Anchor: Taylor Petras
•9/11/2026
ESTERO, Fla. (WINK) — With just clicks of a computer mouse, Walter Zalisko is taken back in time through pictures on his computer screen, to September 11, 2001, to a day he will never forget.
"As I was commuting into the city on [the] New Jersey Turnpike, I seen the first plane crash into the Twin Towers," Zalisko said.
Zalisko was working as a lieutenant with the Jersey City Police Department. Like many others, he rushed across the Hudson River to help.
"We were there like half hour after the second tower came down, and it really felt like you're walking into a movie scene," he said.
For two weeks, Zalisko helped search through the rubble at Ground Zero. The experience left lasting memories.
"You're passing the bucket along. You can smell burning body," he said. "When you're there rescuing people, when you're just pulling out a hand, you know that that takes a toll on you."
The sights and sounds in the days and weeks after 9/11 will stay with him forever. But there's something else he will always remember.
"How the community came together," Zalisko said. "You know, you could be the worst enemy, you know, on day one, but day two after that, you were best friends. If this country could stay like that forever, this would be the greatest country around."
Since the dust and debris settled, more than 96,000 people have been diagnosed with physical and mental health conditions related to 9/11. Zalisko is one of them.
Right now he's in remission from skin and prostate cancer. According to the World Trade Center Health Program [placeholder: link to World Trade Center Health Program], more than 9,000 people have died from illnesses linked to the attacks, including 600 firefighters.
That death toll now exceeds the number of people killed 25 years ago.
