Friends of Isaac Hoopii often share stories of his passion as a musician with the Aloha Boys trio and of his being a boy from Waianae who grew up to serve his country, first in the Army and then as a federal police officer at the Pentagon, where he has worked for 20 years. Sometimes they’ll describe his good-natured prank of getting into an elevator and asking strangers to press buttons to nonexistent floors — a story that makes Hoopii bust out laughing.
But Hoopii, a 52-year-old husband and grandfather, has stories that are nearly too painful to recall — stories of the day he rescued victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack at the Pentagon who were burned so badly he couldn’t tell whether they were male or female.
Even today a random scent can remind him of dark hallways filled with the smell of melted plastic and burned flesh.
“The scenes I saw during that tragedy, I don’t wish anyone to see,” Hoopii said in a call from his home in Vienna, Va. “By the same token, I try not to dwell on it.”
Hoopii’s anguish, largely hidden in a life well lived, gave documentary filmmakers Stephen Tringali and Maria Bissell a chance to explore the mental health issues associated with post-traumatic stress disorder.
In “Corridor Four,” which has been shot but not edited, they hope to educate those unaware of the daily struggles those with PTSD can face.
“PTSD isn’t something that is necessarily curable,” said Tringali, a cinematographer.
“You won’t ever reach that moment before the event where things are back to normal. In the interviews with Hoopii and his co-workers, they talk about those memories being there forever and knowing how to manage this aspect of life.”
Hoopii opened up to the filmmakers, in part because he had known Bissell since she was 14. He was her sister’s softball coach in McLean, Va., and the youth sports connection turned Bissell’s and Hoopii’s families into lifelong friends who still vacation together.
“He is the most giving, goofy person that I know,” said Bissell, who works in children’s television. “When my mom first told me that Isaac had done this at the Pentagon, I wasn’t surprised. I thought, ‘That is so Isaac.’ He is the kind of person who would run into a burning building when no one else would.”
Hoopii’s struggles stunned Bissell, who like Tringali — her fiance — is 28.
“I just saw him as a hero and a cool guy, and I didn’t stop to think about what he might be dealing with on a daily basis,” she said.
Hoopii is the very definition of a hero.
He didn’t hesitate when an American Airlines flight, hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists, crashed into the Pentagon’s west wall, killing 125 people in the building and 64 people on the plane.
His supervisor ordered him to stay out of the building, but he ran in anyway, he said. Inside, he found a firefighter who told him to turn around because he wasn’t wearing a respirator.
“When people were calling out for help with that last desperation in their voice, I couldn’t just leave them,” Hoopii said. “So of course I went back and started calling out, ‘I am over here, I am over here, I am over here.’”
Hoopii rescued 17 people, but in the days that followed, he found himself asking whether he’d done enough. There were bad dreams, too. His wife, Gigi, would hear him talk in his sleep.
For six months he worked 16-hour days at the Pentagon. There was no time for family, no time for friends and no time to play music with the Aloha Boys, a trio of Hawaii transplants performing Hawaiian music in the Washington area.
One night he came home and found the group’s two other members playing music in his living room. Hoopii picked up his guitar and they played until 3 a.m.
“It was a coping mechanism that brought me back to reality,” he said.
Working at the Pentagon, he sees PTSD on a daily basis on the faces of men and women who spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan. By sharing his story, Hoopii hopes he can help them.
“I try to think positive,” he said. “If I wasn’t there to bring the person out, they wouldn’t have survived.”
Tringali and Bissell are seeking donations via kickstarter.com to raise the $35,000 needed to finish editing their documentary. With the fundraising deadline approaching on Friday, they have collected more than $23,000. Find the project at kck.st/1QVCmxn.
And that’s a wrap …
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
