'He Was Thinking About You Until the Very End': 9/11 Survivor Finally Delivers Father's Last Message to His Sons

He survived as the only firefighter from his rescue company on 9/11, but waited nearly 25 years to deliver a fallen police officer's final message to his sons: their father 'was thinking about you until the very end'.

Now, in a new National Geographic documentary, '9/11: Reunited', Spade sits down with the sons of NYPD officer John D'Allara to tell them what their father said and did in his last moments inside the North Tower.

Spade and D'Allara met in the most unlikely of circumstances. On 11 September 2001, when hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center, Rescue Company 5 entered the North Tower as firefighters and police rushed to evacuate trapped civilians.

Deep in the building, with dust thick in the air and the power gone, a jammed door blocked a stairwell where dozens of people were stranded. Spade joined forces with D'Allara, an NYPD emergency service officer from Harlem, and the two men took turns charging the door until it broke, allowing around 20 people to escape.

The Promise Carried for 25 Years

In the North Tower, with one tower already down and the other groaning above them, the two men talked about their families as they worked. D'Allara, 47, mentioned his wife Carol, seven-year-old John and two-year-old Nicholas, while Spade spoke about his own wife Cynthia and their two boys.

Spade has described it as 'writing our own obituaries'. Each man quietly gave the other enough details that, if only one of them walked out, someone could find their families and explain what happened.

When the North Tower finally collapsed, Spade had just reached the street. D'Allara had gone back to check it was clear for others to follow and did not make it out.

Spade was buried in debris, forcing a finger into his mouth to create an airway and thinking of his wife and sons as he waited. He survived, the only one of the 12 firefighters from Rescue 5 on duty that day to do so.

According to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, D'Allara was among 441 first responders killed. The documentary credits him with helping to save around 20 lives.

Sons Confront Their Father's Final Hours

Spade met D'Allara's widow, Carol, for lunch some years after the attacks and walked her through those final minutes in the tower, when her sons were still children. In '9/11: Reunited', he finally sits down with John J. D'Allara and his younger brother Nicholas in his Staten Island home.

John is now a Marine reservist, while Nicholas followed his father into the NYPD, choosing to serve in the Bronx, where his father began his own career. Their memories of their father are fragmentary, built from childhood flashes and a shrine at home decorated with his NYPD medal, judo trophies and old photographs.

Spade tells them how calm their father was inside the tower, and how they worked the jammed door together until it finally gave way. He tells them the essential thing he had carried for 25 years: their father was thinking about them, and about Carol, right up until the moment he went back into the tower.

For the family, the meeting is described in the series as 'monumental', a long overdue handover of a memory Spade had carried alone for a quarter of a century.

A Survivor Still Searching for Answers

Spade has said he has struggled for years to make sense of why he survived when so many others did not. His uncle, who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93, was among them.

He has since spoken publicly about 9/11 hundreds of times, including at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, and has said he attended counselling for four years while continuing to relive the day each morning.

Director Julian Jones said the production worked with psychologists and filmed participants in places they felt safe, given how raw the experiences remain a quarter of a century on. '9/11: Reunited' is airing on National Geographic and is available to stream on Hulu and Disney+.