James Martin and two fellow firefighters were backing their hose down a stairwell in rolling smoke too thick to see, the sounds and heat of fire coming at them from the floor above, when he heard the man behind him gasp, "I need air. I'm out of air!"
Over the frantic next moments, Martin tried first to give stricken colleague Joseph P. Graffagnino his own oxygen and then to lead him to safety, Martin told jurors Thursday in the manslaughter trial stemming from the deadly August 2007 blaze at a toxic ground zero tower.
But after Graffagnino flailed, fell and didn't answer his entreaties to follow, Martin realized, "I had to go get help.
"So I made the decision," he said, his voice cracking, "to leave him and go get help."
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