By
ANGELINA CAPPIELLO and WILLIAM NEUMAN
Courtesy of
The New York Post
Recovery crews combing through debris from the north tower at Ground Zero found a firetruck yesterday - buried some 40 below street level.
"I just think it's ironic that it's appearing now [six months after Sept. 11]," said Robin Freund, whose husband, Peter, a lieutenant, was one of five men killed from Engine Co. 55 in Little Italy.
She said members of her husband's company had been out to Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island to look for the company's missing truck - little suspecting it was still buried deep within the wreckage at Ground Zero.
The members of Engine 55 parked the truck next to the north tower before rushing in to help rescue the people inside - and when the building collapsed it apparently sucked the empty truck down with it.
"They were one of the first two companies there. That's probably why [the truck was buried so deep]," said Freund, who is raising the couple's four children.
She said her husband's colleagues called her after going to Ground Zero to look at the buried truck and told her it was "unrecognizable."
But they did manage to remove a door and take it back to the firehouse, where they included it in a memorial to Lt. Freund, 46, and the others who perished with him, firefighters Faustino Apostol, 56, Stephen Russell, 38, Robert Lane, 30, and Christopher Mozzillo, 28.
The bodies of all but Mozzillo have been recovered from the rubble.
"We're very happy we found the rig, we just hope we can find our last man," said firefighter Rich Cipoletti, at the firehouse. "We hope we can bring him back home."
Firefighter Paul Acciarito said of the find, "I'm ecstatic. It's almost like she was waiting for us to find her."
He said having a piece of the truck in the firehouse "brings back the horrible memories of that day but I'm glad its back. A part of our heart came back."
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