Bin Laden's Death 'A Relief,' Says Local Sept. 11 First Responder

Osama bin Laden's death is "a relief," says Jerry Meaney, captain of the Point Pleasant First Aid and Emergency Squad, who was at Ground Zero the day after the Twin Tower attacks.

"I don't want to see anybody die," Meaney said. "But it's a relief to see that chapter over with, hopefully."

Meaney, 61, said the news makes him think of Ground Zero, where he and his son, Jon, 34, went on their own on Sept. 12.

"It was surreal, very strange, that the towers were just gone," he said. "We were walking on top of debris 20 and 30 feet high."

"While we were there, the mission changed pretty quickly from rescue to recovery," he said. "It became clear pretty quickly that it was nearly impossible for anyone to survive that."

He said he and his son worked side-by-side with police officers, fire department and first aid members, as well as carpenters and construction workers, pulling apart rubble, trying to recover what they could.

Meaney, who is a paid emergency medical technician with Monoc, said he immediately just felt moved to join the effort.

"I just felt it was necessary that I had to go, in my opinion," he said. "I just felt like we had been attacked, I had to do the best I could do to help. I would have given out bottled water to workers if that's what they wanted me to do."

Karen Norton-Grady said the Point Pleasant Beach Rescue Squad was at a staging area at the Lakewood Blue Claws Stadium after the Sept. 11 attack.

"We were ready to go, just waiting to be called," she remembers. "We were there quite awhile and we were then informed that we could all go home as the towers had collapsed and it would be a recovery instead of a rescue.

"We cried all the way home," she said. "God bless those people."

Meaney had been a local fire department volunteer, but switched to the first aid squad, also known as "the Beach first aid squad," after the Sept. 11 attacks.

On Sunday night and Monday, some Americans speculated that the news of bin Laden's death might spark a vengeful terrorist act.

"I don't think so," Meaney said. "It sounds like it was done in a very precise way, without civilians getting hurt. And they even treated him (the corpse) in a respectful way according to Muslim traditions. I don't think there will be attacks, except maybe by a few of his closest followers."