Chasing the Rush

When Anthony Lilli learned that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane on 9/11, he didn’t wait for a call to come help. An emergency medical technician (EMT) for the New York City Fire Department, he immediately drove to his station in Rockaway, Queens, watching the smoke billowing across the horizon.

“That’s when my heart really sank,” he says. “I didn’t think I was going to survive the day.”

He and two other EMTs were directed to set up a triage area on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge to treat survivors of the terrorist attack.

“We only saw maybe half a dozen patients,” Lilli says. “It was very hard for us because we were there to help, and we couldn’t do much. After the towers came down, most people who really needed help were crushed by the collapse.”

The harrowing experience did nothing to quench Lilli’s desire to help people in their darkest moments or to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a firefighter. Three years later, he earned a promotion to his dream job.

“There were some fires where the hairs on the back of your neck stood up when you were responding,” he recalls. “But with your adrenaline and your training, you look at the people who are there with you, and you tell yourself, ‘Well, if they can be here, I can be here.’”

Over his career, Lilli traveled around the country for training in hazardous materials mitigation and other specializations. To say his job made him step out of his comfort zone is an understatement.

“There I was tied off to a substantial object indoors, going out of a window six stories in the air, scaling down the side of a building on an aerial ladder, or being in the bucket of a tower ladder truck and operating it,” says Lilli, who admits that he’s not a fan of heights.

A knee injury forced Lilli to retire as a firefighter last summer after 19 years of service. After relocating permanently to his vacation home in Kunkletown, Pa., he started pursuing a new dream: one day opening a bar, restaurant, or nightclub.

“I’ve always had a passion for getting into that kind of a business — somewhere adults could go to kick back and relax — but I didn't really have the education for it,” he says.

After high school, Lilli attended Penn State where he studied broadcast journalism, but left to take a job so he could start a family. Now, he is a business management major at NCC’s Pocono campus. While it’s not the same feeling as rushing into a burning building, stepping into a college classroom after 30 years is providing Lilli with a new challenge.

“There was a little bit of intimidation,” he says. “But I was confident because I looked at it as though it were another [fire department] training class.”

It helps that professors like Susan Petitt, adjunct faculty in business administration, make his classes intriguing.

“The content of the [business law] class is great,” he says. “She is very personable, which I think is also important. She's very knowledgeable about the subject matter and presents it very well.”

Though no longer his full-time occupation, Lilli is not done with public service. He is president of the Robin Hood Lake Owners Association and volunteers with the Polk County Fire Department.

“Even though my body is bruised and battered, I still have something left to offer the fire service,” he says.