YouSaid · the spoken record

Niels Jorgensen

lines on the record: 208
first: 2021-09-11
most recent: 2021-09-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Thankfully, we weren't killed in that process, but there's hundreds of them now who are dead from illnesses because they came down to recover our people and the civilians and the poor lost souls that were killed at work that day. And John. Literally almost lost his foot in a construction accident at the site, an 8,000 pound I beam tore off half of his foot, ended up with massive sepsis six months in the hospital, hundreds of thousand dollars in medical bills. And then no one wanted to pay them. So here's a guy who's going to lose his house, lose his life, lose everything. And now they'll never forget. It started quick, right?”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We had to beg these guys. Beg them for federal legislation to cover our medical bills, right? There's a gentleman, John Feel, from the Feel Good Foundation. This guy is a lion of a man, a general, but with a soft, big, great heart. And John is a former construction worker who came to the 9-11 site the day after. He was one of those guys cutting the steel with torches and craning it out of there, one of those hard hats that just... Never got the credit. To praise that we did as responders. And I don't mean that as a knock to responders, right? I mean, we lost 37 Port Authority police officers, 23 MYPD officers. About a Emergency medical technicians and paramed Court officers from New York State courts and two federal agents. And I hope and 343 New York City firefighters. We lost a ton of responders. But the recovery workers...”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Leaders shouldn't become rich. They shouldn't become rich in the process, right? You shouldn't go into political office as an alleged lunchbox kind of guy and then come out eating at the best steakhouse in the world. I mean, that's the problem with politics, right? My Irish grandmother, God wrestler, used to say, those politicians, they're all like dirty diapers. They're full of shit and they stink. And it's true. I don't give a crap what party they're in. Yeah”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they all landed in Ellis Island. Well, my mom didn't because it was closed at that point. But there's people breaking down the doors to come to this country, right? There's no one breaking down the doors to leave. And this is a problem I have with people that aren't grateful for being here. And this, again, it's not political. It's just straight down the ball, straight down the middle fastball. If you don't like it here, I'll show you the door. I'll get you the plane ticket. I mean, would you want to live back in Russia compared to here? You might because of family ties, but I mean, if you had no ties to Russia, or would you want to go to China right now and possibly end up in a labor camp? There's people busting down the doors to get to this place. It's not perfect. It's got its flaws. It's got its blemishes.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he did pretty well for himself for an immigrant who was poor. And my mom, my Irish mother, landed in the same neighborhood, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, 16 years old, worked as a cashier 50, 60 hours a week in the supermarket and finished school at night. Married my father the fireman. Know, live the American dream, and it was all from New York and my father's mom was from Irish immigrants.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know. It's turned into an angry place. It's turned into. I think there's a lot of people that aren't getting the resources they need in a sense. There's a lot of mental illness. There's a lot of homelessness. There's a lot of violent people just roaming around the streets and it's not good. It's not safe. And tourists are not going to come back. Even just leading up to the COVID, I had some tourists saying to me, I won't be back. And now I can only imagine that it's just gotten exponentially worse. I hope there's a chance it'll swing back because it is. It's the gateway to the world. I mean, my grandfather came, you know, from Denmark. He landed in Ellis Island in the 20s. American success story, 25 bucks in his pocket, didn't speak the language, had a sponsor family in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. And he made it. He ended up dying owning a bakery at one point and then an apartment building.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was taken back. They were literally videoing it, and the kid was just throwing shadow punches at my face wanting to beat me up. And I finally looked him in the eyes. And I was like, oh boy, I'm a little too old for this. Body's a little broken down for chemo. And I finally just said, all right, all right, I just had enough. I wanted to go home. Just work the 17 hour shift as a stage hand. And I was so taken back. I was so insulted. I'm saying, you know, I spent my life protecting this city. And now I'm getting attacked like for nothing. And I just, I gave up and maybe I should have given it a little more time. But it's, um...”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I started to see it slide with stuff that was happening, public urination and defecation and just like, you know, Taurus don't want to see that, right? And I had an unfortunate incident two years ago. I was jumped by 14 agagers coming off the subway and they were pissed off because I was wearing an American flag hat and I don't know. I'm not really sure why, but it left me. I got out of it, okay.