapers, he remembers having nevertheless found objects that have gripped his heart.
Miniature replicas of the World Trade Center sold to tourists, and miraculously remained intact in the ruins of the building they represented.
Many abandoned high-heeled shoes.
“I imagine that women had taken them off to run more easily,” he drops.
On a few occasions, the remains of a victim or body parts were also found while he was working.
On these occasions, time stood still on the site. A firefighter or a police officer would come and spread an American flag on the body, before carrying it on a stretcher.
A “surreal” scene, remembers the Mohawk, raised between Kahnawake and Little Caughnawaga, in New York.
Not without danger
From 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Mr. LeBorgne’s job mainly consisted of cutting huge steel beams with a blowtorch so that they could be transported.
They were probably the same beams that his father, his grandfather, several of his uncles and his cousins had assembled on the site of the World Trade Center, between 1968 and 1971.
Photo courtesy, Lindsay Leborgne
A section of wall threatened to collapse during the clean-up operations.
In the fall of 2001, a certain nervousness reigned in the air.
“We were afraid that other buildings would collapse at any time,” recalls Mr. LeBorgne.
Workers like him wore surgical masks, goggles, hard hats, and steel-capped boots, little to protect them from the toxic dust emanating from the rubble.
Fatal cancers
The World Trade Center Health Program also counts more than 3,500 first responders and workers intervening on the scene after the attacks that have died in recent years, often from cancer.
Mr. LeBorgne has an annual visit to a New York hospital for follow-up.
To this day, he gets away with a cough that has never really left him, perhaps because he hasn’t been exposed to dust for as long as others.
“After five days, I had seen enough. I didn’t want to know anything more about this carnage, ”he said soberly.
Twenty years later, Lindsay LeBorgne prefers to change the channel when the images of this fatal day appear on the screen.
The indelible memories he keeps of it are enough for him.
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