He was inside the World Trade Center as the Twin Towers started to collapse during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.

He was trying to help the people still in the building and realized that he couldn’t save them all, when the floor beneath him collapsed, throwing him into darkness.

It was silent. It was still. It was black. He thought he was dead. If you can picture this, you have a good idea of the experiences of Richard Picciotto, a battalion commander with the Fire Department of New York.

As one of the surprise guests at the annual Bakersfield Business Conference, Picciotto gave an emotional speech detailing his experiences on Sept. 11. He told the patriotically charged audience about working the Upper West Side of Manhattan when he turned on the television to see the tragedy beginning to unfold.

“Immediately, it brought back to me the 1993 World Trade Center bombing,” Picciotto said. “I was one of the first to arrive (then) and I was in charge of the evacuation of the north tower, so I knew that tower well. I knew that each building only had three stairways, but also each building had 99 elevators, and I knew people were gonna use the three stairways to get down. I called the dispatch and told them I wanted to be there.”

By the time Picciotto arrived, the plane had hit the second tower. He described the scene as “horrendous,” and talked about the people who were trapped in the building and also those jumping from the windows. He said he and his crew reported to the north tower and started making their way slowly up the three stairways while wearing 60 pounds of equipment, hoping to contain the fire.

“I knew, even on the way down, that we weren’t going to put that fire out,” Picciotto said. “It was too big, there was too much fuel. What I was hoping was that we could contain it, and maybe one of the stairwells would be intact so we could get to the people above. … We knew it was a grave situation.”

Picciotto said that as they ascended the stairs, other people were coming down. He had made it to the third or fourth floor when the building started to shake with tremendous force.

“Something was coming down, something was crashing through and I didn’t know what it was,” Picciotto said. “It’s coming down real loud, it’s coming down quick. I could hear the noise, I could feel it. It’s coming down and then it passes right through my body. We all froze, and we could hear that noise pass right through us. And then, all of a sudden, deathly silence.”

Picciotto said no one knew what had caused the loud noise and sudden silence. It turned out to be the collapse of the south tower. He said he tried to call on his radio to find out what was going on, and got no response until suddenly he was signaled that the south tower had collapsed. He said he had to decide what they should do next.

“We were frozen and silent,” Picciotto said. “We were climbing the stairway. What do we do? … They’re looking at me. They’re gonna do anything I tell them to do. That’s the way the Fire Department works. The leadership structure, the command structure, they have faith in their leaders because we come up through the ranks. We have respect and their confidence and they know that I’ll protect them. That’s my job, to protect them.”

Picciotto said he believed that a bomb in the north tower had exploded, and was forced to make the difficult decision in abandoning the people still trapped in the upper part of the tower, thinking most of them were already dead.

“This is not something in (firefighters’) vocabulary, to retreat. But I had to look after their interests, I had to get them out of there.”

Picciotto said he ordered all of his crew members to drop their tools and begin evacuating. All of the stairways except the B stairway were clogged with debris from the collapse of the south tower. With only one 42-inch-wide stairway, they began making their way down.

On the 12th floor, he encountered an elevator with 40 to 50 people just sitting in it. Picciotto attempted to get them moving toward the clear stairway, and realized some were people who used wheelchairs, crutches or canes, being aided by other people who didn’t know where to go.

He said he forced the helpers, who did not want to leave the others, to evacuate first and then went down the stairway with the rest of the group slowly.

Picciotto said when they got to the sixth floor, the floor started to collapse. Picciotto said that in that moment, all of the things that were important to him ran through his mind. He thought he was going to die.

“A million things ran through my head,” he said. “They say right before you’re gonna die, your whole life flashes before you. I know what flashed in front of me: My wife, my kids, the things that are most important, my family. And I prayed. I prayed, ‘Please God, make it quick.’ I made a real quick peace with myself. I didn’t want to die, but I wasn’t afraid to die at that point, I just wanted to go fast.”

Picciotto said while he was praying, the noise, shaking, rumbling, winds and compression of the building were adding up to a great weight. He said the floor suddenly disintegrated beneath him and he tumbled down into darkness.

“I thought I was dead,” he said. “I thought, I guess this is it … but then I checked my body, and think, ‘Maybe I’m not dead.’ I called out and there were other people there. I fell into this void, this air pocket. … We were in this air pocket and we were alive.”

He said he and the more than a dozen other people trapped with him called for help for several hours until someone finally heard them.

“I told him, ‘We’re here, we’re alive, come get us. We’re in the north tower on the stairway.’ The guy I talked to said, ‘There is no north tower.’ ”

Picciotto said they lay there in complete darkness for an hour, until small shafts of light started shining through because the dust began to settle, giving them a limited view.

“When I climbed up, I’m in the middle of this rubble, this devastation,” he said.

Eventually the people in that air pocket were evacuated and taken for medical care. Picciotto said despite some minor injuries, he was in relatively good shape. He said he now gets asked what he has learned from the experience.

“I learned a lot of things,” he said. “One of the most important things I learned is that life is precious. Enjoy it, enjoy your family, and enjoy your friends. I also learned what a great country this is. The support, the generosity of you people to New York is overwhelming. And I just have to thank you, because that support was so overwhelming.”

The audience stood and cheered when he spoke of his pride for America, especially the way people came together during a major crisis.

“This country can be so united, we are a great country. … We’re Americans. We have to stay together. We have to stay strong as Americans, we can’t stop until those terrorists have been eliminated. There are people out there who want to destroy this country. We have to defend this country, and the people. … Thank God for America. I’m proud to be an American.”