The Montgomery News | September 11, 2026
Twenty-five years after the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the volunteers of Montgomery Emergency Medical Services will attend a remembrance ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of 9/11 tonight at 6 pm at Blawenburg Firehouse, 529 Route 518 in Skillman. The public in invited to attend this annual service as well.
Within hours of the attacks, New Jersey's volunteer ambulance corps were called into service. More than 1,000 emergency medical workers in around 400 ambulances, from over 300 volunteer agencies statewide, converged to ferry patients arriving by boat from Lower Manhattan to Liberty State Park in Jersey City. Montgomery EMS was among them.
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Nearly 3,000 people died on September 11, 2001, including three residents of Montgomery and one resident of Rocky Hill.
Brian Cummins was only 38. He grew up in Belle Mead, and was a natural math whiz. He won state math awards starting in 5th grade. He later moved to Manasquan and worked as an equity market maker and partner with Cantor Fitzgerald. His office was on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center. He was the fourth son of six boys and had a remarkably close family.
Steven Goldstein, 35, had been working at Cantor Fitzgerald for only two weeks. Prior to that, he spent his working days in his basement office at home in Montgomery Township, where he had developed an Internet company that Cantor recently purchased. He was a husband and father of two young children.
Phillip L. Parker, 53, of Skillman was a senior vice president of Aon Corporation, which took him frequently to Aon's office on the 99th floor of the World Trade Center. But on weekends, he was transformed. He became a D.J., at least in the privacy of his home, mixing CD's to entertain friends, or just his wife. He played banjo and guitar.
William F. Fallon Jr., 53, of Rocky Hill worked on the 62nd floor of One World Trade Center as an official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on 9-11. His wife of 27 years, Brenda Carter Fallon, still lives in Rocky Hill. He has a son, Chris, who now lives in Maine.
Vaning, who served as crew chief, and Forbes remembered most vividly the drive itself because, as the convoy approached the city on Route 78, the crews realized the Twin Towers were gone from the skyline, replaced by smoldering ruins visible from 12 miles away. The whole convoy slowed at once.
At Liberty State Park, crews waited to treat patients who never arrived.
The Montgomery EMS responded to both New York City and Liberty State Park for two weeks, as New York City's emergency medical system remained strained by the recovery at ground zero. Montgomery EMS sent ambulances and crews into the city three more times: on September 14, when five members worked for six hours; on September 15, when five members worked 18-hour shifts at ground zero; and on September 20, when two members worked 14-hour shifts there.
Crews recalled an eerie scene at the Lincoln Tunnel toll plaza with no other traffic and only the line of ambulances heading into Manhattan.
Three Montgomery EMS members who responded during September 11th — Barbara Vaning, Peter Jozwick, and Bill Forbes — still live in the area and remain involved with the squad today.
The ceremony at the 911 memorial in Blawenburg, which was built by members of the fire company, will include remarks and an observed moment of silence to honor the lives lost and forever changed on 9-11-01 in the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and on United Airlines Flight #93 over Shanksville, Pa.
Members of the public are invited to attend the service at the Fire Company No. 2's 9-11 Memorial, 529 Route 518, Skillman. Please park to the sides and back of the firehouse.
