Humble hero remembers rescues

Outwardly, nothing signals that William Fischer's life has been anything but ordinary. A muscular man of medium height with blonde hair, walking past Fischer, one would take him for a gym regular and perhaps a passionate sports fan.
One would never imagine all the heroics he has performed - the people he has pulled from plane crashes, the deranged homicidal maniacs he has faced, drug dealers he has arrested and the murderers he has put behind bars. In direct contrast, his compassionate deeds include the grandmother he helped, who was unable to pay her electric bill, and was living with no lights or heat in the winter.
Fischer, now 46, retired from Emergency Service Truck 9 (EST 9), in Jamaica, the Police Department's Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit, on August 6, after 16 years of service, and 22 years overall with the New York Police Department (NYPD).
After 16 years, he has many stories to tell about his life at the EST 9. He was part of the recovery team at the World Trade Center on September 11. One can see in Fischer's eyes the pain from that day inflicted upon New York City's rescue agencies and workers. He remembers clearly just pulling dismembered parts, from amid the rumble.
&#8220There were no bodies to recover,” he recalls. He suffers to this day, &#8220My lungs will never be the same.”
Fischer's unflinching instinct to save others is what got him his job with EST 9. In September 1989, as a cop at the 115th precinct, during the LaGuardia Airport plane crash of Flight 5050, Fischer swam into Bowery Bay without hesitation to pull people from the water. He and fellow Officer John Buckley, Firefighter Gerald Murtha and other rescue workers helped rescue scores of people and only two people eventually died. His actions so impressed his superior officer that Fischer was offered his choice of assignment in the NYPD.
He has lived a life that most people only see portrayed on movie screens. He remembers clearly, the near drowning of five kids in Baisley Pond Park, in January 2001. They fell through the ice, and none of the kids were able to swim. They frantically clung to the disintegrating ice for hours. Fischer with EST 9, was able to carry them to a raft and safety. For Fischer, it was all in a day's work.
Fischer has also been shot; bullet fragments landed in his leg after a violent siege with Arthur Alalouf, an emotionally disturbed person, or &#8220EDP” in cop-speak, Fischer said. In, August 2000, Alalouf, a former Riker's Island guard, battled police for six hours from his home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with an arsenal of weapons.
There was also the time in May 1988, that Fischer, fluent in sign language talked a deaf student at the Lexington School for the Deaf from jumping off the building. He had learned sign language after being laid off as a dock loader, prior to joining the NYPD. The Lake Grove School for the Deaf, where he worked was so desperate for workers they hired him, encouraging him to learn (sign language) as he went along. It came in handy twice. He rescued a young deaf boy who had blown his hand off with fireworks.
Fischer has seen it all, plane crashes, train derailments, the 1980's crack epidemic and drug wars that blighted southeast Queens, and the victims of serial killer Joel Rifkin.
Fischer lives with his wife Cindy and they have two sons, Kalin and Erik. He is currently working on a book about his life in EST 9.