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know my heart's broken. I moved to New Jersey many years ago, but I still have close attachment to New York. My parents are still there, many, many family members. And I've since now moved to Tennessee. I needed to go somewhere quiet. I wanted to heal my fractured soul. And I'm in the middle of a beautiful farming rural area in middle Tennessee. Probably call me a sellout back in New York for leaving, but it's not the same city and it's sad, you know, I'll refrain from the politics and the finger pointing. It's a mess compared to what it was. And I did Broadway Theater security for many years.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My friend, I love my friends. I love we work 24 hour shifts together, you cook, you clean, you break each other's jobs relentlessly. I Was I love those guys so much? I mean, I hope that my kids and anyone that I know and care about, I hope they can experience the bond of that brotherhood that I experienced in my life. It was so, God, I would give anything to have it back. Just yeah.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wasn't allowed anymore. That's it. You have over 20 years and you have cancer. You know, back when my dad got sick, they'd let you hang around for 10, 12 years in an office, but not now. Now it's all about the bottom line. But I was more depressed about losing a job than almost losing my life. Like as crazy as that sounds, you know, and it just, uh,”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In less than six months. And I'm there walking my dog one day, my rescued greyhound who I miss. She was such a sore god. She lived to be almost 13, Katie and we were walking in the snow and I got the call. I was retired and I looked at her and I'm like, Katie, what am I going to do? She just looked up and said, we're going to go on a lot more walks, you know. And I was so sad. And I was so sad. I was so angry because I lost my priesthood. I loved helping people. I really like I would have done it for free. I would never tell Mayor Bloomberg that, right? He's all about the book, right? But like, you know, honestly, I would have been a New York City fireman. I would have paid them to do it.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know Lexi was strange, it was times I was so angry, you know, there's that range of emotions, the anger, the denial, the depression, the this, the that. And this is the weirdest thing. It was mostly, I knew my career was over. And they retired me out of the job. I got sick in August and that October, they told me I was out. And by the time I was processed and used up my leaves and whatever you want to say it was, I was officially retired in January of 02.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He said, So, what else do you want to talk about? I said, Well, I don't know, Doc might have messed up. He goes, No, no. He goes, They're paying me for an hour. It only took 20 minutes. So we watched the Yankee game together. But it was just, again, it showed the human condition. Here's these two men of two totally different faiths. And yet we shared that bond of faith. And he had empathy and he had sympathy. And he saw me and many other patients. So he just didn't assume. And he gave me a fair shake. And I will always be grateful to him for that.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he was a Jewish gentleman. He was a rabbi also in a synagogue. And I actually had responded in that district and he knew 114 would run into Borough Park. Oh, yeah, I see Tally Ho, they come down the street. And he asked me to tell them the story. And I did. He started laughing and it scared me now. I said, Doc, am I really crazy? He says, No, no. He said, I believe you, my friend. He said, We share the same God. He goes, we work in the same corporation, but in different departments. And he says, you did see your mother-in-law. He says, your faith is that strong. He said, I've had many patients express the same sentiments. He said, so I want you to listen to her and fight and be strong.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And she say, you know, my boyfriend's here, and all of a sudden she's smiling, and she goes, Hi, my boyfriend. And I says, none, none. What are you doing? She goes, he's not ready. He doesn't want you. You got to go back. Got things to do. And I'm like, no, na, Nan, it hurts so much. Please, please take me. And she laughed. She goes, no, no, not yet. I'll see you. And she just faded away. One of my doctors on my team was. She had a problem with religion. And that's okay. I understand that I'm not a preacher. I have a faith, but I don't preach it. I don't push it. I just, you know, live and let live. So she sent in this shrink to see me. And I was messed up from the chemo, but I knew what I was seeing. I knew what I was saying.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But on that first night, I had a quick vision of all these people that I loved. Were dead that died, a lot of them in the trade center, and I saw Johnny, I saw friends I grew up with. Last one was my mother in law who had passed six months before, and she died of, she was in a coma, she had a stroke. She had a horrible, horrible last six months of life, and she wasn't fair because she was so religious. She went to church every day. The Val Catholic woman. And all of a sudden I see her and she's smiling. And we used to talk a lot, you know, it's the Irish thing, like the Gab, the gift of Gab. And she used to call me your boyfriend because we'd sit and talk for hours and talk about books and about movies and about food. I love her. She was my friend.