GLENDALE — For Frank Kotnik, the years since 9/11 have brought painful memories, health struggles, and the lasting weight of what he saw while working at ground zero. But through every difficult chapter, he said, faith has given him the strength to keep moving forward.
The World Trade Center had been part of his life long before it became a source of so much pain.
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Kotnik remembers sneaking into the World Trade Center with a couple of his friends when it was under construction in the 1970s. “We were kids, and it was a very Huckleberry Finn type of thing to do,” he said, recalling how they made it all the way up to an area just below the roof before a security guard caught them.
Decades later, in 2001, after the 9/11 terror attacks brought down the twin towers, Kotnik, a blacksmith by trade, was at ground zero cutting steel beams from the buildings into small chunks so that they could be removed from the site.
“As soon as you got to the World Trade Center, you saw the debris field. The debris field, the dust, everything was just spread out,” said Kotnik, who did the work at night as a volunteer for the National Guard. “To see the vast destruction that took place was unforgettable.”
At the time, Kotnik was working as a blacksmith for the New York City Department of Transportation. While he volunteered cutting steel at night, he worked during the day in the Wall Street area building stanchions and steel corridors near the New York Stock Exchange to keep workers safe as they walked to and from work.
Kotnik, who lives in Glendale, spoke to The Tablet about his experiences working at ground zero in the aftermath of 9/11 and the toll it took on him.
“Honestly, it’s all a blur,” he said of working at ground zero.
In 2023, he was diagnosed with bladder cancer, which he said has since healed. His doctors traced it back to his work at ground zero and breathing in toxic dust.
“There were so many people who prayed for me. The Knights of Columbus prayed for me,” he said of the organization he joined in 2015.
Working at the World Trade Center site also left him with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Kotnik said.
“I was always expecting something else to happen,” he explained, describing living with an almost constant sense of dread. “I didn’t know what PTSD was, but then I realized that I had PTSD from 9/11.”
As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approached, he said he often thinks back to his childhood fascination with the construction of the World Trade Center.
“I watched the twin towers get taller and taller,” he said. “It’s a nice memory.”