Thousands of brave men and women ran toward the unknown on 9/11, but there were also those who answered the frantic calls.
Thousands of calls poured into the city's 9-1-1 center within seconds after the plane struck the World Trade Center.
"Some of us were the last person they ever spoke to. So we had to stay calm and we had to help them," Pauline Noble, an emergency communications specialist, told CBS.
"I thought they were going to get out of the building and stuff like that. I was just trying to be strong for them. They were crying, they were praying," she said. "They were saying, 'Tell my family I love them...' We just were trying to console them."
As Noble and other 9-1-1 operators took in the calls, Rashawne Haynes was among those dispatching first responders to the scene.
"I just remember just a sense of community, everyone pitching in, everyone wanting to help," she said.
"They're our lifeline. Without them, without communications in something as chaotic as that, we would have definitely lost more people than we already did," said Det. Robert Zajac, of the NYPD Emergency Service Unit.