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Guys died in the first couple days of the treatment because it's so vicious your liver, your heart, your kidneys, something will fail. And I was praying and I was praying, but I wanted to die. I was in so much pain. I wouldn't take a painkiller because I know people with some issues and I just didn't want to go there. And finally on the last day I gave in. I said please I can't do this anymore. I was literally like jumping out of my skin and they gave me something. It had burned out my mind, it burned out my body. I couldn't hear. I could barely see, it was vicious. It worked. And my nurse is especially, they just were so dedicated and devoted. And I was not an easy patient because I was in a lot of pain. It was bad. Drove my friends, my family crazy. It wasn't good.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He says, You got those three kids. I'm sorry. I have no other option. You're dead. And I said, all right, Mike, okay. And he hooked me up. And you know what? It was like, you know, if you do drink alcohol and you have like a shot or strong type spirit and you start feeling that burn, well, the minute he hit me in the vein, it just started going up my arm, burning, and then up my shoulder across my neck into my head across the rest of my body within a minute down to my feet. And I was writhing in pain for seven days. And I was praying to die Was the seventh rescuer in six months to come down with the rarest leukemia there is. There's only 500 cases in all North America a year, and seven of us came down in six months. Two guys died during treatment. Seven responders, police fire.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The minute the minute they went into your body, you felt like you were burning to death from the inside out. And Mike, when Mike came in to hook me up, he said, look, I have to wear a hazmat suit. This stuff is so caustic that if it drips, it'll burn whenever it touches. And I was like, but Mike, you're going to put that in my body. How the hell is it not going to kill me? He says, no, no, this is exactly what it's supposed to do. Trust me. So when he prepped the IV tube to get it flowing, it spilled onto the tube and the tube started to smoke and burn. And I went, I said, no effing way, Mike. You're not putting that in me. No way, no way. And he goes, listen, let me get another one. Let me start it over. And here he is, wearing a hazmat suit, looking at me and I'm going, this is, this is insane. And he goes, he looked at me. He took my hand. And he says, Nells, if you don't take it, you're dead.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And she said, okay, go to your regular doctor tomorrow who was one of the department doctors. And she just, it was just an indifference. It was like, I don't know. I was shocked at the lack of compassion. But you know what? That being said, I'm past it. Life moves on. Team of doctors I ended up with a Methodist and my subsequent oncologist, Dr. Peter Mancell, world class, just incredible human being. My Dr. Pete is just, I love him. I just love him like a friend, like a big brother, like a father, like a... My primary oncology care nurse, Mike Nunez, was just incredible human being. And he knew I was frightened because I had to get two and a half years of chemo compressed into seven days or I was dead. These massive bags of chemo that never stopped.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Personnel back, and especially during the summertime, you know, they look at it like, oh, maybe you want a few extra days off to, you know, go to the beach. And this one doctor, he tipped his hand back as if like I was drinking an alcohol beverage. He says, hey, busy summer because I asked him to look at my spleen, which was sticking out of my abdomen like a football. And I said, excuse me, sir. I said, how dare you assume that I'm abusing alcohol? You know, alcohol abuse sometimes will present itself as the spleen is engorged and having an issue. So you automatically just assume that that was my situation. Wouldn't even have given me an exam. And I was horrified. I was so angry. I mean, I wanted to punch this guy out. And I literally was screaming at him and an executive officer came in to defuse it and sent me to another doctor. And when I showed her my paperwork, she was horrified. She was like, what did he say?”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, Alex, I think what it is in the department, their title is just to get us back to duty as quickly as possible when we are either injured or sick because what happens then is your replacement is now in overtime. So you're out being paid on medical leave, but then they need to replace your spot and then that costs more money. So I think it's just behooves them.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I felt very betrayed, and other guys had died. And I had it out with that one doctor. I basically told her she was fired from my case and she's pretty politically in charge person and I didn't care. I jeopardized my job for it because it was my life and I got the sense that she didn't really matter to her. Right. Didn't have any empathy, as you say.