Twenty-four years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, firefighter Bill Spade still remembers every detail of being the last firefighter to escape the collapsing North Tower of the World Trade Center.

"I started getting buried and I said goodbye to my wife and I said goodbye to my two boys. And, almost 6-year-old at the time. And the other was two months old. When I had say goodbye to my two-month-old son, John, I said, 'You'll never know your Dad,' and that really hurt," Spade recalled of his harrowing escape.

Spade was also the sole survivor of Staten Island's elite Rescue 5 unit.

In all, 343 of New York City's firefighters perished that day. When Spade's brother-in-law called him with the devastating news about his colleagues, the reality of what happened that day set in.

"My b

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