Window glass, World Trade Center : Captain David Bergman, Australian Army

Shard of window glass.

Shard of window glass from the World Trade Center (WTC). Found at 'Ground Zero' in the ruins of the WTC. On the morning of 11 September 2001 two commercial planes crashed into the World Trade Center as part of a coordinated terrorist attack, causing both towers to collapse. Nearly 3000 people were killed in the attacks, including the terrorists. The cleanup of the WTC site was coordinated by the City of New York Department of Design and Construction (DDC) and took eight and a half months.

From 2 to 25 November 2001 five Australian Army Engineer Officers, who were undertaking long term schooling in CBRN in America were seconded to the New York Police Department to assist with anthrax / white powder attacks that were occurring. Each officer deployed as part of the NYPD Hazardous (HAMMER) teams operating across New York City.

One of these members was Captain David Bergman. They would be called out to incidents and would investigate and decontaminate areas if required. During November Captain Bergman attended over 30 incidents. After working with HAMMER, he was then seconded to the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD). He worked four night shifts as part of the PAPD recovery team at Ground Zero. He also visited Staten Island human remains recovery site, where all recovered material was taken for sifting, and the morgue where he went through identification techniques used to identify people.