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At least he is a good person.
Jason Whittle led the way, like a pulling guard on a sweep. Among the scores of professional athletes who acted as comforters and caregivers and diversion makers in the wake of an attack that shattered an American way of life, Whittle stands as the early responder, the player who set the tone.
"He was probably the very first one involved," Greg Drake said.
Drake made the phone call on the night of Sept. 11, 2001, asking his best friend to help his dying brother. Whittle had just finished meeting with his fellow Giants linemen. The football players hadn't spent much time reviewing their Monday night loss in Denver; they'd been consumed by a Tuesday morning atrocity of unspeakable scope.
Whittle had to get across the river from Jersey, had to find his way to the Manhattan bedside of Randy Drake, a systems designer who was working a Transit Authority project when the first plane hit, when he called his wife in Missouri to assure her he was safe and sound.
Tammy Drake never got that call after the second World Trade Center tower burst into flames. Falling debris had struck her husband and left him in a coma at Bellevue Hospital, mortally wounded 1,200 miles from home.
Whittle couldn't get across the Hudson. He tried the Lincoln Tunnel, then the Holland, and then the ferries, "but everything was in lockdown," Whittle said. Four hours passed before he found himself pleading with an officer at the George Washington Bridge, telling him Randy Drake was his brother. Whittle had promised Greg, the best man in his wedding, that he wouldn't let Randy die alone.
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Jason Whittle led the way, like a pulling guard on a sweep. Among the scores of professional athletes who acted as comforters and caregivers and diversion makers in the wake of an attack that shattered an American way of life, Whittle stands as the early responder, the player who set the tone.
"He was probably the very first one involved," Greg Drake said.
Drake made the phone call on the night of Sept. 11, 2001, asking his best friend to help his dying brother. Whittle had just finished meeting with his fellow Giants linemen. The football players hadn't spent much time reviewing their Monday night loss in Denver; they'd been consumed by a Tuesday morning atrocity of unspeakable scope.
Whittle had to get across the river from Jersey, had to find his way to the Manhattan bedside of Randy Drake, a systems designer who was working a Transit Authority project when the first plane hit, when he called his wife in Missouri to assure her he was safe and sound.
Tammy Drake never got that call after the second World Trade Center tower burst into flames. Falling debris had struck her husband and left him in a coma at Bellevue Hospital, mortally wounded 1,200 miles from home.
Whittle couldn't get across the Hudson. He tried the Lincoln Tunnel, then the Holland, and then the ferries, "but everything was in lockdown," Whittle said. Four hours passed before he found himself pleading with an officer at the George Washington Bridge, telling him Randy Drake was his brother. Whittle had promised Greg, the best man in his wedding, that he wouldn't let Randy die alone.
More.
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