NYPD officer Scott Strauss got the movie offer of a lifetime when Oliver Stone started casting the rescue-drama World Trade Center.
“Oliver wanted me to play me,” says Strauss, an emergency-services officer who spearheaded the rescue of Port Authority cops John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno on Sept. 11.
“I told him I didn’t want to do it. I probably threw away a one-in-a-million opportunity, my big Hollywood break,” the New Yawk-accented Strauss says with a laugh. (Stephen Dorff ended up playing him in the movie).
“But,” he adds, “it was hard enough just being on set. Oliver and I would watch the monitors when they’d shoot a scene. And he’d say, ‘Scott, how was that take?’ And I wouldn’t have watched it. I couldn’t. I had to force myself and separate myself from it. It pulled at your heart.”
Strauss had extensive experience in building collapses, “but obviously nothing like this — two 110-storey buildings, plus building seven and three, all coming down in such a confined space.” The morning emergency call marked the beginning of a 20-hour day and a trip to the hospital.
“After we got Will out, I was physically exhausted. I struggled to breathe, my lungs were full of glass. I tried to speak when I got out of the hole, trying to tell the guys who were about to work on John what to expect. And I couldn’t speak.
“They took me to hospital and my oxygen level was low and they flushed my eyes. And I told them, ‘I’m okay, I just can’t see and I can’t breathe that well. But I didn’t break anything, I’m fine.’ And they’re like, ‘We gotta get your oxygen up.’
“At 8 a.m. Wednesday, they released me, and I went back to work. And there was a lieutenant who said ‘Scott, you’re done! Be back at 5. You can’t work 24/7, and this is not something that’s gonna be taken care of in a day or two.’
“I went home to see my kids, check in with my wife, let her know everything was all right. I took a shower, tried to get some sleep and couldn’t. I was back at work at 3.
“It was tough. We were on that rubble pile for days and days not finding anybody. We’d get in vans and drive to the site and the streets would be lined with people applauding.
“We’d be joking in the van, ‘Where’s the firemen? Nobody likes a cop.’ ”
