‘He was talking to God’: Final act of Father Mychal Judge, the first official 9/11 victim

It’s one of the most iconic images of the 9/11 attacks — Father Judge being carried away by rescuers. But it was his final act that made “Victim 0001” a legend.

“He was talking to God, and he was helping someone. Can you honestly think of a better way to die?”

That was how Father Mike Duffy famously described the final moments of his close friend and mentor, Father Mychal Judge, a Catholic priest who served as the chaplain with the New York Fire Department, to 3000 mourners at a packed funeral on September 15, 2001.

Four days earlier, Fr. Judge was in the lobby of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, having rushed into the burning building with his colleagues shortly after the first plane hit, when he was killed by falling debris from the collapse of the South Tower.

A photo of the 68-year-old’s lifeless body being carried from the rubble, his head slumped sideways, was snapped by a Reuters photographer.

Father Mychal Judge being carried from the rubble of the World Trade Center. Picture: Shannon Stapleton/AJ Pics/Alamy

It quickly became one of the most iconic images to emerge from the September 11 attacks that left 3000 people dead, after 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger planes and flew them into the New York skyline and the Pentagon in a suicide mission that changed the course of world history.

Fr. Judge was listed as “Victim 0001” by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner — the first official fatality of 9/11.

As the city reeled from the horror of the attacks, the story of the final moments of the beloved Franciscan friar became enshrined in popular lore — that he died while administering last rites to a firefighter.

Nearly 3000 people died in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Picture: Seth McAllister/AFP

“He was right where the action was, where he always wanted to be,” Fr. Duffy told the funeral, which was attended by former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, “all New York”.

“He was praying, because in the ritual for anointing, we’re always saying, ‘Jesus come, Jesus forgive, Jesus save.’ He was talking to God, and he was helping someone. Can you honestly think of a better way to die? I think it was beautiful.”

The firemen “took his body and because they respected and loved him so much, they didn’t want to leave it in the street”.

“They quickly carried it into a church and not just left it in the vestibule, they went up the centre aisle,” Fr Duffy said.

“They put the body in front of the altar. They covered it with a sheet. And on the sheet, they placed his stole and his fire badge. And then they knelt down and they thanked God. And then they rushed back to continue their work.”

Fr. Judge was listed as ‘Victim 0001’, the first official fatality on 9/11. Picture: Supplied

The story, still repeated to this day, was close but not quite true.

Fr. Judge did anoint the firefighter, Daniel Suhr, who had been killed by a falling body, his widow Nancy told The New York Times in 2002.

But he then went back into the lobby of the North Tower, where he was killed by falling material.

Mrs Suhr told the newspaper that friends had suggested she correct the anointing story.

“I said, ‘Listen, Father Judge is a priest and people need to hold onto that myth,’” she said. “How wonderful does it sound that he died giving the last rites to a firefighter?’”

Bill Cosgrove, a retired police lieutenant who was one of the men pictured carrying Fr. Judge’s body, spoke to NPR for the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

Fr. Judge seen 20 minutes before being killed by falling debris. Picture: Channel 7

“I went a couple of steps, and I hit something,” he said, recalling the moment they found the body.

“And I told the fire chief that somebody was on the floor. And he put the light on him — and I remember him saying, ‘Oh my God, it’s Father Mike.”

As they carried Fr. Judge, Mr Cosgrove said the group yelled at the photographer “in no uncertain terms” to “get out of the way”.

“I didn’t even think about that picture being taken,” he said.

“I was just doing my job. So many other heroic acts were being done all around me. It’s just that no one took a picture of it.”

The photo later splashed on the front page of newspapers including The New York Times.

“He’s always been on my mind ever since then, because it’s my firm belief that the only reason I’m here today is because of him,” Mr Cosgrove said.

“I know that sounds weird, but everybody you see in that picture was saved. And I’m sure had he not been there, I would have been trying to look for other people. And when that North Tower fell, I would have been right in the middle of it, just like the rest of the firemen were, and some of my cops. But nothing was going to happen that day. At least, not to me.”

‘Mychal Judge is going to be on the other side of death — to greet them.’ Picture: Supplied

Michael Daly, a columnist with New York Daily News and Fr. Judge’s biographer, described how the chaplain “unhesitatingly” rushed to the mezzanine of the North Tower.

“I’m needed,” he was heard to say, according to Daly.

Standing at the plate-glass window watching the carnage as people jumped to their death onto the plaza below, a Fire Department photographer heard him praying aloud, “Jesus, please end this right now! God please end this!”

“Yet another jumper struck the plaza outside and then there was a rumbling as if the sky had been torn open,” Daly wrote in 2002.

“Judge dashed out on the plaza apparently thinking the North Tower was coming down, but then he seemed to realise it was the South. He rushed back inside and most likely died when a hurricane of dust and debris caught him on his way back down the escalator.”

Pedestrians running from the scene as one of the towers collapses. Picture: Doug Kanter/AFP

More than 340 firefighters and paramedics died when the buildings collapsed, and in the two decades since the attacks an equal number have died from illnesses caused by exposure to toxic materials including asbestos.

At his funeral, Fr. Duffy described how the larger-than-life Fr. Judge, the son of Irish immigrants born in Brooklyn and ordained in 1961, was everyone’s “best friend”.

“Mychal Judge’s body was the first one released from Ground Zero,” he said.

“His death certificate has the number ‘one’ on the top. Of the thousands of people who perished in that terrible holocaust, why was Mychal Judge number one? And I think I know the reason. Mychal’s goal and purpose in life was to bring the firemen to the point of death so they would be ready to meet their maker.”

But Fr. Judge “could not have ministered to them all”. “It was physically impossible — in this life,” he said.

“In the next few weeks, we’re going to have name after name of people who are being brought out of that rubble. And Mychal Judge is going to be on the other side of death — to greet them, instead of send them there.”