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You probably have one of a few different types of leukemia. He said, I'll drill into your hip, take your marrow, and find out. And he said, but in the meantime, we'll get the swelling on the spleen down, like some sort of rapid medicines and whatnot because my spleen is about to rupture. I had no blood platelets left, which is your clotter. So I basically would have bled to death. Found out from my team of doctors that I had about 48 hours to live And that really set me off. I was infuriated because I was telling him for a long time that I was sick.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Couldn't have cared less. He was so crude and nasty. And then my one doctor, who was my doctor on the outside, my blood pressure was 240 over 140. My spleen was about to rupture. She didn't even show up for my appointment. And I went down. I passed out. The paramedics responded. She got into an argument with a paramedic because for big ego and basically telling him there wasn't really anything wrong. And he's looking at my paperwork going, this guy's got leukemia. He overwrote her. He raced me out of there down to Brooklyn Methodist. The doctor, the charged physician, the ER physician, he says, You're not leaving, you're in a bad way. And I said, what is it? He says, I need four. He goes, I need a little while to figure it out. He goes, but.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I failed my medical, my bloods came back horrifically wrong and they pulled me off the truck, but they strung me out for a month. The doctors in the fire department, one of them said my spleen was engorged because there was probably drinking myself to death like, as he said, most of the guys did after 9-11, which was pretty wrong of him and stereotypical, you know, just to stereotype and to categorize.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It just stopped being a coincidence with the number of guys, and they were young. Just one of the first guys, John McNamara, he was 33 or 34, and he came down colon cancer and it took him quickly in 2000. He was in 2005. I kind of said to friends and family I said, I feel like I'm running through a minefield and I wonder when I'm going to step on my mind because everybody's going to get sick. I wasn't feeling well from 2008 on. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I just wasn't right. And then 2011.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of the older firemen as we're walking up the block, we're all struggling, we're all having a hard time breathing and just, I mean, I felt like I was dying literally. It was pretty bad. And just remember the one guy going, now we're all dead. And I said, no, no, we made it. We made it. He goes, no, you don't get it, kid. He said, we just breathed in poison after poison for hours. And then that went into days and then went into months. He says, we're all dead, man. This is going to take us all. And I thought he was crazy. Now years later, like starting in 03, 04, guys just started coming down with these really rare and advanced cancers.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, the first day, especially we didn't have equipment, we didn't have breathing apparatus and we were handed little 69 cent hardware store dust masks, you know, it was a little thin paint masks that would just get sweated up and sticking to your face within 30 seconds. So you would just, they were useless And what you wound up feeling like was that you swallowed a box of razor blades because there was glass and there was cement and it was just so caustic. And I remember that night, you know, when we went back just to get some medical relief for the few hours, we were walking up the hill to the firehouse because they dropped us off like a block away down at engine 201s and quarters.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and you know, I made it a little habit because sometimes with faith it's a little bit of a tricky subject. Every time I had someone who died, which unfortunately was many, many times, I would just touch their hand and just say a little quick prayer and just say, look, you know, I hope you're moving on to a better place. I hope if you did have faith that it's strong as you depart. And if you didn't have faith, I hope maybe at your last moment that you found some and you just found some closure. So that was just my little ritual, I think. I just, you know, I felt it was important that that person, even though they were a stranger, just had someone there just sort of hoping for the best for them in their last moments.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, like I felt that even though obviously his loss was still huge, it just made it a little more bearable. Tried to just take his grief down to a lower level. And it made me feel, just feel really good about doing it.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get that opportunity as a responder to be that last bridge to the family and the loved one. And you only get that opportunity once sometimes and you really have to, to me, it's like your moment to shine. You know, you could just be very, very dismissive and very rude, or you could be compassionate and just show, hey, I have a mom, I have a grandma, and just in your mind, pretend that that's who you're working on and that's who you're with.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That chance, and we got her in the ambulance, and maybe it was wrong to try to make it look like we could save her, but you can't really not try. The one beautiful moment was he thanked me and he Was almost okay with it at that point. Like, he wasn't as upset. He wasn't as distraught because I tried to just humanize that situation of what we were trying to do. We were trying to do our best, but we also tried to be compassionate to his sadness. It just, I walked away just feeling so good, even though it was a tragic situation, and she did pass that, you know, he came by, thank us days later. And it's just heartbreaking. But, you know, there's just, it's just happens many, many times throughout the country.