In his account, Chief Goldfarb said he decided not to report to the South Tower, as ordered, believing that it was too hazardous to cross West Street. Finding about 30 paramedics and E.M.T.'s on West Street, he sent them into the World Financial Center. A few minutes later, the South Tower collapsed. Mr. Quinn, who died, had originally been among those 30 people.

As the E.M.S. workers set out for the trade center that morning, more than a few went without being called. Still others decided to make extra preparations. Among them, Chief James Martin recalled the lack of supplies after the 1993 bombing of the trade center.

"I filled the car up with several bottles of water, and I brought my little radio charger," Chief Martin said. "Knowing that the new 3,500 radios were out there but we didn't have chargers for them, I threw that in."

Chief Goldfarb had written a report on the 1993 response, and he worried about the effects of merging the medical service into the Fire Department. Just a month before Sept. 11, 2001, he had spoken with a fire chief about the 1993 attack.

"I told him, for reasons I won't go into now, the response would be very different if we had to relive this thing, different not necessarily in a positive way," Chief Goldfarb said in his oral history. "So here we are four weeks later and we were actually living it."

Lt. Rene Davila was one of the first officers to arrive on the scene, unsure if his agency had done any "preplanning" now that it was part of the Fire Department. In any case, he said, he did not relish being in command.

"You know you see that guy on '911' or something like that, and he's a hero or something and he's a big shot or whatever," Lieutenant Davila said. "Well, I was given the opportunity to be that guy, and I immediately did not want it."