NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A security guard who helped evacuate people from high up on the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, now has prostate and kidney cancer and needs a transplant.
Dereck Lovell was working on the 70th floor of the skyscraper when the second airplane hit.
“Everybody was thrown here, there and everywhere,” he recalled. “I myself was picked up from my seat and thrown about the place. But eventually I got myself together and started to get people out of the floor.”
“I was security and I stayed my post,” he said.
That decision allowed him to lead people to the only open stairwell.
“Because of how the plane hit, the other two exits was blocked and debris were in them,” he said.
Decades later, the Brooklyn grandfather’s exposure to the toxins led to prostate cancer. “Recently I was informed that now my kidneys that are bad have cancer too,” he said.
Lovell is on dialysis and on the kidney transplant waiting list at SUNY Downstate Medical Center.
“I was advised the best thing to do is get them out, because it could spread to other organs and that would be, you know, serious,” he said. “I really need a kidney.”
Lovell’s heroism on 9/11 saved lives, and now he’s hoping someone comes forward to save his.
Interested donors are encouraged to contact SUNY Downstate Hospital.