Mickey Stonier stood before what was left of the World Trade Center, gazing up at a 17-foot intersecting steel beam that had collapsed in the form of a cross as rescue crews desperately searched for survivors amid smoking ruins. Stonier was praying for those grieving.
“That’s where they lowered the bodies that were discovered from first responders. That’s where we were praying for families and everything,” he recalls.
Twenty-five years later, the Coronado Fire Department’s chaplain reflects on his days providing grief support at the World Trade Center after the 9/11 terrorist attack – and also how he continues that work today, helping first responders build the emotional resilience to process trauma.
By 2001, Stonier had already spent nine years as a volunteer chaplain, a role that grew out of his earlier work as a youth pastor. That year, he was serving on a commercial aviation family assistance deployment team connected to the National Transportation Safety Board, which partnered with the Red Cross to train chaplains and therapists to respond when commercial airliners went down.
“We had to pick a month to be on duty. My month happened to be September each year,” Stonier said.
He received a page on Sept. 11 and was quickly deployed to Ground Zero to support grieving families and first responders, and to train local clergy on how to care for their congregations.
Throughout his 16 days, Stonier worked with California Task Force 8, a team of firefighters, law officers and others.
Whenever a first-responder’s body was found in the rubble, Stonier said, the whole site would stop out of respect. “And then, once the individual was taken off site, everyone went back to work.”
Stonier supported other rescuers and firefighters as they grieved for their coworkers and grappled with the injustice of what had happened.
When asked whether he himself had questioned God during those times, he said: “Some people come to the conclusion, ‘Because of this, there is no God.’ Others find support and comfort and presence.”
Stonier added that, in 2016, he published a book called “GODISNOWHERE” — a play on the words “God is now here” and “God is nowhere” — pulling on his years of crisis counseling. It explores how people question God in the midst of pain.
Stonier said he became a chaplain after a firefighter asked for his help when a colleague died of cancer. That led to a lifelong path working with first responders, and eventually to a Ph.D. in psychology with an emphasis on compassion fatigue.
He now serves as a chaplain for the Coronado Fire Department where he’s been for 20 years. Stonier said he sits and rides with the firefighters about once a week on different shifts.
When he isn’t touring the country helping fire and police departments build mental health programs, he also works as a pastor at Rock Church in San Diego.
Since inhaling fumes at Ground Zero, Stonier has been diagnosed with three types of cancer common among 9/11 responders. He is currently beginning radiation before a tumor is removed. He says the tumor is in a precarious area that could affect his right leg function.
“When you are doing the Lord’s work, sometimes you put yourself in harm’s way for the sake of caring for others,” he said.
While teaching first responders about compassion fatigue, Stonier said, he also talks about compassion satisfaction – the idea that a person gets energized from helping others. It’s something he researched, and “absolutely” experiences himself.
“When (people) realize it’s an honor to help another human being through the most painful time of their life, and are given the privilege to be with them during great loss and grief, it grows a deep sense of compassion and honor,” he said.
Stonier started a couple non-profits, one called The Chaplain Fund, which uses profits from his classes and books to help firefighters and police pay for counseling. It also sponsors dinners for first responders and their spouses. His other nonprofit is called the Healing Center which he started with his daughter Madi Hampton, a licensed clinical social worker and spiritual director.
His encouragement to people: “Love people, love God, and care for each other.”
Stonier said the cross formed by fallen steel beams now hangs in the 9/11 museum, where he visited one year after the attacks. For him, it marks the place where, amid rubble and grief, people gathered to pray.