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Your hand just inconsolably crying, and it turned out it was her husband and they were married for 65 years. And normally we would just respectfully ask the family members to just step aside and let us do our work. And I realized that he wouldn't leave her side. So I kind of gave the crew a wink and they were doing CPR and what they had to. And I just let him keep holding her hand. And I said, sir, could you just come over just a little bit so we can work? And I held his hand as he held hers and I said, sir, I said, do you have faith? And he did. And I said, would you like to pray with me for your wife? And he said, I would like to. So we said the Lord's prayer. And I just asked God to protect her and bless her. Think he realized that she didn't have a chance, but we still gave her that.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Out of 14. She knows hard times, but she so appreciates the good times and the goodness of this country. Fire department and the police department military told me a lot about empathy and trying to really feel for someone and put yourself in there. Situation. I remember years back, I was much younger fireman. I probably five years on a job. Was sent down to the next firehouse over to fill in, you know, we would get sent around randomly when they needed extra guy. Someone came banging on the firehouse door in the tenement apartment next door, they said there was an older woman that was unconscious. So we dispatched ourselves and we ran over with a medical kit. And it was an elderly woman laying there on the bed and she was obviously... Not breathing. She was obviously in cardiac arrest, and an older gentleman that was.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I agree. And you know, there's days when I think the assholes are overrunning us. But you know what? I think the downfall of the world is ego and arrogance and people that think they're better than that other guy. My parents raised me to be this way. My mom is such a sweet, gentle soul. She's an immigrant. She came here at 16 years old. She helps everybody but herself, right? She's just one of those people. She's sick. She's got Parkinson's. You'd never know it. And she's still flying around her condo complex helping everybody. Because that's what she does. She loves to help people. But she's been in their shoes. She's been poor. She's sick. Her husband was sick. She's had all sorts of suffering and loss in her life. My granddad died when my mom was 10, and she was one of 10 children that survived.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We see on Twitter and so on. It's that you're 100% right. There's people out there that are maximizing off this whole division, right? They want us divided. They want people angry because it sells. You know, a lot of these people that are in charge of certain organizations, well, they all seem to have nice cars and nice houses and nice vacations. And they're constantly trying to convince everybody that we hate each other. To me, I'll use a fireman analogy, right? It's like a little campfire. And if you just let the Embers flutter, they'll go out. But if you take a little cup of gasoline with those embers, it'll blow right up in your face. And that's what a lot of these politicians and a lot of these media folks are doing because there's something in it for them.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have no, I respect life to the highest level. I mean, I'm very, life is sacred to me. It's precious. It's beyond. It's not a commodity. It's a gift. To take life just so randomly. So there's something way wrong with that person. And maybe I'm a conflicted soul. I would have no problem seeing someone like that put to death because they do not deserve life. There's many children around this world that are being taught to hate someone who's different than them just because the person who's allegedly teaching them says so. I don't understand it.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, Lex, I haven't. My mom's from Ireland, and I still have a lot of family there. And, you know, my great uncles, one of them was dragged out and shot. He lived. But just based on a rumor that he was in the IRA And I wasn't happy to see what happened to my mom's people because they were victimized and brutalized by England at that time. In the name of that. Doesn't make it right. Couldn't justify something like that. I can see. Know, I was a cop, I was a soldier, and you never want to take life in those. But sometimes you have to. But you don't do it with a vengeance. You don't do it with a thirst. You do it because it's necessary for survival. When you do it out of a bloodlust, out of a thirst, out of a cause, that's evil. There's something wrong with you.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Revenge or a vengeful act in the name of anything, in the name of a religion, in the name of a cause, and a name, like, what the hell?”