Firefighters Hold Moment of Silence for 9/11

Firefighter and Medic Kirk Tobiassen Tuesday morning recalled the seemingly endless weeks of funerals he and other Orange County Firefighters attended in New York after the 9/11 tragedy 11 years ago.

He and his fellow firefighters on duty at the Avenida Victoria Station in San Clemente donned their dress blue uniforms in preparation for a moment of silence to commemmorate the nearly 3,000 who lost their lives at the beginning of this century.

Firefighter Joseph Leos recalled that he was on duty that morning.

"I was just getting back from a traffic accident and thought, 'Is this a movie or something?'" he said.

Tobiassen said that the Orange County Fire Authority had some presence in New York for three or four months straight helping out after the tragedy.

"We did a lot of cooking for guys in the station, funerals," he said. "We had a few guys go up on the pile, but a lot of times, that was their [NYFD] deal; its pretty sacred."