Read the WTC morgue journal at http://www.ffda.org/message_fisk.html

A 49-year-old man hid in the rubble of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, playing peekaboo with search dogs trained to find bodies.

This unexpected image was provided by Bill Fisk, the 49- year-old who was hiding.

Fisk was brought in to help identify the dead. He is a career funeral director who specializes in mass fatality with a federal organization called DMORT, the nation's Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team.

The dogs Fisk took time to play with were brought in to find both the living and the dead. But there were very few live bodies to be found, and Fisk said the dogs "kind of shut down because they hadn't found anybody."

So 9-11 workers hid in the rubble to help keep the search dogs focused.

"Most are trained to find live or dead bodies," explained Donna Fisk, who spent eight months volunteering in New York with her husband. "But they'd rather find life."

DMORT

"I couldn't tell you when I saw my first dead body, because I was running around the funeral home from the time I was 5," said Bill Fisk. "You might feel, `Oh crap, another young person who's been killed and take your choice on how they've been killed (and) it's a pity that person had to die.' Other than that, no, a dead body doesn't bother me."

Mind-set, as well as expertise, makes Bill Fisk the perfect person to work for DMORT.

Bill was a part of DMORT long before it became known as DMORT. In response to several air crashes, the National Funeral Directors Association formed a committee to address mass fatality in the early 1980s. By 1991, this nonprofit group became federalized in response to graves that had been washed up during floods in Missouri. The same thing happened in Tarboro in 1999. Bill also responded to a Korean Airliner crash in Guam in 1997.

In Tarboro, Bill joked about veterinary experts being brought in to verify that animals were dead, a task that didn't require much training.

Like an educator and a wife, Donna, 49, edits her husband lightly, ignoring some jokes and shaking her head at others. "Oh, Bill, that's not for everyone," she'd say. He could appear callous without background and she's protecting him more than she's scolding him.

Bill and Donna Fisk now live in Etowah with their 23-year- old daughter, Noel. A 24-year-old son, Matt, is pre-med at University of Central Florida. His last day at the funeral home was Sept. 10, the day before he was called to report to New York. They moved to WNC in February. While in New York, the couple decided they'd had enough of the funeral business and started planning for the move to Etowah. Both say that decision is more related to the growth of the central Florida area where they lived as opposed to fallout from 9- 11 itself.

It's very easy to tell Bill and Donna Fisk have been married for nearly 25 years. It's easy to see they've known each other even longer, from the time they were 9, growing up in St. Cloud, Fla.

Donna also keeps Bill on track when he strays off a conversation's course.

She explains DMORT's origin.

"Communities had come up with comprehensive plans," said Donna.

"Before that, the attitude was if you talk about it, something bad is going to happen. So when they started talking about what could possibly happen, they realized they didn't have the resources and that they'd have to depend on the federal government."

After the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the 1995 Oklahoma City attack, terrorism became one of DMORT's scenarios.

DMORT is divided into 10 regions and now operates under the Department of Homeland Security. WNC is in Region IV and Bill Fisk needs to report within 12 hours of a call. His uniforms are pressed and ready. A box with supplies is in his basement.

Sept. 11

Even DMORT didn't expect 9-11.

"The first bombing of the World Trade Center, that was the one we used (as) what's the worst that could come," he said. "The biggest that everybody thought at the time was 1,000."

At noon on Sept. 11, 2001, Bill Fisk received the call to report to New York City. He met six other team members at an Orlando Alamo car rental agency and together they drove to Stewart Air Force Base in New York. Except for one long weekend, he wouldn't return to St. Cloud until June 27, 2002.

Had Bill Fisk not already been working in New York City when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed and killed 260 people in Queens two months after 9-11, he might have been called up for that one, too. In fact, Donna, visiting for a weekend, lent computer assistance to help handle and track those bodies, in addition to what they were already doing with Sept. 11 victims.

"I'd been around remains," Donna said. "I'd been to all the training sessions for DMORT. I had everything I needed for that."

The New York City's Medical Examiner's Office asked her to stay, said the Fisks, and she decided to volunteer her time at what's now called Memorial Park, the makeshift morgue at 30th Street on the East Side of Manhattan.

All remains found from the attacks were required to pass through Memorial Park, where refrigerated trucks kept them intact for preservation, forensic and DNA experts to identify.

According to the most recent World Trade Center Operational Statistics, nearly 20,000 remains were recovered.

"It was overwhelming," Bill said. "We had some people walk in, take a look around, work one day and say, `Nope, this is too much for me.' "

Even humans trained to work with the dead would rather work with life.

The Fisks are careful with how they share this experience. They edit information both confidential and sensitive.

"There are things we can show you, but it's not for publication," they'd say.

But they do share some grief. And there is another vivid story about a dog.

"There are those moments that are tough in a morgue situation," said Donna. "One of those was when a Port Authority dog was coming in."

The dog had been left in a cage - at the time for its own safety - in one of the collapsed tower lobbies. It came in crushed. It left with a ceremony.

"There wasn't a dry eye," Donna said. "I think it was symbolic of the whole thing.

"It was innocent. It was trapped."

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