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know back then it wasn't the extent of communication network and we had cell phones but they were the old school flip phones and there was no news on them and so plus we we didn't have a signal down there anyway I couldn't reach my family for like 12 13 hours and my dad had deployed down to the ferry terminal to retrieve bodies. He was retired, but he still went and they deployed him to go be basically the morgue transport guys they expected to be sending hundreds and thousands of bodies across on the ferry and they set up these tractor trailers as a mobile morgue and that never happened because there were no bodies to take. They were all buried. Soar evil firsthand. I don't know how someone can inflict such”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I witnessed evil firsthand. I remember later on, well into that night when we were trying to help get those police officers out, I remember looking up at the building, Sentry 21, the store runs along the east side of the towers, and it was still there. And, you know, the debris had come down right almost to the edge. Sentry 21 is this old storied department store in New York City. And the sign was there. And it was still lit up. Like some of the neon was broken. But I think some of it was actually still lit up. And I just looked around and I was like, This is a war zone. Like, we're at war. And, you know, we knew we were attacked. We heard the fighter planes.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know we like to kid each other back and forth, guys from Manhattan will say, yeah, you guys in Brooklyn, yeah, short buildings, tall stories. Yeah, but you guys are Manhattan, tall buildings, no stories, you know, like it's just all that, it's all that.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Pretty much the only one that's called by their nickname on the radio, not their number, so it tweaks some guys off in other places, you know, F you, Tally, oh, you know, but it's just, yeah, it's a great, great heritage, and we're really proud. And, you know, the Shamrock was, you know, he was Irish and a lot of the guys back then were Irish immigrants from the area from the neighborhood and they would actually take the fire truck to church on Sunday and park out front and one guy would stay in it to hear the radio in case they got a call so uh yeah that's the proud history”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Greatest generation as they all did, and they got jobs. They went right to work. And they were treated better back then, vets, right? And he got on to New York City fire department and he got assigned a ladder 114. And they first got radios back then. And when Jack, he would drive the truck. You're up there with the officer, either the lieutenant or captain. So the boss is off the truck, you operate the radio for them as the driver. So when they call them and they'd say, You know, Ladder 114 responding to 52nd Street, 3rd Avenue Structure Fire, you're supposed to get back and say a lot of 114, 10.4, but he refused to do that. He'd say a lot of 114, Tally Ho, because that's what they'd yell when they jump out the plane. So all these years later, it stuck. And it's a little bit of a bragging right, but out of 350 engine and truck companies in the whole New York City fire department.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of Tally Ho of Um, I wear proudly, I served eight years in that command and I didn't finish my career there. I passed the lieutenant's test and once you do, you have to leave. The story behind Tylie Ho is Back in World War II, there was this gentleman named Bad Jack Carroll. Jack was an airborne ranger. And my father-in-law was also on a department, and he knew Jack. Jack came home, Jack jumped Normandy and stormed up through the Battle of the Boles in Bastonia. Came back.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just want to help people. I just wanted to be like my dad, you know, like he come home smile and as tired as he was and he fought fires in the 60s and 70s when the city was burning. He still is exhausted as he was. He'd still be smiling. I want it to smile at work, and I used to get paid to laugh and joke. Got paid to cry sometimes, but man, we laughed a lot. We really, it was the chop breaking. It's just unending and it's great.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then they bring in the kitchen and they stuff you with ice cream and cake and then I go home to my mom, you know, shaking with a sugar comb. And she's mad at my dad. But yeah, it was just, oh, I was like, I got to do this. It was like they were like a baseball team in a garage with a truck and these big tools and big coats and helmets and they were just laughing and having fun. And I'm like, yeah, man, I'm doing this. And I knew I was obsessed with it. I mean, I was so pissed. The fireman's test came out when I was 14 and I couldn't take it. You had to be 18. And it was done. Test was graded and whatever. So my dad, you know, now there's a copy circulating because it's old now. And he goes, yeah, this is what you're in for. And I took it and I, you know, did it like it was real and I got a 99 and I was so pissed. I said, I want to get hired. He goes, you can't, you're 14. But I wanted, I just wanted to do it so bad.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh my dad, I mean, I was five years old and I went to his firehouse and there was these, you know, at the time they looked like giants to me with mustaches and they, you know, and the truck smelled like smoke and the gear smelled like smoke and the tires and the diesel fuel. And I was like, this is what I'm going to do.”
2021-09-11 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #220 – Niels Jorgensen: New York Firefighters and the Heroes of 9/11 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source