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A
faithful partner goes home at last
Port Authority Police Officer David Lim’s last words to
his partner on September 11 were: “You stay there, I’ll
be back for you.”
After four months, Lim can finally say he fulfilled his vow.
Workers at Ground Zero on Tuesday recovered the remains of Sirius,
a yellow Labrador retriever believed to be the only canine to
die in the attack on the World Trade Center.
“I’ve been waiting to find him,” Lim said Thursday.
“I fulfilled my promise to him because I came back and
I took him home.”
The remains of the bomb-detection dog were found beneath the
debris of Tower Two, in the Port Authority’s basement kennel.
Lim left Sirius there and went to help with the rescue effort,
but didn’t make it back — he became trapped himself,
in Tower One, and wasn’t pulled out until more than five
hours later.
Honours
Workers
immediately called Lim to the scene Tuesday when they found
Sirius. They carried out the remains with full honours, complete
with a prayer and a salute.
“There was a flag over his bag and I carried him out with
another officer, John Martin,” Lim said. “Everyone
saluted. All the machinery was stopped — the same thing
that is done for human police officers and firefighters. I thought
it was very nice.”
Lim, who was heralded for his rescue efforts that day, had placed
Sirius in the kennel moments after the first plane hit Tower
One. Then he rushed to help people down the staircase, shouting,
“Down is good.”
A twenty-year veteran of the towers, Lim had climbed to the
44th floor of Tower One when Tower Two was hit. When he heard
the call to evacuate, he made his way to the fifth floor, where
he stopped to help carry a woman.
“We got as far as the fourth floor and the building collapsed
on us,” he said. “It was like an avalanche. We were
just waiting there to die.”
Lim escaped to the sixth floor — which eventually became
the top of the rubble. He was finally rescued after 3 p.m. He
had suffered a mild concussion, but no serious injuries.
The Port Authority has listed 37 of its police officers as missing
or dead as a result of the attack. Lim believes that number
should be 38.
Sirius, who was four years old, searched commercial vehicles
coming into the Trade Center. He had worked with Lim since March
2000 and helped clear the way for visits by such VIPs as President
Bill Clinton, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, and Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat.
“He was my partner,” Lim said. “We got really
attached to him.
“I still step over the spot where he used to sleep in my
room because I forget he’s not there.” Doctors would
not allow Lim to search at Ground Zero because of the emotional
toll it could have taken on him. But he has kept tabs on the
rescue effort, checking in periodically to ask whether they
had made it to the kennel area.
In the first few months, rescuers had to build a road over it
to get to another area. When they found his jacket recently,
Lim knew they were getting close.
Lim was training his new dog, a black Lab named Sprig, when
he got the call from Ground Zero on Tuesday.
He found consolation in the fact that his partner died instantly.
It appeared that the kennel collapsed.
Sirius’ remains were cremated at the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery
in Westchester County, N.Y. Lim collected the ashes Thursday
and will keep them in an urn at home until April, when he plans
to hold a memorial service. He hasn’t yet determined where.
“We expect hundreds of [police] dogs to come,” he
said. “It’s going to be very big.”
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