Stanley and James Smagala grew up as if they were
twins. The youngest of seven children, Stan and Jim were almost
two years apart, but they were inseparable, friends and family
say. They got an apartment in Dix Hills together when their parents
moved to Florida 12 years ago. And when Jim got married, Stan lived
in an apartment at Jim's house in Commack. "That's how we were," Jim
said. "We did everything together." Six
years ago, after working at the same insurance company, Jim and
Stan decided to quit and join the New York City Fire Department.
At their graduation from the fire academy, Stan met his future
wife, Dena. She is now six months pregnant. wThe morning of Sept.
11, bothmen - working in separate units - responded to the attacks
on the World Trade Center. Jim, an aide to the citywide tour commander,
responded to the North Tower. Stan, 36, with Engine Co. 226 in
Brooklyn, went to the South Tower. "At the time, I didn't know
he was working," Jim, 38, said. "But I heard a radio transmission
that his company was responding to the South Tower. I remember
thinking, 'I hope he's not working,' but somehow I knew he was." As
the day unfolded, the men's older brother, Gary, an accountant
working in Melville, took comfort that his brothers were stationed
in Brooklyn "out of harm's way," he thought. But when the first
building collapsed, a cascade of wreckage knocked Jim and the other
firefighters in the lobby to the ground. "It was like a wave at
the beach that just takes over everything," Jim said. He managed
to escape the building, he said, about five minutes before it collapsed,
causing plumes of dust and debris that blotted out the sky. But
Jim's sense of relief quickly soured as uncertainty about his brother's
fate grew. "For a minute, I thought I was dead; it was so eerie," he
said. "Of course, I realized I was alive, but somehow I knew that
my brother was not OK." For the next several hours, Jim wandered
throughout lower Manhattan searching for his younger brother to
no avail. At one point, he came across several men from Stan's
unit - Engine Co. 226 - but they didn't know where he was either. "They
saw the desperation on my face," he said. "We all knew at that
point that he was in there." Despite getting reports from Jim at
Ground Zero, the family remained optimistic, "calling all the hospitals,
hoping that he was among the injured," said Gary Smagala. "We exhausted
every avenue we could thing of but still came up empty-handed,"he
said.
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